Revision Guide - Arguments from Reason HHA 2025 PDF

Arguments from reason Spec Key Explanation content Context The arguments from reason are all ontological arguments – arguments that try to prove that God exists from the definition of God. They are a priori arguments, which means...

Arguments from reason Spec Key Explanation content Context The arguments from reason are all ontological arguments – arguments that try to prove that God exists from the definition of God. They are a priori arguments, which means they just use ideas and logic rather than any input from experience. Anselm (1093-1109) was a British Catholic monk and a rationalist. He produced an ontological argument from the perspective of ‘faith The Anselm seeking understanding’ in his book ‘Proslogion’. This means that its purpose was to strengthen one’s own faith through understanding of ontological God using reason. Part of this was the ontological proof of the existence of God. argument The ontological argument is an a priori proof for the existence of God. It is not based on experience of the world, but, solely on logic and reasoning. Anselm attempts to argue from the definition of God, that it is not possible for God to not exist. He references Psalm 14 “The fool has said in his heart that there is no God”, Anselm says that only a fool would claim that there is no God, because to deny the existence of God you must first have an understanding of what ‘God’ means, and this understanding of God includes – as he will argue – the idea that god exists. Anselm thinks that our understanding of God is by definition ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived.’ This means: God is, by definition, a the greatest being imaginable (conceive = imagine) Anselm’s first ontological argument highlights that because real things are better than imaginary things, God must be real. The idea goes as follows. It is greater to exist in reality than not to exist in reality and only in the imagination. This is plausible because, e.g. a unicorn would be greater if it existed than if it were just imaginary. Because of this, the greatest imaginable being must exist in reality. Otherwise, it would have the potential to be greater (by existing in reality). Moreover, God is (by definition) the greatest imaginable being. Hence, God must exist in reality. In modus ponens form: 1. God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived – true by definition 2. If so, then God must have the characteristic of ‘existence in reality’ – true because it is greater to exist than not to exist. Conclusion: So God has the characteristic of ‘existence in reality’  Anselm’s second ontological argument has to do with necessary and contingent existence: Necessary existence is existence that does not depend on anything else Contingent existence is existence due to something else. Anselm uses the same train of thought as in the first ontological argument, but this time tries to prove that God exists necessarily as well as merely existing. This is because God is the greatest imaginable being, and it is greater to exist necessarily than not to exist necessarily. This is because necessary existence is a kind of self-sufficiency and independence that suggests greater power. As a result, if God is the greatest imaginable being, then God must have necessary existence, because otherwise he’d have the potential still to be greater. Therefore, God must not just exist, but be necessarily existent. Something exists necessarily if it does not rely on anything else in order to exist. It is hard to come up with examples of this that are not God. 1. God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived – true by definition 2. If so, then God must have the characteristic of ‘necessary existence’ – true because it is greater to exist than not to exist. Conclusion: So God has the characteristic of ‘necessary existence’. Gaunilo was a French monk and a contemporary (lived at the same time as) of Anselm’s. His reply to Anselm was called ‘On behalf of the Gaunilo’s fool’, which was an attempt to argue that Anselm’s so-called ‘fool’ – the atheist – was not so stupid after all. He has (at least) two criticisms criticisms of Anselm’s argument. Criticism 1 (this is Gaunilo’s main criticism – use this one unless the question specifically asks about Gaunilo) Criticism 1 is a reductio ad absurdum of Anselm’s argument. A reductio ad absurdum argument is one that takes a position or argument and shows how, if it is true, then absurd consequences follow. For example, a reductio ad absurdum of the view that ‘the world is flat’ would be: “well, if that were true, then we could fall off the edge of the world!”. This is an absurd consequence of the view, and a reason not to accept it. Gaunilo’s reductio ad absurdum argument focuses on the greatest imaginable island. His idea is that, if we think that it is better to exist than not exist, then it’s going to have to be better for a greatest imaginable island to exist rather than not exist too. Hence, the greatest island we can imagine – complete with perfect temperature, lovely white beaches, perfect weather all the time, etc. – must exist, and you can prove this from its very definition! How absurd! (says Gaunilo). Hence, if we take Anselm’s way of arguing and apply it to the lost island, then: 1. Anselm thinks it is greater to exist than not exist 2. If so, Anselm must think that the greatest island must exist in reality. 