Talk:Ontological argument for the existence of God

Article Checklist for "Ontological argument for the existence of God"

Workgroup category or categories	Philosophy Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	No
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Petréa Mitchell 13:11, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

---

down with ae ligature?

I am all for good fun, but i think it's a case of rather gratuitous pretentiousness to use the ae ligature in medieval (or anything else, really :) ). It's just not a valid letter of the english alphabet, and there is no reason to complicate things with it. comments? --Daniel Folkinshteyn

I always use it when writing or typing, I'm certainly not alone in that, and it's still in use in various contexts (see the Encyclopædia Britannica for example). (I'm not sure that accusing another editor of pretentiousness is quite the Citizendium spirit, but let that pass.) It's not a separate letter, no; as the Wikipedia article has it: "In modern English orthography Æ is not considered an independent letter but a spelling variant, for example: 'encyclopædia' versus 'encyclopaedia' or 'encyclopedia'." --Peter J. King  Talk  18:21, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

i certainly did not intend to be mean with the 'pretentiousness' comment, and i'm sorry if it came out that way. just that whenever i see the ligature i think "why?" :) it's nice that you have no trouble typing it, but i personally would have no clue how to type a ligature, and if i had to edit an article and stick with the ligature for consistency, i'd be stuck with having to copy-paste that thing. sure is easier to just type an "e". i did not say that using the ligature is "wrong" (i looked up the WP entry on it before posting, too ;) ), but it is not required. from the same WP article, the following quote is representative of my thoughts: "In the United States, the problem of the ligature is sidestepped in many cases by use of a simplified spelling with "e"; compare the common modern usage, medieval, with the traditional or obsolescent, mediæval. However, given the long history of such spellings, they are sometimes used to invoke archaism or in literal quotations of historic sources, for words such as encyclopædia or dæmon." First, note the reference to the ligature version of medieval as "traditional or obsolescent". Second, note the bit about "invoking achaism" (which is not "pretentiousness", but certainly is somewhat gratuitous-sounding, at least). I understand that my view may be very US-centric, and that you are not from the US (as i now realize having looked at your user page). So anyway, don't know where i'm going with all this, as i certainly dont care that much one way or the other, and you should feel free to keep doing whatever you are comfortable with, but it seems it would just be "simpler" to eschew the ligature in favor of the "e". [and on a side note - how /do/ you type that thing?] --Daniel Folkinshteyn 19:24, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

æ = æ

also, while we are at it and larry is looking ;), what about the different spelling standards between british and us english (e.g. favour vs favor, analyse vs analyze, etc.). is there an "official" convention for CZ, or do we just helter skelter it? --Daniel Folkinshteyn 19:24, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

I assume that the Wikipedia approach (first contributor sets the style, unless the article is specifically related to a style) applies. As it's impossible for me to write in U.S. English (oh, I can do some of it, though it would slow me down enormously, but I'd not get it all right), I'll continue as I am. I imagine that it's being discussed at the boards (as is my following point).

I'd be interested in the question of contractions, though. Wikipedia sticks to a very out-dated notion of acadmic style, and says that contractions shouldn't be used. Most academic journals and books are happy with them; shouldn't we be too? --Peter J. King  Talk  05:16, 16 March 2007 (CDT)

That lower-case g

This article should be fun.

But I have to say...I have never encountered a discussion of the traditional arguments for the existence of God that did not upper-case 'God'. Is this a case where we can agree to use the upper case, purely on grounds of common usage? --Larry Sanger 18:07, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

Well, the way that the argument works is to argue for the instantiation of a concept, then to declare that that instantiation is a god, and then sometimes to assume, but usually explicitly to argue that there can only be one such being — that it's the god of Christianity. As we discussed at Talk:Philosophy of religion, neither Anselm nor Aquinas capitalised "deus"; I haven't yet had a chance to check the original typography of the early-modern philosophers (Edward Buckner's research tends to indicate that capitalisation had become common by the mid-seventeenth century. All my enquiries among mediævalists and early-modern historians have so far come up blank; they're all fascinated, but none of them actually knows anything about it). As there, I won't battle over it, but my opinion is that the lower case is correct, whatever the current common (and mostly unreflective) usage hapens to be... --Peter J. King  Talk  18:21, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

