This was an attempt to show what is wrong with Anselm’s ‘Ontological Argument’ for the existence of God. My present view is that Peter Millican has given us a similar, but much better line of attack in his “The One Fatal Flaw….” Paper.

In this paper I argue that Daniel A. Dombrowski's defence of a version of Anselm's ontological argument fails.

The ontological argument is one of the most intriguing lines of reasoning in Western thought. Leaving behind debates over the proper relation between science and religion, it makes a simple move from conceptual analysis to existence in order to prove the existence of god. The ontological argument will be reviewed against the background of the contemporary debate on thought experiments. Assuming that the ontological argument fails as a philosophical proof, I will argue that its move from concept to existence might (...) best be understood as a thought experiment of revealed theology (a theology based on revelation – unlike philosophical theology/natural theology). Viewed from this perspective it makes sense that Anselm of Canterbury offered his versions of the ontological argument in the form of a prayer, which, presupposing the existence of god, seems to run counter to a proof of god's existence. (shrink)

The most famous objection to the ontological argument is given in Kant’s dictum that existence is not a real predicate. But it is not obvious how this slogan is supposed to relate to the ontological argument. Some, most notably Alvin Plantinga, have even judged Kant’s dictum to be totally irrelevant to Anselm’s version of the ontological argument. In this paper, I argue, against Plantinga and others, that Kant’s claim is indeed relevant to Anselm’s argument, in the straightforward sense that if (...) the claim is true, then Anselm’s argument is unsound. (shrink)

Pavel Tichy presents an interpretation of Anselm’s Proslogion III argument. Tichy presents an interpretation of this argument and raises doubts about one of the premises. The authors contend that Tichy’s interpretation of Anselm is wrong. The argument Tichy comes to raise doubts about is not Anselm’s.

The article presents a formalization of Anselm's so-called Ontological Arguments from Proslogion . The main idea of our research is to stay to the original text as close as is possible. We show, against some common opinions, that (i) the logic necessary for the formalization must be neither a purely sentential modal calculus, nor just non-modal first-order logic, but a modal first-order theory; (ii) such logic cannot contain logical axiom ⌜ A → ⋄ A ⌝; (iii) none of Anselm's reasonings (...) requires the assumptions that God is a consistent object or that existence of God is possible (in symbols "⋄Eg"); (iv) no such thing as the so-called Anselm's Principle (in symbols "□(Eg → □Eg)") is involved in any of the proofs; (v) Anselm's claims (that God exists in reality and that God necessarily exists in reality) can be obtained independently, hence there is no need for presenting them in an opposite order than Anselm did. Moreover we show a single line of reasoning underlying the whole Proslogion and allowing Anselm to deduce many theorems concerning God's nature. Last but not least we study the possibility of proving the uniqueness of God within the outlined theory. (shrink)

Anselm is commonly credited with two a priori arguments for God's existence, the non-modal argument of Proslogion 2 and a modal argument some find in Proslogion 3. But his Reply to Gaunilo contains a third. The argument as Anselm gives it has flaws, but they are not fatal, and its main premise can serve as the basis of a simpler, stronger argument.