Ontological Argument Revision- With Norman Malcolm

Norman Malcolm - Knowledge and Certainty

Ontological argument revision

On Anselm

·         God is something a greater than cannot be conceived 'aliquid quo nihil maius cogitaripossit'

·         The fool of the Psalm who says in his heart there is no God Anselm believed that the fool understands what he hears and what he understands is in his understanding though he does not understand that it exists.

·         Anselm regarded it as tautological to say that whatever is understood is in the understanding. 'quidquid intelligitar intellectu est'

or

·         Whatever is though is in the thought 'quidquid cogitatur in cogitatione est'

Of cores there are many things which may exist in the understanding that do not exist in reality; for example elves.

Something a greater than which cannot be conceived exists in the understanding, however it does not purely exist here, if it did so then it would not be what it is (see above in red ). It cannot exist just in the understanding as if it existed there then a greater thing could be conceived: namely one which exists in both the understanding and in reality.  An example would be :

Out of two apples, the apple which has the predicate of existence is the greater of the two apples. This is because the apple exists in both our understanding and reality . Yes I know the criticism of this and they will be addressed later.

The problem when Anselm states that we conceive of God is that we cannot know the full concept of what God is. St Thomas Aquinas stated that we could never know God in full, the epistemic distance states that there is only so much that we can know about God. Thus proving Gods existence through analytic or a priori (though reason alone) is impossible as the concept of God is simply beyond human understanding. Indeed Aquinas believed that the only way in which we come to know God through experience of the world he created since this is the were the limits of our knowledge lie and this is seen in his arguments for God existence which use a-posteriori synthetic reasoning

Sight side track

·         Malcolm brings up the point to whether Anselm would accept that it is greater to exist in reality by itself than to exist in the understanding

·         This is something that Aquinas would definitely accept as earlier stated he believed that we could not contain God in our understanding and that we could only know him through our experience of his existence.

·         Descartes apparently also agrees. In mediations 3 Descartes suggest that the mode of being by which a thing  is ''objectively in the understanding is imperfect''

This prompts two key half related questions for me.

1.       Does the experience of a thing give us an understanding that cannot be gained by being told the properties ? For example if I tell you about every property an apple has, does someone who has direct experience of that apple know something about the apple that I do not. For this we can ask the question of the importance in language to describe religious experience and the use of reason alone in order to learn about God.

2.       Is there such a thing as an object in the first place? when we say that God has the predicate of existence we ascribe a quality to God. But try and imagine that object without its properties , is this still God ? The answer is no and this was an idea put forward by David Hume called 'Bundle theory'. If there is no such thing as an object but rather just the properties of it then this has large implications on the work of Rene Descartes and maybe more importantly the existence of God.

In any case Anselm holds that something is greater if it exists both in the understanding and in reality than if it exists merely in the understanding. Again this is greater as if it exists in the understanding alone this means that it could be greater, and thus for it to be that which greater cannot be thought it must exist in both the understanding and reality.

Malcolm then starts to examine the idea whether adding existence to an object makes it any greater.

·         A king might desire that his next chancellor should have knowledge, wit and resolution. It would be ludicrous (http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4aa657392ada776d70d8d01b-480/ludacris-luda-surprised.jpg) to add that the king desires his chancellor to have the quality of existence.

·         Suppose that the king asks two royal councillors A and B to draw up the descriptions of the most chancellor. A and B provided identical lists but A says that the chancellor exists.

·         Malcolm's point is that any person who satisfies A's description would necessarily satisfy B's description and vice versa.

(Existence essentially adds nothing to the descriptions they are the same)

Malcolm believes and accepts that he is repeating much of Kant's criticism of the ontological argument. Kant believed that existence cannot be a real  predicate of an object.

We do not make the least addition to the thing when we further declare that this is '

On Anslem's second ontological proof

·         And it (God ) so truly exists that it cannot be conceived not to exist. For it is possible to conceive of a being that can be conceived to not exist.

