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The Ontological Argument





The problem with this form of the ontological argument is that it assumes "existence" is a property of an entity, and that existence is some "thing" that exists itself.

When I say, "Al Gore exists," I am not saying Al Gore has some property or quality called "existence." Rather, I'm simply saying, "Al Gore is" or "There is indeed a person named Al Gore."

Two of my favorite philosophers, Immanuel Kant and Bertrand Russell, in their refutations of the ontological argument, pointed out that existence is not a predicate or a property. This is because the word exists offers one no more information about the subject. It is not a quality, like omnipotence, for instance. A predicate is used in a sentence in order to denote more information about the subject - it is meaningless to use it because, according to Kant, it tells us nothing.

Should we say that an imaginary silver coin has the same qualities as a real silver coin, minus the quality of existence? No, because the imaginary silver coin is not a "thing that lacks the quality of existence"; rather, it's not really a thing at all. To refer to something is to presume it exists. This is the linguistic problem we have. Our language can turn "non-things" into nouns, thus giving the illusion that these "non-things" are in fact things.

You may find this site helpful:
http://www.incentre.net/tcantine/Anselm.html

The general consensus among philosophers today is that "existence" is not the name of a thing. And only things exist, so existence does not exist. But, it is true, of course, that there are things like plants or monkeys. What it is to say of something that it exists is a complicated matter. Very briefly, when we say "something exists," we are talking about the concept of that thing, that the concept has a referent. So, for instance, to say "monkeys exist" (or "there are monkeys") is to say that the concept monkey refers to something in the world.


Arguments for the Existence of God

180: Apologetics
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