PHIL 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Ontological Argument, Logical Truth
4 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
History of Modern Philosophy
4.25.18 Lecture Notes – Kat, O Otological ad Cosological Arguets for God’s
Existence
Thee ae ol thee kids of poof fo the eistee of God possile fo speulatie easo.
- Physico-theological – from determinate experience, and extrapolate beyond the means
of laws of causality
- Cosmological – empirically grounded on an experience that is only indeterminate on
some existence
- Ontological – abstract from all experience and infer the existence of a highest cause a
priori from concepts
Impossibility of the Ontological Proof
- God being, by definition, an absolutely necessary being
- Kant rejects this, says this is not enough to prove whether a concept of a God is
eessa o just othig at all
- To say God does not exist is contradictory, but to cancel out God and the quality of
existence is not contradictory
- There is no contradiction if both the subject and predicate is canceled
- Beig is ot a eal pediate – it’s ot a ualit that ill add oto a concept of a thing
Impossibility of the Cosmological Proof
- If something exists, then an absolutely necessary being also has to exist
- Proof starts from experience, is not a priori
Lecture:
- Descartes used pure reason to build a new system to establish the foundations for his
physics
- Kant is looking at the preconditions of the ontological argument – is it even possible to
give an argument like this?
o More broadly, are ontological arguments possible at all?
o Transcendental approach
- Not so much a refutation of Descartes, but arguing that the argumentative method that
Descartes uses is not really possible
- Three different types of proofs for the existence of God on the basis on speculative
reason (metaphysics)
o Physico-theological – most empirically based, argument from design
▪ Looking at nature and all these things that make our environment what it
is, everything fits so well, our human design is so well designed
▪ Conclude on this basis that there must be some kind of creator
o Cosmological – start with necessary being and infer all the other unbounded
attributes of this being
o Ontological – God is perfect, existence is a type of perfection, so God must exist
▪ Concept of God includes perfection, and concept of perfection includes
existence
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Document Summary
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