It is still commonly supposed that Descartes based his argument for the mind-body distinction on the law of the indiscernibility of identicals. I argue that this interpretation is very unlikely to be correct. I explain three contemporary versions of this interpreta- tion and say why I reject it. Basically, use of this law for Descartes’s conclusion would require reference to human bodies or else the supposition, for the purpose of the argument, of reference to human bodies. But at the time (...) Descartes formulated his argument, he would not have allowed either. Instead, I amend a different interpretation which others have found, and briefly defend it against one famous objection. (shrink)

Clement Dore has offered a demonstration that God is possible. This is important because the Ontological Argument shows that if God is possible, it is necessarily true that God exists. Dore’s demonstration parallels Descartes’s Meditation V argument: (roughly) God by definition has all perfections; but (Dore proposes) possible existence is a perfection; therefore, God is possible. However, Leibniz recognized that Descartes’s argument is incomplete, omitting proof that the concept of God is consistent. Dore’s demonstration fails for just this reason. Dore’s (...) defense misses this objection. If the concept of God is consistent, that directly establishes that God is possible, making assumptions about perfections irrelevant. (shrink)

Donald R. Gregory has recently argued that the monk Gaunilo's response to St Anselm's ontological argument succeeds in showing what is fundamentally wrong with any ontological argument, including modern modal versions. He holds that the Gaunilo strategy in fact demonstrates what it alleges, that reasoning which parallels the form and intent ofAnselm's reductio argument can ‘prove’ a priori the existence of quite unacceptable entities.