Online research in philosophy

This paper argues that Daniel A. Dombrowski's defence of a version of the ontological argument for the existence of God fails.

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.

The ontological argument--first proposed by St. Anselm and subsequently deveIoped by Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel and Marx--furnishes a key to understanding the relationship between thought and reality. In this article we shall focus on Hegel’s attitude towards the ontological argument as set out in his Science of Logic, where it appears as a paradigm of the relationship between thought and reality. It should be remarked, moreover, that our choice of the subject was not random and that it was seIected for the reason that belief in God is a preeminent social reality, inasmuch as faith in God creates His existence. Therefore, an investigation of the concept of God is an inquiry into the most profound recesses of human consciousness.The great opponents of the ontological argument, from Hume down to our day--and even Kant--have based their arguments upon the fundamental empiricist assertion that existential judgments are not analytical. In this paper we attempt to defend the ontological argument against its opponents.

The 'parody objection' to the ontological argument for the existence of God advances parallel arguments apparently proving the existence of various absurd entities. I discuss recent versions of the parody objection concerning the existence of 'AntiGod' and the devil, as introduced by Peter Millican and Timothy Chambers. I argue that the parody objection always fails, because any parody is either (i) not structurally parallel to the ontological argument, or (ii) not dialectically parallel to the ontological argument. Moreover, once a parody argument is modified in such a way that it avoids (i) and (ii), it is, ironically, no longer a parody – it is the ontological argument itself.

In this paper I offer an interpretation of the Stoic argumentum ex gradibus entium as it appears in Book II of Cicero's De Natura Deorum. In addition to displaying certain similarities to later formulations of the so-called "ontological argument," particularly Anselm's, I argue that the argument ex gradibus entium was a versatile feature of Stoic philosophical theology, capable of employment in relation to two distinct topics: the existence of god and the identification of god's essential nature with the world. I claim that the instance of the argument ex gradibus entium at ND II 18-21 is a token of this latter type, and show that there are no textual reasons precluding this interpretation. In light of the fact that the argument can be analyzed more effectively in this role, I suggest that this particular instance of the argument is best thought of as an attempt on the part of the Stoics to identify the world with god rather than as a strict proof for god's bare existence. I end with some reflections on the general type of the Stoic argument qua precursor to two of Anselm's ontological proofs. Although I think it is a mistake to call the Stoic argument "ontological" in a strict sense, it may, I suggest, have shared a similar conceptual underpinning with at least one of Anselm's famous formulations.

It has become somewhat ontologically fashionable for theists to embrace anti-realist views of abstract objects. On pain of consistency, however, I will argue that any theist who accepts the S5 ontological argument for the existence of God should also accept a parallel S5 ontological argument for the existence of abstract objects. This is because the same ontological and modal inferences thought to demonstrate the existence of God can also be used to demonstrate the existence of numbers. I further argue that being ontologically consistent here might come at the price of being theologically unacceptable, as the argument for numbers would seem to vindicate a platonistic view of abstracta—but platonism is incompatible with the traditional concept of God. I conclude by suggesting what I see as the only way out of this dilemma, which is to embrace a view akin Augustine’s where abstracta exist “nowhere but in the very mind of the Creator.” Something like the Augustinian view of abstracta, therefore, can be seen as an indirect theological consequence of the S5 ontological argument for the existence of God.

By taking ‘existence in reality’ to be a great-making property and ‘God’ to be the greatest possible being, Plantinga skillfully presents Anselm’s ontological argument. However, since he proves God’s existence by virtue of a premise, “God (a maximally great being) is a possible being”, that is true only if God actually exists; his argument begs the question of the existence of God.

In recent years, the ontological argument and theistic metaphysics have been criticized by philosophers working in both the analytic and continental traditions. Responses to these criticisms have primarily come from philosophers who make use of the traditional, and problematic, concept of God. In this volume, Daniel A. Dombrowski defends the ontological argument against its contemporary critics, but he does so by using a neoclassical or process concept of God, thereby strengthening the case for a contemporary theistic metaphysics. Relying on the thought of Charles Hartshorne, he builds on Hartshorne's crucial distinction between divine existence and divine actuality, which enables neoclassical defenders of the ontological argument to avoid the familiar criticism that the argument moves illegitimately from an abstract concept to concrete reality. His argument, thus, avoids the problems inherent in the traditional concept of God as static.

Denys Turner argues that there are reasons of faith why the existence of God should be thought rationally demonstrable and that it is worthwhile revisiting the theology of Thomas Aquinas to see why. The proposition that the existence of God is demonstrable by rational argument is doubted by nearly all philosophical opinion today and is thought by most Christian theologians to be incompatible with Christian faith. Turner's robust challenge to the prevailing orthodoxies will be of interest to believers as well as non-believers.

Any argument which attempts to prove God's existence a priori based only on His nature can be termed an "Ontological Argument". Historically, however, the term is inextricably associated with the famous argument presented in Anselm's Proslogion chapter II, and with the later variant advanced by Descartes in his fifth Meditation and subsequently developed by Leibniz. Some have claimed that Anselm's argument was anticipated in the thought either of various classical philosophers (notably Aristotle, Parmenides, Plato, and Zeno of Cition) or of Augustine, but although there are indeed suggestive passages in their writings, Anselm's explicit "proof" of God's existence based on his Nature does appear to be a genuinely original discovery.