Check out Nathan Schneider’s fluffy ruminations on the “ontological argument” for God’s existence (in yesterday’s New York Times). Included: this caricature of Anselm's famous a priori reasoning:
Thomas later rejected the argument, but then Descartes revived it. Immanuel Kant is often thought to have driven a stake through its abstract heart. It's dead, and yet it isn't. It is a zombie.
12 comments:
Gosh, is this what you philosophers think about?
So, if I have a concept of the giant walrus as god, then it must exist, is that correct? I like the walrus for all sorts of reasons, mainly because it's not a primitive, violent, misogynistic fearmonger.
well,10:52, someone has to do the heavy lifting...
ES
12:04--you offer a version of a well-known criticism (an attempted "reductio ad absurdum") of the argument. But I think it fails. According to Anselm's reasoning, the very idea of God is the idea of a being that is as great as can be imagined, and since, were God non-existent, He would fail to be as great as can be imagined (since we can imagine Him as existing, and that would be greater), we are compelled by the idea to suppose that this ideas corresponds to an existing thing. There is nothing about the idea of a giant walrus that similarly compels us to suppose that he exists. Even a "perfect walrus" need not exist, since it is no part of the idea of a walrus (large, betoothed, blubbery, bellowing, hairy ocean mammal) that compels us to suppose that he exists. (E.g., that walruses have those big teeth does not compell us to suppose that the teeth exist.) And if all that we mean by a "walrus" is a perfect being (I am anticipating your response here), then, OK, the reasoning goes through, but that's because you're now talking about, not a walrus, but God, the one and only being who is as great as can be imagined. --R
ES, I'm glad you recognize my endless journeyman liftage. Boy are my arms tired. -R
A walrus by any other name would smell as sweet! --Er, a God by any other name would fume and bleat!
You just blew my mind!
When I was fresh out of graduate school and looking for a job, I was asked to present a lecture (as a teaching demonstration) on this, the Ontological Argument for the existence of God.
Out of all possible topics.... What a nightmare!!!
How could one say there was not a god, after seeing such things as butterflies and hummingbirds?
How could one say there was not an evil deity, after seeing such things as wars and earthquakes?
The whole point of Darwin's theory is to explain how a mindless process can yield that which would seem to be designed. Butterflies included. Where've you been? Scientifically, we are obliged to turn to the simpler theory that does not raise more problems than it solves. And so "natural selection" is preferable to the "designer" hypothesis. Simpler, less problematic, etc.
What of the duckbilled platypus, leisure suits, and American Idol?
Post a Comment