Whether or not a philosopher writing in Latin capitalized the Latin word for 'God' is irrelevant to the fact that today in English, when philosophers write about these arguments, they almost always use the upper case. (As I confirm for myself as I look through my philosophy of religion books, now finally unpacked. Even George H. Smith, in Atheism: The Case against God--a polemic if ever there was one--uses the capitalized form.) Whether there is some recondite philosophical argument that it is incorrect--because, as you and others say, philosophers, and particularly non-theists, want to say that 'god' is a job description not a proper name--the fact is that the lowercase form in this context is jarring to virtually everybody. It instantly raises a suspicion in many people's minds (regardless of our scholarly explanation): "If these people can't see fit to capitalize the name of my God, they certainly won't do a good job of explaining anything about God." We ought to take such considerations into account, I think: they are part of the constituency of such articles as this and thus the neutrality policy acts as a constraint.

Besides, what we are talking about is, after all, whether 'god' is a proper name (in the sense that philosophers of language use 'proper name': so 'Apollo' isn't a proper name). If an ontological argument establishes the existence of the Christian God or a reasonable facsimile, then we're talking about God, not god--because 'God' then names an individual, according to the conclusion of the argument. In short, nobody argues for the existence of god; they only argue for the existence of God, i.e., something that can be named/denoted.

So...and since you say you won't battle over it...I will go ahead and move the page. --Larry Sanger 19:05, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

I haven't come across the Smith book; do you have the publishing details (is it likely to be in print)? My favourite defence of atheism is Robin Le Podevin's Arguing for Atheism (Routledge, 1996).

I think that your second paragraph is open to rather a lot of argument as to the philosophy of language and the notion of a proper name, but this isn't the place for it. To the best of my knowledge, though, "Apollo" is pretty universally considered to be a proper name, regardless of its lack of reference. --Peter J. King  Talk  05:23, 16 March 2007 (CDT)

It's George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case against God, Prometheus Books. Not that great, it's a popular polemic, but it isn't terrible. I prefer Michael Martin's Atheism: A Philosophical Justification which is much more scholarly and in-depth.

As to the Apollo stuff, I won't embarrass myself any further. --Larry Sanger 09:50, 16 March 2007 (CDT)

Did you notice?

Ontological argument -- shall we delete it? --Larry Sanger 10:34, 18 March 2007 (CDT)

Oh dear, no I didn't notice it — I should have checked before starting this one. It's pretty well just a copy of the Wikipedia article I think, with a little bit of editing. I feel bad about just deleting it, but the person who imported it seems to have disappeared for the moment. Should I leave a mesaage for him? --Peter J. King  Talk  14:48, 18 March 2007 (CDT)

Pari ratione

Hello Peter. I liked this article - the first accurate statement I've read of Anselm's argument i've read for some time. However, is Gaunilo's reply a form of 'argument by analogy'. Isn't it in fact a form of argument 'by equal reasoning'? You say A proves A*. But then the inference from B to B* has the same argument form, thus 'by equal reasoning' (pari ratione) we conclude B*. But clearly that is not valid, for B is true and B* is not. Thus, A cannot prove A*. Edward buckner 10:35, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Nice to see you back. I'm glad that you like the article so far; care to join in?

The overload objections are normally explained in terms of analogy (which is, after all, a form of equal reasoning); I think that mediæval writers made more and finer distinctions than most modern philosophers... --Peter J. King  Talk  13:08, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

I've been pretty busy with the Bonaventura project, Book II Dist 3. I am working on an alternative version to Alexis' translation. It will be published on his website together with the incunabulum version, rendering it into digital Latin. It's a lot of work. On the ontological argument itself, I still don't understand it. Edward buckner 11:09, 11 April 2007 (CDT)

