Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Philosophy of Religion -- Week 5
Investigation of the ontological proof (and its famous refutations) reveals a remarkable constellation of ideas and images: e.g., "that greater than which cannot be thought," a perfect imagined island, "existence is not a predicate," etc. What do you think of this strange proof from St. Anselm? Are his detractors (Gaunilo and Kant) right? What advantages (if any) does this proof have over the design and cosmological proofs?
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Karen
ReplyDeleteThe ontological proof seemed by far the least persuasive to me. Anslem’s argument seems incredibly supercilious; the idea that “whatever is understood, exists in the understanding…nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone”. Just because you have the ability to fathom any great number of things, and these ideas live in our understanding, that does not automatically place them in our reality as well. It seems to have no superiority over the other arguments.
Anslem’s example of an artist who understands what he wants his painting to look like and then makes it is completely torn apart by Gaunilo. He says “for the picture, before it is made, is contained in the artificer’s art itself; and any such thing, existing in the art of an artificer, is nothing but a part of his understanding itself”. Gaunilo is saying that before the artist’s understanding is actualized, it is still merely part of the understanding of the artist, and not part of reality. It also draws to question that if the artist decided to not paint such a thing, yet the understanding of it lived on in his mind forever. It would still not exist in reality, yet it is a very real understanding in the artist’s mind.
Kant also continues to rip apart Anslem’s argument by repeatedly saying that “existence is not a predicate”. Kant explains if the ontological argument follows along with Anslem’s argument, existence becomes a predicate, and that is not possible. He concludes that “however much our concept of an object may contain, we must go outside it, if we are to ascribe existence to the object”. He is saying that we can’t rely on understanding, as Anslem suggests, but we must look externally in order to prove the reality of objects.
Courtney
ReplyDeleteI have always loved Kant's infamous phrase "existence is not a predicate" as well as the essay it comes from. I always found it to be a really smart response to the ontological argument. Walking to school today, however, (because yes, i run philosophical arguments through my head while walking) it dawned on me that he may not be correct to say so.
We often discuss thoughts, concepts, ideas, etc. not just things that physically exist in the real world. For example, Copan spends most of his article talking about the IDEA of objective moral truths. Many people do not believe moral objective truths are real--they believe they are constructed in our minds, that they are merely an idea that we can discuss. In this debate, for Copan to say, with proof to back it, that objective moral truths EXIST would be adding new information to that subject of the sentence.
True, in Kant's defense, saying a physical object in the world exists adds nothing to our knowledge of the thing and in that way existence is absolutely not a predicate. But ideas are things, subjects, and they may be an area where Kant's thesis does not hold true. Kant's thesis would certainly be true if I were to say "the idea of objective moral truths exists"--that in no way is adding new information and existence is certainly not a predicate in that sense. Maybe I am just playing language games with Kant, but it was an interesting thought that popped up in response to his essay nonetheless. Thought?
Nadine
ReplyDeleteThis weeks readings were very interesting, and I thought the class discussion that coincided with it was great as well. I am taken by the idea of the ontological argument. I certainly appreciate scientific evidence to proves the existence of god. However, I have always thought of faith as something very personal and thus, I respect the idea of the ontological argument, and proving the existence of god by reason alone.
The thing that is bothering me is not so much the ontological argument-because I think it is a unique and valid way of thinking about ultimate reality-, but all the different arguments we have been discussing. It is difficult to decipher-at least for me- which is “right” and which is “wrong”. I am not sure that we can pass the judgment of this argument is certain but this one fails, because we really do not know. Obviously, there are some philosophers who present their arguments better than others, and therefore their arguments perhaps become more valued. However, overall I think it is amazing that so many different ways of thinking exist-design argument, cosmological argument, and ontological argument. I guess my point is I think it’s really fascinating to read such vastly different accounts of religion. The thing I am trying to grapple with is a. which belief am I drawn to, and b. just like there are issues when dealing with religious diversity, there are some issues in dealing with three completely different well thought out arguments.
With reasons that we have (painfully) discussed in class, I think that Kant has proved with irrefutable clearness that speculative reasons (like those of Anselm's) could never fully establish the existence of God. What puzzles me, though, is Kant’s assertion that we have to “postulate” God in order to secure the motivational grounds of morality. Why should this be the case? Kant himself has showed us that ideas are mere formulations or products of human beings. If we discard former theoretical cognitions of God, but hold on to God as a necessary practical postulate, then aren’t we resigning to the fact that God is merely a fiction of our mind (however necessary that fiction is)? In this case Freud would be right – God and religion would merely be the “universal obsessional neurosis of humanity”. How are we moral if we need God to retain this morality? If we are indeed free, as Kant claims, that shouldn’t morality lie in human nature (or reason) itself, instead of us having to postulate this external Being that stands above man?
ReplyDeleteAll that said I’m still (desperately) struggling with Kant – maybe we’ll figure out the answers along the way…