Maverick Philosopher

An Ontological Disproof of God

Nothing could count as God that did not have the property of aseity, or in plain Anglo-Saxon, from-itself-ness. The concept of God is the concept of something that by its very nature cannot be dependent on anything else for its nature or existence, and this holds whether or not anything in reality instantiates the concept. This is equivalent to the assertion that God exists necessarily if he exists at all. But if everything that exists exists contingently, as philosophers of an empiricist bent are likely to maintain, then we have the makings of an ontological disproof of God. In a 1948 Mind article, J. N. Findlay gave essentially the following argument:

a. God cannot be thought of as existing contingently.
b. Everything that exists can only be thought of as existing contingently.
Therefore
c. God does not exist.

This ontological disproof of God turns Anselm on his head while retaining the Anselmian insight that God is “that than which no greater can be conceived.” Precisely because God is maximally great, supremely perfect, id quo maius cogitari non nequit, he cannot exist. For if everything that exists exists contingently, then nothing exists necessarily. Necessary existence, however, is a divine perfection. Ergo, God does not exist.

The trouble with Findlay’s 1948 argument, an argument which the older and wiser Findlay renounced, is that premise (b) is by no means obviously true, even if we replace ‘everything’ with ‘every concrete thing.’ Indeed, I believe that (b) is demonstrably false. But the argument for this belongs elsewhere.

Again on the Ontological Argument for Truth

I gave the following argument:

We have the concept true proposition. This concept is either instantiated, or it is not. If it is not instantiated, then it is true that it is not instantiated, which implies that the concept true proposition is instantiated. If, on the other hand, the concept in question is instantiated, then of course it is instantiated. Therefore, necessarily, the concept true proposition is instantiated, and there necessarily exists at least one truth, namely, the truth that the concept true proposition is instantiated.

A reader asks: Does not your argument presuppose that "to be instantiated" means "to exist extra-mentally"? What if someone believed that esse est percipi? If your argument was based on the aforementioned  assumption, then would not it beg the question because it presupposes what needs to be demonstrated?

Let us first note that it cannot be coherently maintained that to be is to be perceived without qualification.  To be perceived is to be perceived by someone or something.  For Bishop Berkeley, the someone in question is God whose being is precisely not identical to his being perceived.  The slogan therefore does not apply to God.  If absolutely everything were such that its being were its being perceived, then a vicious infinite regress would arise.  To put it figuratively, the world cannot be mere percepts 'all the way down.'  You have to come eventually to something whose being is in excess of its being perceived.

Perhaps what the reader is getting at is that any true proposition that instantiates the concept true proposition is  true only for a mind, and not true absolutely.  But this too leads to an infinite regress which appears to be vicious.  For consider the proposition *Every truth is true-for some mind or other; no truth is true absolutely.*  Call this proposition 'P.'  Is P true?  No, it is true-for some mind or other.  Call that proposition P*.  Is it true? No, it is true-for some mind or other.  An infinite regress arises, and it appears to be vicious.

An Ontological Argument for Truth and the Correspondence Theory

A Pakistani correspondent e-mails:

Regarding your recent post An Ontological Argument for Objective Reality, do you think your argument demonstrates that the correspondence theory of truth is inherent to our notion of objective reality, because we cannot meaningfully, without contradiction, even talk about truth in the absence of objective reality? If so, your argument also settles the case in favor of correspondence theory of truth.

Excellent question.  I define 'ontological argument' in the earlier post, and note that 'ontological argument' and 'ontological argument for the existence of God' are not to be confused.  Here is an ontological argument for the existence of at least one truth:

We have  the concept true proposition. This concept is either instantiated, or it is not. If it is not instantiated, then it is true that it is not instantiated, which implies that the concept true proposition is  instantiated. If, on the other hand, the concept in question is instantiated, then of course it is instantiated. Therefore, necessarily, the concept true proposition is instantiated, and there necessarily exists at least one truth, namely, the truth that the concept true proposition is instantiated.

