The Ontological Argument "Chapter 2" Explained

No questions helps me not with expanding on the important parts of this argument that may be of particular issue to people, so I'll get to a general explanation and hope that people ask questions, because I know if people read what I posted there's a very very little chance they understood it out of the gates, philosophy isn't like that. So if you read that and said oh, okay I get it he's right it's not a very complicated argument, you probably don't get it at all, it requires explanation from someone of far more expertise than myself, but I'll do my best. Bottom line is that philosophy just can't be read and understood you need to be taught and it needs to be explained and analyzed and whatnot, although it's already getting easier for me; I think it's just a way of reading and picking out what means what and for some part being a genious (I'm generally not too good at that part). Another thing; in reading phiosophy and understanding philosophy it is important to humor your author, if he says "let us believe" or "it follows", then you are to believe it follows even if your brain is screaming NO at you for two reasons. One, you need to be in his mindset to understand his argument and you won't get anything if you're just trying to be a smart ass and figure out how he's wrong - especially becasue we're all so narcissistic that in the process we will be trying to prove ourselves right. Secondly is that either someone's already thought of why it's wrong and put it better than you ever could and you'll get to that later (as we will with this argument), or the author, as he is a world famous philosopher, is just smarter than you and has already accounted for the error you see and is far beyond it; that tends to be the case. So humor the good Saint here...

So The Ontological Argument...

Alright so it's very nice the way this reader is set up we have nifty little chapters and really a nice concise load of shit from our new buddy San Anselmo...

At first in his little introduction he, in my opinion, admits that he's being biased and unintelligent. He does so by implying his pre-existing faith and his want for an intellectual justification such that proves he is right. I think this is bullshit, and I suggest you think the same, that is unless you can contrive some incredible reason for how he can believe something is true and then decide to argue for any such a thing (hint: you can't do that in philosophy because then it's not philosophy it's litigation).

"Chapter 2"
I like that he writes half of this as if it's a shakespearean soliloquy directed at God...I actually don't I find it really annoying and in support of him being an absolute hipocrite and moron for the previously stated reasons. But after his akwardly affectionate monologue with God he gets to the good stuff: we are now to define God, as we believe him to be, "that than which nothing greater can be thought." The wording is really the only obstacle here; by that than which nothing greater can be thought Anselm means exactly that:: That one thing that is the amalgamation of everything we know to be good, just, happy, etc, that nothing greater can be thought of. The end definition, which he comes to later, is pretty concretely; if we take what we know to be good and just and happy and cultivate those great things in our mind so that they are at their pinacle, the idea created is necessarily that than which nothing greater can be thought, because what can be greater than the ultimate and absolute combination of good, justness, hapiness, etc? So that's not bad, God is that than which nothing greater can be thought.

Next he moves on to how God must exist through the understanding of this statement. He goes about this by bringing in the 'fool', who is of course the man who does not believe. The fool has said that "there is no God" but Anselm thinks that this is a contradiction if the fool has in his understanding the statement "that than which nothing greater can be thought." Anselms argument here is by analogy, he says that when a painter has a blank canvas is going to paint a painting he has the understanding of the painting in his mind, but does not yet understand that it exists in reality yet because he has not painted it. On the same note, says Anslem, a man can understand something, such as the statement "that than which nothing greater can be thought", and not have it in his understanding that it exists; we are lead here to believe that the fool does have this statement in his understanding. All Anselm's saying here is that if a painter can understand his painting before he paints it, he has it in his understanding and does not necissarily have the understanding that it exists; we can have something in our understanding regardless of the existence of that thing. Except, of course, God.

I'm spacing this to make it seem a little lesscluttered and overwhelming... So now we can say that the fool has the understanding of "that than which nothing greater can be thought", though he does not yet understand that it exists. Anselm says that it necissarily exists if it can exist in the understanding, and he proves this really just by a sophism::: If "that than which nothing greater can be thought" exists in the understanding of a man, then it necessarily exists. This is because it cannot exist only in the understanding of a man because existence is a trait far greater than non-existence (which God would be were he only in the understanding of men), and thus if "that than which nothing greater can be thought" does not exist in reality and only in understanding then something existent can be thought to be better and "that than which nothing greater can be thought" becomes "that than which a greater can be thought". This is a contradiction and thus proves that if "that than which nothing greater can be thought" must exist in reality if it exists in the understanding of man.

Okay I wrote a lot so I'm gonna leave the other two things til I know whoever is reading this understands this cuz if I move to fast people will get lost....