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Pastimes : The Philosophical Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (154)	8/6/2005 10:03:48 AM
From: Rarebird	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 26251

The argument you are presenting is the classic Ontological argument for the existence of God using Modus Ponens or the Law of Detachment: "Premises: q q implies p Conclusion: p" According to Kant, the refutation of the ontological argument entails the refutation of the cosmological argument. The later infers the existence of a necessary being from existence in general. Kant states it briefly: "If anything exists, an absolutely necessary being must also exist" (Critique Of Pure Reason; B633). This argument, which Leibniz called contingentia mundi argues that every contingent being must have a cause, which in its turn must have another, which, if contingent, must have its cause, until this chain of causes reaches an absolute and necessary cause. Such cause is God. The cosmological argument takes refuge in the ontologogical argument because it commits the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent and thus requires a necessary cause for the casual chain. That is, the cosmological argument ultimately departs from the experience of the world's contingency. In other words, it departs from the finite. This is why I have been arguing (in other posts) that the validity of the cosmological argument ultimately reverts back to the logic of the ontological argument. There are a couple of big problems with the ontological argument. Firstly, the Lutheran objection as to whether the idea of perfection can even be formed. Secondly, the Kantian objection, that the idea of perfection already presupposes the existence of God. I note that you specifically say in your premise q, "the(re) exists the idea of perfection". The Lutheran objection results from Luther positing a difference between the reason of man and the reason of God. In Catholicism, the two are not separate. Reason, from a Catholic point of view, is an attribute of God which is completely accessible to the Reason of man. According to Hegel, Kant's objection lies on the fact that we all know that concept and being cannot be united in finite beings. But the ontological proof refers to the infinite being. According to Hegel, Kant should either criticize the philosophical postulation of an identity no man could recognize-that of being and concept in finite beings- or, while denying existence to be a predicate of finite beings, should also deny existence to be a predicate of the concept of any being, including an infinite one. Hegel refers to the use by Kant of a finite being to refute the ontological argument. In fact, Kant does so, employing the example of a hundred thalers: "A hundred real thalers do not contain the least coin more than a hundred possible thalers. For as the latter signify the concept, and the former the object and the positing of the object, should the former contain more than the latter, my concept would not, in that case, express the whole object, and would not therefore be an adequate concept of it.... For the object, as it actually exists is not analytically contained in my concept, but is added to my concept ... synthetically; and yet the conceived hundred thalers are not themselves in the least increased through thus acquiring existence outside my concept." (B627) Therefore, Kant's refutation of the ontological argument would in fact ignore, Hegel would say, that existence is stated as a predicate of the infinite being only and not of a hundred thalers or some other finite being. But, although Hegel intends to criticize Kant's refutation, it doesn't mean that he could make the ontological proof more acceptable. Hegel is now with the onus probandi: to show that, although existence is not a descriptive predicate of a finite being, it could be so when we talk about God. At this point, he gives up demonstration and prefers to come back to Saint Anselm's ancient proof: to understand God's concept is to Know that he could not be just a concept, that he must also exist.