This is a sound ontological argument for the existence of at least one truth using only the concept true proposition, the law of excluded middle, and the unproblematic principle that, for any proposition p, p entails that p is true. By 'proposition' here I simply mean whatever can be appropriately characterized as either true or false. That there are propositions in this innocuous sense cannot be reasonably denied.

Does it follow that the correspondence theory of truth is true?  I don't think so.  What the above argument shows is that there are truths.  A truth is a true proposition, or, more generally, a true truth-bearer.  But a truth-bearer is not the same as a truth-maker.  A correspondence theory of truth, however, requires truth-makers.  And so there is a logical gap between

1. There are truths

and

2. There are truth-makers of these truths.

My ontological argument establishes (1).  It establishes the existence, indeed the necessity, of at least one truth 'outside the mind.'  But truths outside the mind might just be true Fregean propositions.  Such items are truth-bearers but not truth-makers.  So (2) does not straightaway follow from (1).

To get to (2), we need to introduce a truth-maker principle as supplementary premise. Discussions of truth-maker principles can be found in the Truth category.

An Ontological Argument for Objective Reality

The proprietor of Beyond Necessity has a post on objective reality which is directed against some New Age mumbo-jumbo.  One of the commenters remarks, "Your argument for the existence of objective reality sounds very much like the ontological argument for God, and about as plausible."  Ed, the proprietor, responds, ". . . the argument in no way resembles the logical form of the ontological argument."

What I will now do is present a sound ontological argument for objective reality.  In so doing I will show that both proprietor and commenter are wrong. The latter because the argument is plausible; the former because it is ontological in form.

Definition.  An ontological argument from mere concepts (aus lauter Begriffen, in Kant's famous phrase) is a ratiocinative procedure whereby the being instantiated  of a concept is proven by sheer analysis of the concept.  It is thus an argument in which one attempts to infer the existence of X from the concept X.  For example, the existence of God from the concept God; the existence of a golden mountain from the concept golden mountain; the existence of objective reality from the concept objective reality. Concepts are mental items by definition.  So a sound ontological argument will take us from thought to (extramental) being, in a manner to please Parmenides.

To mention a concept I use italics.  Thus a word in italics refers to a concept. 

1. We have and understand the concept the (total) way things are. It doesn't matter how we acquired this concept.  We have it and we understand it.  The way things are includes every fact, every obtaining state of affairs.  So the way things are is equivalent to the world in Wittgenstein's sense: "Die Welt ist die Gesamtheit der Tatsachen, nicht der Dinge."  (Tractatus 1.1) It is also equivalent to objective reality.

2. Now let us entertain the possibility that nothing answers to the concept the way things are, that the concept is not instantiated.  We are thus to entertain the possibility that there is the concept in our minds but nothing to which it applies.  We can formulate this possibility using the proposition *There is no objective reality.*  Call this proposition P.

3. Could P be true?  If P is true, then P is true in objective reality: that is just what 'true' means.  So if P is true, then it is true in objective reality that there is no objective reality.  This is a contradiction.  So we must conclude that If P is true, then P is false.  And if P is false, then of course P is false.  So, necessarily, P is false, which implies that its negation is not only true but necessarily true: it is necessarily true that there is objective reality. So by sheer analysis of the concept objective reality one can validly infer that there is objective reality.  Here then is a case in which an ontological argument from mere concepts is sound.

4.  Have I pulled a fast one?  Not as far as I can see.  I have merely analyzed the concept objective reality, teasing out an implication of the claim that the concept is not instantiated. 

5. Response to the commenter.  The commenter is right to appreciate that the above sort of reasoning is ontological and thus similar to the God proof found in Descartes' Meditation V and criticized famously by Kant.  He is wrong, however, to think that the former reasoning is cogent if and only if the latter is.

6. Response to the proprietor.  The proprietor is right, as against the commenter, when it comes to the cogency of the above sort of reasoning.  But the commenter is wrong to fail to see that it is ontological reasoning in a clear sense of that term.  It is a priori reasoning from thought to being, from concept to existence.

Companion post: Four Kinds of Ontological Argument 

Nota Notae Est Nota Rei Ipsius and the Ontological Argument

(By popular demand, I repost the following old Powerblogs entry.)