3. Hence, Anselm must think that the greatest island must exist in reality. 3 is supposed to be an absurd consequence; hence Anselm’s argument does not work. (This can actually be linked to Kant’s criticism that existence is not a predicate – can you work out how?) Plantinga Plantinga responds to Gaunilo’s criticism. Plantinga responds to this argument by arguing that the perfect island simply doesn't make sense, and hence we can’t really apply Anselm’s methods of argumentation to it. In this sense the perfect island is different from God: God makes sense, but the idea of the perfect island doesn’t (Gaunilo might challenge this difference in his second objection!) To show this, he uses the idea of an intrinsic maximum. A concept has an intrinsic maximum when there is a clear upper limit/bound on how good/great/big the thing can get. For example, A level grades have an intrinsic maximum because there is a clear limit on how good/great they can get. It does not make sense because the perfect island is something that has no ‘intrinsic maximum’. No matter how great an Island that we can conceive is, we can always conceive of a greater island. E.g. I conceive of an island with 100 palm trees, I can conceive of one that’s even more perfect – with 101. In fact, there is no limit to how many palm trees I can imagine an island to have, and each palm tree makes that island more perfect – so that there’s no limit to how perfect an island could be, and no most perfect island. Criticism 2 – God does not exist ‘in our understanding’ at all Gaunilo’s second objection is to say that God does not exist ‘in our understanding’, and hence we cannot prove that he exists ‘in reality’ from our conception of him ‘in our understanding’. By this he means that we do not have a full idea of God. This is because God is beyond our comprehension – he is so infinite and transcendent that we cannot fully conceptualize him. Hence, it seems absurd to try to prove that God exists based on our idea of him – we don’t have this idea in the first place!  1. We don’t have a full idea of God 2. If so, then we can’t use the idea of God to prove that he exists 3. Therefore, we can’t use the idea of God to prove that he exists Anselm could reply in (at least) one of two related ways: First, Anselm could argue that we only have a partial idea of God – but a partial, hazy idea is enough to use to prove his existence. Second, Anselm could argue that we do have an idea of God – how else could we keep arguing about his existence? Descartes (Descartes is not specifically named on the spec so he can’t be named in a question, but, should be used within your essays regardless – unless, of course, Anselm is the only thinker named in the question) Descartes was a French rationalist philosopher who was also a sceptic. In a book called the ‘Meditations’, Descartes asked whether we could ever truly know anything for certain. He tried to show how much of what we take for granted – e.g. the existence of the sensible world around us – is actually uncertain because we could be dreaming. He ends up concluding that the two things we absolutely know for certain are (i) that we exist and (ii) that God exists, and thinks that both can be proven a priori. His argument relies on the idea of a perfection, which is a property that makes you more perfect. The argument goes like this: 1. God is the supremely perfect being (true by definition). 2. If so, he has all perfections (e.g….) 3. If so, he has the perfection of existence. 4. So: God has the perfection of existence. Descartes compares this to the example of a triangle. I can prove facts about a triangle based on its definition. For example, based on the definition of a triangle as having 3 sides, I can prove that it has angles that add up to 180 degrees (using some mathematics that Dr Havranek doesn’t fully understand…). Likewise, using the definition of God as the supremely perfect being, we can prove that God exists. Kant’s Kant (1774-1804 ) is an enlightenment thinker who is influenced by Hume’s skepticism to think that we cannot prove God’s existence. God, criticism 1 he thinks, is a postulate, meaning we cannot prove his existence; instead we only have to assume that he exists for morality to function. In other words, he thinks that the study of God should be kept in the Ethics classroom, not the Philosophy of Religion classroom. Existence is not a predicate: Kant argues that existence is not a predicate. A predicate is the part of a sentence that tells us the features something has, e.g. ‘Dr Havranek is a teacher’ – ‘is a teacher’ is a predicate because it tells us a feature of Dr Havranek. Kant thinks that the ontological arguments assume that existence is a predicate. This is for a number of reasons: (a) they all assume that existence makes you greater or more perfect. If something makes you greater, then it has to be a feature you have; and if it’s a feature you have, then it will be a predicate. For example, if being clever makes you greater, then being clever is a feature you have, and so ‘being clever’ is a predicate. So precisely because Anselm and Descartes think that existence makes you better/greater/more perfect, they must also think that it is a feature you have, and so must be a predicate. (b) they all assume that existence is part of the definition of God. The definition of God describes God; so if existence is part of the definition of God, then it must describe God, and it must be a predicate. Kant argued that existence cannot be a predicate because it does not give us any more information about the nature of the subject (in this case, God). In general, we can show that existence does not give us any new information by seeing whether adding existence to a description changes the image we have in our mind. For example, imagine a brown elephant. Now, imagine a brown elephant that exists. The elephant I am imagining in my mind does not change (the surroundings around it might change, though). Hence, when I say ‘a brown elephant exists’, I am not adding any description to the brown elephant. The argument goes as follows: 1. Adding ‘exists’ does not change a description 2. If so, then Existence is not a predicate 3. So: Existence is not a predicate Likewise, adding ‘exists’ to my conception of God should not change the idea of God in my mind. If this is true, and Kant is right, it poses a serious issue for the ontological argument: how could God be greater if he exists, if existence does not add to a description of God at all? If my image in my head stays the same when I say that ‘God exists’, surely God can’t be properly understood to be greater then? So what are we doing, according to Kant, when we use the word ‘exists’? e.g. ‘The pen exists’? We are not attributing a feature to the pen, so what are we saying? Rather than being a feature that the pen has, existence just tells us what the world contains. So when I say ‘this pen exists’, I am not naming a feature of this pen. I am just instead saying that the world contains this pen. In other words, when I say ‘this pen exists’, that doesn’t change the pen; it changes the world. Norman Malcolm’s reply to Kant: Malcolm agrees that existence is not a predicate in ordinary circumstances. However, he thinks that necessary existence is a predicate. That is, he thinks that while existence does not describe a feature of things, necessary existence does. Why? Simply because adding ‘necessary existence’ to a description does seem to change that description. E.g. a necessary existence pet probably would not need to eat. It would be a self-sustaining pet. So adding ‘necessary’ to ‘pet’ should change the picture in my head to a pet that is super powerful  and able to keep itself alive. Likewise, a necessarily existing God does seem to change the idea of God – from a being that was brought into existence into one that relies only on itself. If this is true, then Anselm’s form 1 does not work but Anselm’s form 2 does; and that Descartes’ argument will also work if we say that ‘necessary existence is a perfection’ rather than ‘existence is a perfection’ for premise 3. Kant’s Kant’s Criticism 2: analytic statements can’t tell us about the world. Criticism 2 Kant’s second criticism attacks Anselm and Descartes’ general strategy of using the definition or idea of God to prove that God exists. He thinks that this is a fundamentally flawed way of arguing because we can’t argue from ideas to reality. He uses his own technical terminology to explain this idea, saying that you can’t get from analytic statements (statements that are only about ideas) to synthetic statements (statements that are only about reality) For example, merely understanding the idea of a unicorn can’t tell you whether unicorns exist. They might or they might not. We need experience to get us to understand whether they exist or not – we need to look around the world to see whether we can see any unicorns. Likewise, understanding the idea of ‘an organism with 13 chromosomes’ does not tell us whether there really is an organism with 13 chromosomes: instead, we have to look around the world to see, and maybe ask some people who have looked around the world for longer than us (biologists!) whether such an organism exists. Likewise, then, you can’t get from the idea of God as the greatest imaginable being to the actual existence of God in reality. Here's' the argument: 1. You can’t get from ideas (analytic statements) to reality (synthetic statements) 2. If so, you can’t get from the idea of God to God’s existence in reality. 3. So: you can’t get from the idea of God to God’s existence in reality. Descartes might reply that you can get from some ideas to reality. Famously, Descartes thinks that the idea of ourselves proves that we exist. If I can think of myself, then there must be a me who is thinking; and so I must exist.