Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:42:13.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Existing by Convention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Kenneth G. Ferguson
Kenneth G. Ferguson
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858-4353
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Ever since the Proslogion was first circulated (c. 1077), critics have been bemused by St Anselm's brazen attempt to establish a matter of fact, namely, God's existence, from the simple analysis of a term or concept. Yet every critic who has proposed to ‘write the obituary’ of the Ontological Argument has found it to be remarkably resilient (cf. McGrath, 1990: 212). At the risk of adding to a record of failures, I want to venture a new method for attacking this durable argument. Neither the common version of Anselm's argument from Chapter II of the Proslogion nor the previously unrecognized modal version uncovered by Norman Malcolm from Pros, III (1960: 52) can possibly get under way without Anselm's celebrated assertion that

(1) God is that than which no greater can be conceived.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 185 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abelson, R. (1961). Not necessarily. The Philosophical Review, LXX, 67–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, R. (1971). The logical structure of Anselm's argument. The Philosophical Review, LXXX, 28–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. (1961). The ontological argument. The Philosophical Review, LXX, 56–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
St, Anselm (1974). Proslogion in Anselm of Canterbury, vol. 1, ed. Hopkins, J. and Richardson, H.. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.Google Scholar
Barnes, J. (1972). The Ontological Argument. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Descartes, R. (1983). Meditations on First Philosophy. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Hartshorne, C. (1944). The formal validity and real significance of the ontological argument. The Philosophical Review, LXXX, 225–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartshorne, C. (1961). The logic of the ontological argument. The Journal of Philosophy, LVIII, 471–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartshorne, C. (1962). The Logic of Perfection. LaSalle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Heath, P. (1967). Concept in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 2. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kalish, D. et al. (1980). Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning. San Diego: Harcourt.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1965). Critique of Pure Reason, ed. Smith, Norman Kemp. New York: St Martin's.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1973). Counterfactuals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Malcolm, N. (1960). Anselm's ontological arguments. The Philosophical Review, LXIX, 41–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, J. (1936). A System of Logic. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.Google Scholar
McGrath, P. (1990). The refutation of the ontological argument. The Philosophical Quarterly, XL, 195–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, G. (1899). The nature of judgment. Mind VIII, 176–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plantinga, A. (1961). A valid ontological argument? The Philosophical Review, LXX, 93–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poincaré, H. (1929). The Foundations of Science. New York: The Science Press.Google Scholar
Roth, M. (1970). A note on Anselm's ontological argument. Mind, LXXIX, 270–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seneca, (1971). Natural Questions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
St, Thomas (1963). Summa Theologiae, vol. 2. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Walker, I. (1980). The logical status of ‘God’. Religious Studies, XVI, 217–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weitz, M. (1988). Theories of Concepts. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar