Read the posts on 1. Clear and Distinct Ideas and the Cartesian Circle, 2. The Ontological Argument, and then write the following essay:
Assess the Ontological Argument and explain its significance in Descartes' philosophy.
You may choose to mention the Trademark Argument but don't linger on it. You may also mention the Cartesian Circle criticism, which is especially relevant if you are attacking the Ontological Argument by disagreeing with Descartes' account of rational knowledge (clear and distinct ideas). You can't really ignore the Kantian and Humean criticisms.
I would like you to build in some actual quotations from Meditation 5. Also do some research, eg using the on-line encyclopedias of philosophy.
Remember that you are assessing, or evaluating, the argument. You have to give a full account of the argument and of some of the main objections to it...but you must go a step further and assess the criticisms also. Don't automatically agree with criticisms. Reach a conclusion by weighing up the balance of how successful the arguments are on both sides. Think about your conclusion: remember that Descartes claims not only to have proved that God exists but that He exists necessarily.
Deadline: Tuesday 17th November.
Monday 9 November 2009
Tuesday 3 November 2009
The Ontological Argument
You need to read Meditation 5, especially section 7 onwards. Before we begin, remember why it is important for Descartes to prove the existence of God. He needs to be able to trust his clear and distinct ideas in order to show that he has knowledge of things other than his own existence. Only God can guarantee clear and distinct ideas because only God can trump the Evil Demon. Without God, Descartes could be the victim of the demon - even clear and distinct ideas could be tricks. But if Descartes can show that a supremely perfect being exists then he can be sure that he is not being deceived. God could not be a deceiver, so whatever innate ideas and clear and distinct ideas Descartes finds in his mind can be trusted (even if he still cannot fully trust his senses).
The Ontological Argument can be summarised as follows:
a) The idea of God is the idea of a supremely perfect being.
b) Existence is a perfection.
c) Therefore God must exist.
a) depends on the theory of innate ideas; b)and c) depend on the theory of clear and distinct ideas. The idea of God as a supremely perfect being is an innate idea - we are born with the capacity for thinking it. We can clearly and distinctly perceive that existence is built into the idea of a supremely perfect being.
Warning! Don't rush into thinking that Descartes is claiming that thinking of a supremely perfect being makes it true that God exists. Conceiving of a mountain doesn't make the mountain exist, and conceiving of God doesn't make God exist. The point is that just as you cannot conceive of the mountain without a valley, because they cannot occur separately, so you cannot conceive of a God that doesn't exist because God and existence cannot be separated. Descartes perceives this distinctly.
Ah ha! you exclaim - just because the idea of God cannot be separated from the idea of existence, that doesn't prove that God actually exists, that he is real. That's certainly true if you are an empiricist, but if, like Descartes, you believe that certain rational intuitions (ie clear and distinct ideas) can give you a priori truths about reality, then Descartes' argument might still work. So your final response to the Ontological Argument might well depend on your response to the claim that we can have a priori knowledge of reality.
But...aaargh! you scream...Descartes is clearly talking nonsense - anyone can conceive of God not existing. I know what God's attributes are supposed to be - I've got a clear conception of what He would be like if He existed, but he doesn't.
Descartes is not amused, nor impressed. He responds: All the attributes of God entail each other. Omnipotence entails omniscience, for example - only a being who knew everything could be able to do anything. Only a being who existed could be either omniscient or omnipotent. Also, in order to be omnipotent God must not depend on anything else or on anything else existing (including ourselves and our ideas of Him). He must exist Himself all the time, eternally. He cannot come into and go out of existence at any point. We cannot, without contradiction, conceive of a God who doesn't actually exist or who only existed contingently. This means that God exists necessarily (not contingently). He doesn't just happen to exist; he must exist.
Remembering how Thomas Aquinas objected to Anselm's version of the argument, you insist that Descartes' argument is about the concept of God being inseparable from the concept of existence: it doesn't say anything about reality. But, as I said before, that depends on whether you think certain kinds of thought (a priori rational intuitions or clear and distinct ideas) can give us knowledge of reality. If they can, then the concept of God could be one of those a priori intuitions: the thought reflects reality.
We'll come back to that later. Let's try Kant's "existence is not a property" argument. Kant says Descartes is wrong to classify existence as a property or a predicate - that is, as part of the description of God. Saying that God exists doesn't add anything to our understanding of what God is like. To use AJ Ayer's example, being white, having a horn, being horse-like are all properties of a unicorn, part of the description, but not existing is not part of the description. No existential statement is part of the description of an object. We have the description of a unicorn, now whether such a thing exists or doesn't is a different kind of claim: perhaps it does exist, perhaps it doesn't, but either way it is a purely factual question. It is a contingent fact that unicorns don't exist and, if God does exist, that is a contingent fact too. A synthetic rather than an analytic truth. This doesn't prove God's existence one way or another, but it does suggest that Descartes' argument doesn't prove God's existence is a logical necessity.