·         For it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived to not exist; and this is greater than a being which can be conceived to not exist.

·         Hence, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived, can be conceived to not exist , then it is not that than which nothing greater can be conceived nor is its non-existence conceivable. In other words that than which no greater can be conceived exists necessarily.

·         'And this being thou art, O lord , our God. '

Explanation

Anselm is saying two things:

1.       That a being whose nonexistence is logically impossible is greater than a being whose nonexistence is logically possible.

And therefore that a being for which no greater can be conceived must be one whose nonexistence is logically impossible.

(If this being is that than which no greater can be conceived then its nonexistence is logically impossible)

2.       That God is of who's nonexistence is logically impossible

Malcolm says that these statements can be used in the same way that 'God is the greatest of all beings can be used'

He also believes that these are logically necessary truths much in the same way in which the statement 'a square has four sides' is a logically necessary truth. If a square did not have 4 sides then we cannot accept it as a square as it does not fit the definition of what a square is. Slimily if God does not have necessary existence then that is not that than which no greater can be conceived, for God to be God he must exist.

This can be used as a response to Gaunilo's island in which Gaunilo's uses the same reasoning to prove the existence of a nonexistent island.  For Gaunilo's island there is nothing in the definition of that island that means that the islands nonexistence is logically impossible, it is not part of the concept of the island. Indeed the island, for it to be the greatest conceivable island must exist in both reality and the mind however it does not mean that I cannot conceive of its none existence, in other words it does not have necessary existence and so this is why the ontological argument works for God but no other.

Malcolm rejects Descartes' notion that existence is a perfection. Anselm maintains, not that existence is a perfection but rather but rather the logical impossibility of its nonexistence is a perfection. In other words necessary existence is a perfection.

On Kant's Criticisms. (it's a bit muddled as to which bit is which )

Malcolm believed that Part of Kant's criticism of the ontological arguments was incorrect.

What Kant does is say that when 'If I reject the predicate while retaining the subject, contradiction results; and I therefore say that the former belongs necessarily to the later.' But if we reject subject and predicate alike, there is no contradiction for nothing is then left that can be contradicted. To do otherwise would be the same as rejecting the 3 sides of a triangle and yet keep the idea of a triangle. Thus we must reject both triangle and predicate. The same holds for God. If we reject his predicate of existence then we must too reject God as it would be a contradiction to try and separate the two concepts.

The point of the ontological argument to Malcolm is that once the concept of God is correctly understood then one cannot 'reject the subject'.  The fact is to say 'there is no God is a necessarily false statement'.

This is probably best explained when on the context of Malcolm's ontological argument. Instead of using a series of points leading to the proving of Gods existence what Malcolm does is present us with 4 options.

The Argument

1.       If God does Not exist then his existence is impossible .

(God is immutable (unchanging ). If God doesn't exist then he couldn't or wouldn't change from none-existence to existence. Thus his existence cannot be contingent.

2.       If God Does exist the his existence is necessary .

It is in the very definition of God that he exists necessary.

3.       As a result of these statements it follows that Gods existence is impossible or necessary .

God can either exist necessarily or his existence can be impossible.

4.       God's existence is not impossible.

It is possible to imagine a world in which God exists only 'nothing exists' is impossible (which I shall explain in a later post).

5.       Therefore God must exist necessarily.

Therefore God existence is necessary.

The purpose of setting the argument out like this, is Malcolm's attempt to show the reader how when you accept or realise what the concept of God is, it is only logical that that he exists.

The set up of for statements is also so as it tries to avoid Kant's criticism (of which Malcolm excepts)  that existence is not a real predicate. Instead  of being told that God has the perfection of existence we are given options and shown that only one of them can be logically infallible. God existence is either necessary or impossible, it is not a predicate that he exists necessarily but one of two options of which only one of which is logically correct.

God I hate this..... I try and expand on Malcolm later and read a bit more of his book but for now this is making my head hurt. 

Coming Soon ! Hume and his bundle theory you nonexistent readers (see that works in two ways)