On the Ontological argument, is it 'the' or 'a'. Some people say that it is an argument with a form similar to Anselm's. Others, e.g. the SEP, seem to include any argument for the existence of God, so long as from first principles. If the latter, then the history of ontological arguments does not begin with Anselm (as the SEP assumes) but much earlier. E.g. Aristotle has one in the Metaphysics, book 12, another in the Physics, Plato has one somewhere. Also Leibniz, Berkeley. Augustine has one as well. Where does one stop? Best Edward buckner 11:16, 11 April 2007 (CDT)

It's normally called "the ontological argument", even though everyone acknowledges that there's more than one form (the same goes for the other standard arguments). I'd definitely say that it goes back to Aristotle — in fact I do, in the lead. --Peter J. King  Talk  13:42, 11 April 2007 (CDT)

---

I'm not making myself very clear. The question is whether

(1) an ontological argument is any first-principles argument whatever for the existence of God. Thus ontological argument is genus, of which cosmological argument, Augustine's argument from Truth, Anselm's argument are three different species.

Or (2) 'ontological argument' is reserved specifically for arguments with a logical form close to Anselm's argument, thus 'ontological argument' is species, and 'any old first principles argument for the existence of God', genus.

SEP sticks to the definition (1). It says 'Ontological arguments' are arguments, for the conclusion that God exists, based on reason alone. So also, in my view, does the article here, at least in the intro. However it's clear from the body of the article that the Anselm argument, i.e. definition (2) is intended. Hence you are getting inconsistencies like 'it can be traced, in various forms, back to the work of Aristotle' (but Aristotle's was a cosmological argument) and 'its earliest formulation being found in the Proslogion of the eleventh-century philosopher and theologian Anselm of Canterbury' (hey, but how do you then trace it back to Aristotle).

My instinct is for (2) i.e. that 'ontological argument' is not any old first-principles argument for God, but one that has the distinctive logical features of Anselm's argument. After all, that's how Kant defined it, and he invented the term.

I'm not being quibblesome, the whole form of the article depends on whether we are talking about one species of a family of arguments, or the whole family. I think there should be an uber-article which threads together all the many arguments for existence of God, one of them being about the 'ontological' argument proper. Perhaps with a short sentence or two summarising the issue I've raised here! Edward buckner 08:55, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

Hope that's clearer.

---

Also, to say the argument "was for some time neglected" after Aquinas is somewhat cavalier. Scotus spent many volumes trying to improve on versions of the cosmological argument, thousands of nested syllogisms and subtle distinctions too painful to record. And it was not neglected in the sense of being talked about – Suarez has an excellent summary of the arguments here for example. Descartes may have been the first to introduce a materially new form of the argument, but even then, how do we know? There are whole libraries full of late scholastic philosophy (i.e. 1350-1700), who knows what are in them? Also, other philosophers like Locke and Berkeley had 'ontological' proofs (in the sense of first-principles arguments, rather than Anselmian). There's material for an interesting set of articles here, if only one had time. Edward buckner 08:55, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

I'm not sure about the distinction you're making in your fist point, largely because I take the cosmological argument to be a posteriori in all its forms; it starts either from the observation that the world exists, that it contains contingent or moving or temporally limited things, etc. (I don't know much about Augustine's argument, and none of the books I've looked at mention it; when I've managed to track it down I'll come back to it.)

The reference to Aristotle is something that I've seen claimed in a number of places, and I simply passed it on unquestioningly; it seemed perfectly possible, but perhaps the claim was made on the basis of a confusion of the kind you've mentioned. The apparent contradiction in the text arises from an unclarity: "...in the context of the Abrahamic religions, its earliest formulation being found in the Proslogion of the eleventh-century philosopher and theologian Anselm of Canterbury". The "first formulation" is meant to refer to its first formulation in the context of the Abrahamic religions.

The uberarticle will be either Philosophy of religion or god I think.

I suppose much depends upon whether "neglected" means "ignored by everyone" or "out of the mainstream of philosophical and theoological thought"; I bow to your (vastly) superior knowledge of mediæval writings, though. --Peter J. King  Talk  15:07, 12 April 2007 (CDT)