"The mark of a mark is a mark of the thing itself." I found this piece of scholasticism in C. S. Peirce. (Justus Buchler, ed., Philosophical Writings of Peirce, p. 133) It is an example of what Peirce calls a   'leading principle.'

Let's say you have an enthymeme:

   Enoch was a man
   -----
   Enoch died.

Invalid as it stands, this argument can be made valid by adding a premise. (Any invalid argument can be made valid by adding a premise.) Add 'All men die' and the argument comes out valid. Peirce writes:

     The leading principle of this is nota notae est nota rei ipsius.
     Stating this as a premiss, we have the argument,

     Nota notae est nota rei ipsius
     Mortality is a mark of humanity, which is a mark of Enoch
     -----
     Mortality is a mark of Enoch.

But is it true that the mark of a mark is a mark of the thing itself? There is no doubt that mortality is a mark of humanity in the following sense: The concept humanity includes within its conceptual content the superordinate concept mortal, which implies that, necessarily, if anything is human, then it is mortal. But mortality is not a mark, but a property, of Enoch. I am alluding to Frege's distinction between a Merkmal and an Eigenschaft. Frege explains this distinction in various places, one being The Foundations of Arithmetic, sec. 53. But rather than quote Frege, I'll explain the distinction in my own way using a totally original example.

Consider the concept bachelor. This is a first-order or first-level concept in that the items that fall under it are not concepts but objects. The marks of a first-order concept are properties of the objects that fall under the concept. Now the marks of bachelor are unmarried, male, adult, and not a member of a religious order. These marks are themselves concepts, concepts one can extract from bachelor by analysis. Given that Tom falls under bachelor, he has these marks as properties. Thus unmarried, etc. are not marks of Tom, but properties of Tom, while unmarried, etc. are not properties of bachelor but marks of bachelor.

To appreciate the Merkmal (mark)-Eigenschaft (property) distinction, note that the relation between a concept and its marks is entirely different from the relation between a concept and its instances. A first-order concept includes its marks without instantiating them, while an object instantiates its properties without including them.

This is a very plausible line to take. It makes no sense to say of a concept that it is married or unmarried, so unmarried cannot be a property of the concept bachelor. Concepts don't get married or remain single. But it does make sense to say that a concept includes certain other concepts, its marks. On the other hand, it makes no sense to say of Tom that he includes certain concepts since he could do such a thing only if he were a concept, which he isn't. But it does make sense to say of Tom that he has such properties as being a bachelor, being unmarried, being an adult, etc.

Reverting to Peirce's example, mortality is a mark of humanity, but not a mark of Enoch. It is a property of Enoch. For this reason the scholastic formula is false. Nota notae NON est nota rei ipsius. The mark of a mark is not a mark of the thing itself but a property of the thing itself.

No doubt commenter Edward the Nominalist will want to wrangle with me over this slight to his scholastic lore, and I hope he does, since his objections will aid and abet our descent into the labyrinth of this fascinating cluster of problems. But for now, two quick applications.

One is to the ontological argument, or rather to the ontological argument aus lauter Begriffen as Kant describes it, the ontological argument "from mere concepts." So we start with the concept of God and analyze it. God is omniscient, etc. But 'surely' existence is also contained in the concept of God. For a God who did not exist would lack a perfection, a great-making property; such a God would not be id quo maius cogitari non posse. He would not be that than which no greater can be conceived. To conceive God, then, is to conceive an existing God, whence it follows that God exists! For if you are conceiving a nonexistent God, then you are not conceiving God.

Frege refutes this version of the OA -- not the only or best version I hasten to add -- in one sentence: Weil Existenz Eigenschaft des Begriffes ist, erreicht der ontologische Beweis von der Existenz Gottes sein Ziel nicht. (Grundlagen der Arithmetik, sec. 53)  "Because existence is a property of concepts, the ontological argument for the existence of God fails to attain its goal." What Frege is saying is that the OA "from mere concepts" rests on the mistake of thinking of existence as a mark of concepts as opposed to a property of concepts.  No concept for Frege is such that existence is included within it. Existence is rather a property of concepts, the property of having an instance.