Hume, a little earlier than Kant, also denies that God's existence is a necessary truth. He argues that all truths are either synthetic (matters of fact, known empirically) or analytic (known by reason but only by virtue of the definitions). If God's existence were a necessary truth it would be analytic and the contrary ("God does not exist")would be self-evidently contradictory (as is "My bachelor friend is a married man"), but it isn't, anymore than "Unicorns exist" is contradictory. According to Hume, no existential statements are ever self-evidently contradictory, even if they are obviously untrue.
But Descartes would not accept Hume's starting point about all truths being either analytic a priori or synthetic a posteriori. Descartes could argue that not all rational intuitions are analytic - in other words there can be synthetic a priori truths. we can know things about reality by thought alone. In this case, "God does not exist" might not be self-contradictory, but it is incoherent. It cannot make sense, given our clear and distinct perception that the idea of God entails His existence.
So, as I suggested earlier, it all boils down to whether you can accept Descartes' rationalist theory of clear and distinct ideas giving us knowledge of reality.
The Ontological Argument can be summarised as follows:
a) The idea of God is the idea of a supremely perfect being.
b) Existence is a perfection.
c) Therefore God must exist.
a) depends on the theory of innate ideas; b)and c) depend on the theory of clear and distinct ideas. The idea of God as a supremely perfect being is an innate idea - we are born with the capacity for thinking it. We can clearly and distinctly perceive that existence is built into the idea of a supremely perfect being.
Warning! Don't rush into thinking that Descartes is claiming that thinking of a supremely perfect being makes it true that God exists. Conceiving of a mountain doesn't make the mountain exist, and conceiving of God doesn't make God exist. The point is that just as you cannot conceive of the mountain without a valley, because they cannot occur separately, so you cannot conceive of a God that doesn't exist because God and existence cannot be separated. Descartes perceives this distinctly.
Ah ha! you exclaim - just because the idea of God cannot be separated from the idea of existence, that doesn't prove that God actually exists, that he is real. That's certainly true if you are an empiricist, but if, like Descartes, you believe that certain rational intuitions (ie clear and distinct ideas) can give you a priori truths about reality, then Descartes' argument might still work. So your final response to the Ontological Argument might well depend on your response to the claim that we can have a priori knowledge of reality.
But...aaargh! you scream...Descartes is clearly talking nonsense - anyone can conceive of God not existing. I know what God's attributes are supposed to be - I've got a clear conception of what He would be like if He existed, but he doesn't.
Descartes is not amused, nor impressed. He responds: All the attributes of God entail each other. Omnipotence entails omniscience, for example - only a being who knew everything could be able to do anything. Only a being who existed could be either omniscient or omnipotent. Also, in order to be omnipotent God must not depend on anything else or on anything else existing (including ourselves and our ideas of Him). He must exist Himself all the time, eternally. He cannot come into and go out of existence at any point. We cannot, without contradiction, conceive of a God who doesn't actually exist or who only existed contingently. This means that God exists necessarily (not contingently). He doesn't just happen to exist; he must exist.
Remembering how Thomas Aquinas objected to Anselm's version of the argument, you insist that Descartes' argument is about the concept of God being inseparable from the concept of existence: it doesn't say anything about reality. But, as I said before, that depends on whether you think certain kinds of thought (a priori rational intuitions or clear and distinct ideas) can give us knowledge of reality. If they can, then the concept of God could be one of those a priori intuitions: the thought reflects reality.
We'll come back to that later. Let's try Kant's "existence is not a property" argument. Kant says Descartes is wrong to classify existence as a property or a predicate - that is, as part of the description of God. Saying that God exists doesn't add anything to our understanding of what God is like. To use AJ Ayer's example, being white, having a horn, being horse-like are all properties of a unicorn, part of the description, but not existing is not part of the description. No existential statement is part of the description of an object. We have the description of a unicorn, now whether such a thing exists or doesn't is a different kind of claim: perhaps it does exist, perhaps it doesn't, but either way it is a purely factual question. It is a contingent fact that unicorns don't exist and, if God does exist, that is a contingent fact too. A synthetic rather than an analytic truth. This doesn't prove God's existence one way or another, but it does suggest that Descartes' argument doesn't prove God's existence is a logical necessity.
Hume, a little earlier than Kant, also denies that God's existence is a necessary truth. He argues that all truths are either synthetic (matters of fact, known empirically) or analytic (known by reason but only by virtue of the definitions). If God's existence were a necessary truth it would be analytic and the contrary ("God does not exist")would be self-evidently contradictory (as is "My bachelor friend is a married man"), but it isn't, anymore than "Unicorns exist" is contradictory. According to Hume, no existential statements are ever self-evidently contradictory, even if they are obviously untrue.
But Descartes would not accept Hume's starting point about all truths being either analytic a priori or synthetic a posteriori. Descartes could argue that not all rational intuitions are analytic - in other words there can be synthetic a priori truths. we can know things about reality by thought alone. In this case, "God does not exist" might not be self-contradictory, but it is incoherent. It cannot make sense, given our clear and distinct perception that the idea of God entails His existence.
So, as I suggested earlier, it all boils down to whether you can accept Descartes' rationalist theory of clear and distinct ideas giving us knowledge of reality.
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