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Has the Ontological Argument been Refuted?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
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Suppose we say that a deductive argument is probative just in case it is (i) valid in point of logical form, (ii) possesses true premises, and (iii) is free of informal fallacy. We can then say that an argument is normatively persuasive for a person if and only if it is both probative and has premises that can be accepted, without any breach of epistemic propriety, by the person in question. If the premises of a probative argument would be accepted by any reasonable person, I will call such an argument demonstrative.
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References
1 Clearly, an unsound argument may be factually persuasive. Herein, perhaps, lies the difference between philosophical and lawyerly persuasion. I follow the manuals in holding that an unsound argument is one which is either formally invalid or has one or more false premises, or both.
2 In the words of Plantinga, Alvin, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 219.Google Scholar
3 McGrath, P. J., ‘The Refutation of the Ontological Argument’, The Philosophical Quarterly, XL (1990), 195–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Sennett, James F., ‘Universe Indexed Properties and the Fate of the Ontological Argument’, Religious Studies, XXVII (1991), 65–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 Sennett does not use the expression ‘beg the question’ in his paper; nevertheless, we will see that he thinks the OA falls afoul of the fallacy thereby denoted.
6 Morris, Thomas V., Anselmian Explorations: Essays in Philosophical Theology (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), p. 184.Google Scholar
7 Morris, p. 185. Morris cites Plantinga, Alvin, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), pp. 219–21.Google Scholar
8 Even if it were available to him, it would merely show that the OA is not demonstrative, as I defined this term, not that it is non-probative or that its premises are more rationally rejected than accepted.
9 Frege, Gottlob, The Foundations of Arithmetic, trans. Austin, J. L. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968),Google Scholar sec. 53; further, ‘On Concept and Object’ in Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, eds. Geach, and Black, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960), p. 51.Google Scholar It has taken philosophers a long time to appreciate the mark/property distinction; arguably, Aristotle and Avicenna were confused on the point. Cf. Grossmann, Reinhardt, The Categorial Structure of the World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), p. 127.Google Scholar
10 Cf. Critique of Pure Reason, A598 B 626.
11 But not universally. Cf. Salmon, Nathan, ‘Existence’, Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 1, ed. Tomberlin, James E. (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co., 1987), pp. 62ff.Google Scholar Further, Shaffer, Jerome, ‘Existence, Predication, and the Ontological Argument’, Mind, LXXI (1962), 318ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Leibniz, G. W., Monadology and Other Philosophical Essays, trans. Schrecker, Paul and Schrecker, Anne Martin (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merril Co., Inc., 1965), p. 155.Google Scholar
13 Kant, Immanuel, Lectures on Philosophical Theology, trans. Wood, Allen W. and Clark, Gertrude M. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), pp. 55–6.Google Scholar Compare Critique of Pure Reason A 596 B 624.
14 I assume that what we mean by ‘cheese’ could not have evolved naturally.
15 Cf. Seddon, George, ‘Logical Possibility’, Mind, LXXXI, no. 324 (1972), 481–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16 Note that one's concept of a square could not be so indeterminate that there would be no conceptual bar to a square that is round. If I conceive a square merely as a figure, I am not conceiving a square.
17 One can have complete concepts of such abstract items as the relation earlier than and the quale, yellow.
18 This of course does not imply that the existence of concepts, and thus of minds, is a necessary condition of real possibility.
19 p is BL-possible = df p is NL-possible and p is metaphysically possible.
20 The Philosophical Works of Descartes, vol. 2, trans. E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 15.Google Scholar
21 I am not endorsing the idea that God is the efficient cause of His own existence. Nothing can cause its own existence. My point is that God has the power to prevent His nonexistence, a power He would not have if He were a metaphysically contingent being. In this sense, the divine necessity of existence is grounded in the divine omnipotence.
22 It is worth noting that there is a sense in which both modal and nonmodal versions of the OA are modal: both sorts of version presuppose the possibility of a necessary being. Consider Descartes' Meditation V argument which rests on the idea that the essence of God includes existence. Any being whose essence includes existence is metaphysically necessary. Thus if (A) is true, no version of the OA could be sound.
23 At the beginning of his paper, Sennett remarks that ‘The fatal flaw [of the OA] lies in the argument's commitment to what I have called “universe indexed properties” (p. 65). But since there are unobjectionable universe indexed properties, e.g. being prime, the flaw cannot consist in a commitment to these properties. It would thus appear that Sennett takes the real flaw of the OA to lie in the argument's commitment to the possibility of a necessarily existent concrete individual.
24 I thank Quentin Smith for helpful comments.