The other application of my rejection of the scholastic formula above is to the logical question of the correct interpretation of singular propositions. The scholastics treat singulars as if they are generals as I explained fully in previous posts. But if Frege is right, this is a grave logical error since it rides roughshod over the mark/property distinction. To drag this all into the full light of day will take many more posts.

Does God Exist Because He Ought to Exist?

Steven, Peter, et al.:  This paper has been languishing  on my hard drive for some time.  Comments appreciated. 

Abstract.  Modal ontological arguments for the existence of God require a possibility premise to the effect that a maximally perfect being is possible. Admitting the possibility of such a being may appear to be a minimal concession, but it is not given that the admission, together with the uncontroversial premise that a necessary being is one whose possibility entails its actuality, straightaway entails the actual existence of a maximally perfect being. The suspicion thus arises that the modal ontological argument begs the question at its possibility premise. So various philosophers, including J. N. Findlay, A.C. Ewing, John Leslie and Carl Kordig have attempted to support the possibility premise by broadly deontic considerations concerning what ought-to-be, where this ought-to-be subsists independently of the powers of any agent. The basic idea is that God, conceived as a maximally perfect being, is possible because (i) he ought to exist, and (ii) whatever ought to exist is possible. The basic idea is that the non-agential oughtness or axiological requiredness of the divine existence certifies the possibility and in turn the actuality of the divine existence. The overall argument could be described as a broadly deontic God proof along modal ontological lines. This article sets forth and defends the argument before explaining why it is not ultimately compelling.

God: Necessary or Noncontingent?

Many theists in the tradition of Anselm and Aquinas define God as a necessary being.  But if God is a necessary being, then he cannot not exist: he exists in all broadly-logically possible worlds.  The actual world is of course one of these worlds.  So it would seem to follow from the very definition of God favored by Anselmians that God exists.  But surely the existence of God cannot be fallout from a mere definition!

I have hammered the Objectivists (Randians) for their terminological mischief as when they rig up 'existence' in such a way that the nonexistence of the supernatural is achieved by terminological fiat.  So doesn't fairness demand that I hammer the Anselmians equally?  (This is one way of attaching sense to Nietzsche's notion of philosophizing with a hammer, although it is not what he had in mind.)

The trouble with defining God as a necessary being is that 'necessary being' conflates modal status and existence.  For any item we ought to distinguish its modal status (whether necessary, impossible, or contingent) from its existence or nonexistence.

The concept of God as "that than which no greater can be conceived" is the concept of a being that exists in every possible world if it exists in any world.  But from this one cannot validly infer that God exists.  For it might be (it is epistemically possible that) God exists in no world, in which  case he would be impossible.  God is either necessary or impossible: that was Anselm's great insight.  He cannot be a contingent being.

If we want one word to express this disjunctive property of being either necessary or impossible, that word is 'noncontingent.'  So we should not say that God is a necessary being.  We should say that he is a noncontingent being.

Companion post:  Necessary, Contingent, Impossible: A Note on Nicolai Hartmann

Pavel Tichý on Descartes' Meditation Five Ontological Argument

This post is the fourth in a series on Pavel Tichý's "Existence and God" (J. Phil., August 1979, 403-420). In section II we find a critique of Descartes' Meditation Five ontological argument. Tichý claims to spot two fallacies in the argument. I will argue that only one of them is a genuine fallacy. One could present the Cartesian argument in Tichý's jargon as follows:

1. The requisites of the divine office include all perfections.
2. Existence is a perfection.
Therefore
3. The divine office is occupied.

Four Kinds of Ontological Argument

The essence of ontological argumentation is the inferential move from the concept/essence of F to the existence/nonexistence of F. We are all familiar with ontological arguments for the existence of God. They have been a staple of philosophy of religion discussions from Anselm to Plantinga. But there is nothing in the nature of ontological argumentation to require that God be the subject matter, or that the argument conclude to the existence of something. There are nontheistic ontological arguments as well as ontological disproofs. Thus there are four possible combinations.