{"id":17,"date":"2008-01-29T17:14:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-29T21:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/?p=17"},"modified":"2008-01-29T17:14:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-29T21:14:00","slug":"ontological-devil-arguments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/ontological-devil-arguments\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontological Devil Arguments"},"content":{"rendered":"

In class today we looked at Anselm’s first version of the ontological argument (from Proslogion<\/span> 2). We then looked at Gaunilo’s attempt at a “refutation by parody” and showed how Anselm could respond by saying that there can be no “greatest conceivable island” because the qualities that go into that do not have intrinsic maxima (if there’s no upper limit, then there can’t be a “greatest”).<\/p>\n

Here’s another parody:<\/p>\n

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    \n
  1. Let “Satan” (or, if you prefer, Zod<\/a>) =def.<\/sub> the worst conceivable being. (Premise)<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Satan exists in the understanding but not in reality. (Assumption for reductio<\/em>)<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Satan\u2019s existence in reality and in the understanding would be worse than his existence in the understanding alone. (Premise)<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. A being having all of Satan\u2019s properties plus existence in reality can be conceived. (Premise)<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. A being worse than Satan can be conceived. (From 2, 3, and 4)<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. It is false that a being worse than Satan can be conceived. (From 1)<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. Hence, it is false that Satan exists in the understanding but not in reality. (From 2, 5, and 6)<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. Satan exists in the understanding. (Premise)<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. Hence, Satan exists in reality. (From 7 and 8)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Is this a successful parody of Anselm’s argument? Does the notion of “worst conceivable being” have an intrinsic maximum (or is intrinsic “minimum” more appropriate here?) Is there any way in which Anselm can block this counterexample without undermining his own argument?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In class today we looked at Anselm’s first version of the ontological argument (from Proslogion 2). We then looked at Gaunilo’s attempt at a “refutation by parody” and showed how Anselm could respond by saying that there can be no “greatest conceivable island” because the qualities that go into that do not have intrinsic maxima\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}