the only easy day was yesterday

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

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....

3 comments:

Liz said...

how come "that than which nothing greater can be thought" the operative word being greater have to refer to god, what i mean is is he assuming that everyone thinks that than which nothing greater can exist sparks the mind to think of god.

Jasper Yate said...

It's not that "That than which nothing greater can be thought" reminds him of God or makes him think 'oh, that would be God', it's that that is what god is, he is proving to the mind with no previous conviction that there is a 'God', so instead of "you know God, well he's that than which nothing greater can exist", it's really:

given the human mind and it's ability to extract and create concepts of good and just and happy we can construct an idea that is the absoluteness of each of those qualities combined, that is, we know happiness so we can extrapolate the possibility of absolute happiness - the same goes for justness, goodness, etc (anything that we consider to be 'good') - thus when we take the ideas of these absolute concepts (absolute happiness, absolute goodness, etc) and combine them into one thing (after all if many separate things are deemed good it follows that together they are better because they are all at once, so to speak) we come to the idea of "that than which nothing greater can be thought", Anselm refers, as the whole of christian culture does, to this wholly perfect and good thing as God. We can see now that God is not identified with the idea of "that than which nothing greater can be thought", but rather that idea is the pretense of understanding what God is; to Anselm God is defined by this statement, and says that he exists solely because of this property.

This is known as an analytic (analytic statements will be a very important part of your philosophic basis of knowledge, and it's a fancy term to whip out in conversation once you get the hang of terms surrounding it that you'll get to soon enough) statement, which is a statement that is true simply by the nature of the subjects meaning, and that the predicate adds no further information to the subject. A simple example being: a bachelor is unmarried. Bachelor being the subject, which directly refers to an unmarried male, and unmarried being the predicate, which merely defines bachelor and adds nothing new to the term and idea of bachelor. Anselm believes that God is known analytically, that he exists purely by definition:

Now that we see that this idea of "that than which nothing greater can be thought" can exist in the understanding - we understand that we can extrapolate the idea of happiness into perfection and do such with every other goodness we know and combine them - Anselm says that God exists analytically, or by definition of this statement. First, we must agree that something in understanding is not as great as something in reality - imagine the perfect weekend, perfect sex, etc, thinking about it is not as good as the reality of it. So, says Anselm, God must exist because "that than which nothing greater can exist" as an idea, which we've accepted as being understood in our minds, has the property of existence because we also understand that existence is greater than something only in the understanding (sex better than thinking about sex); thus "that than which nothing greater can be thought", or God as we like to call it, must exist. Furthermore "that than which nothing greater can be thought" cannot be thought not to exist, because if it is thought not to exist it is then a thought of something that is not "that than which nothing greater can be thought", because that thought, as we've deduced, encompasses the property of existence. The language here is a little bit of a pain in the ass: all he's saying is that when you think of something than which a greater cannot be thought a necessary component of that thought is existence, because once the existence of that thought is doubted it ceases to be the thought of that than which nothing greater can be thought because a greater can be thought, that greater thing being an existing thing.

The ontological argument is an a prioi (pronounced A pry-or-eye, ah pre-or-ee depending on who you talk to, i prefer the former), which means literally 'before experience'. It's a tough concept to get your head around, I struggle with it now and then because many times it seems things depend on experiential factors, but we need to keep trust in those much more intelligent than us. The basic idea is that it's a problem that you can just sit and think about, it requires no experience; this argument involves simply ideas and reason, it rests on that God exists simply by definition of himself, of the idea of "that than which nothing greater can exist". The idea gets clearer when you are exposed to more arguments that utilize a posteriori (or after experience, using experience) arguments, which is the opposing thing to a priori, so to speak. The Cosmological Argument is an a posteriori argument and that's the next thing I'm gonna post about in a while. For maybe a bit better of a definition wikipedia probably defines it more articulately, but it's a concept that requires learning and teaching and experience (ironically) to understand...

Jasper Yate said...

i just came back to this and realized something important, that may have just been a typo sorta thing, but it seems important to note. you said in your question "that than which nothing greater can exist". This creates an annoying sort of metaphysical problem. Anselm consciously and deliberatly used "that than which nothing greater can be thought for his argument becasue it can be applied and proved a priori, and most importantly operates somewhat effectively insidethe human mind. Whereas in the case of the word exist, a word with perhaps the heaviest metaphysical baggage, we are forced to explore what it is that it means to exist, and furthermore to submit our assertion to the discrepancy of whether that than which nothing greater can exist can even been conceived by the human mind - Anselm clevery stears away from real metaphysical issues by making his argument exclusively available to the human mind. i know mincing words seems silly and it was just the word that came to mind, but careful wording is of the utmost importance in philosophy, and especially with the word 'exist'...