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The Ontological Argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

James Cargile
James Cargile
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Extract

There are several styles of ontological argument. Here are examples of the first style.

God has all perfections.

Existence is a perfection.

∴God exists.

All perfect beings exist.

God is a perfect being.

∴God exists.

God couldn't be improved.

A being that doesn't exist could be improved (by coming to be).

∴God exists.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 191 , January 1975 , pp. 69 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1975

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References

1 Malcolm, Norman, ‘Anselm's Ontological Arguments’, Philosophical Review, 1960, pp. 41–62.Google Scholar

2 I do not stress this point, because I do not know exactly what ‘cognitive’ means.

3 In his paper ‘The Logical Structure of Anselm's Argument’ (Philosophical Review, 1971, pp. 28–54)Google ScholarAdams, Robert Merrihew puts Anselm's (1–4)Google Scholar into symbolic logic, using ‘Ux’ for ‘x exists in the understanding’. However, his version of the argument is formally valid even with all occurrences of ‘Ux’ deleted. This is because his quantifier ‘(Ex)’ can be read in the Meinongian way as ‘There either exists or subsists an x such that …’, so that in ‘(Ex) Ux …’. The quantifier has already done the work for which ‘Ux’ was introduced, namely the trick of locating a supreme being ‘somewhere’ so that the definition of ‘supreme’ can be applied to the being to show that it must, after all, really exist.

4 I am indebted to Robin Fleming for a helpful comment on this paper.