PHL100Y1 Lecture Notes - Ontological Argument, Pure Mathematics
Document Summary
[1] at long last, the meditator is ready to nd out what can be known! The meditator now knows that he too has a non-deceptive nature and, with due caution, that whatever he clearly and distinctly perceives must be true. The rst turns on the fact that the meditator sees clearly and distinctly that god"s existence is part of god"s essence, or, to put it another way, that part of what it is to be god is to exist. But this isn"t very convincing, because de nitional existence doesn"t tell you anything about real existence; if i de ne a squond" as an existing round square", then what it is to be a squond involves existence. The second proof given here is sometimes known as descartes"s ontological argument : god, by de nition, must contain all perfections; existence is a perfection; therefore, god exists. This is slightly better, but depends on the obscure claim that existence is a perfection.
