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Philosophy ↗︎
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AO1: Anselm’s ontological argument

Anselm’s ontological argument involves a purely a priori analysis of the concept of God
It’s intended to be deductive, so that the conclusion follows from the premises with necessity.
Anselm illustrates: a painter has an idea in their mind before painting it in reality.
This distinguishes existing in the mind verses existing both in reality.
He then points to Psalm 14:1 “the fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God’.”
Atheists who reject belief in God must have an idea of God in their mind.
In Proslogion 2, Anselm argues:
P1. God is the greatest conceivable being (by definition)
P2. It is greater to exist in reality than the mind alone
P3. God exists in the mind
C1. Therefore, God exists in reality
God cannot exist in the mind alone. That would be incoherent, since then we could conceive of something greater: God also existing in reality.
Anselm develops the reasoning In Proslogion chapter 3:
P1. A necessary being whose nonexistence is impossible is greater than a contingent being whose nonexistence is possible.
C1. Therefore, God (as the greatest conceivable being), necessarily exists.
Malcolm interprets Anselm’s term ‘greater’ as referring to degrees of limitation, such as dependence on other things for existence.
God must be unlimited, without any of the contingencies of ordinary beings that make their non-existence possible.
So, a being greater than which none may be conceived is one whose nonexistence is impossible.
In his replies to critics, Anselm concludes that if such a being is logically possible, then it must exist.

AO2: Gaunilo’s ‘lost island’ objection

Gaunilo’s ‘reductio ad absurdem’ critique argues absurdity results if we apply Anselm’s logic to another case: the greatest possible island.
Following P2, if it’s greater to exist, then this island must exist.
This would work for the greatest possible version of anything, absurdly implying reality would be ‘overloaded’ with greatest versions of every possible thing.
Gaunilo is denying that the conclusion of God’s existence follows from the premises, so he is denying deductive validity.

Counter

However, Anselm replies that his argument is only intended to work in the case of God.
Descartes develops this line of thought by arguing that God’s essence includes necessary existence, whereas contingent beings like islands do not.
An island is contingent by definition (land enclosed by water), so its existence depends on water.
Therefore, like all things we observe, no matter how great or perfect an island is, it will still be contingent.

Evaluation

This reply defeats Gaunilo because a priori reasoning can only demonstrate existence of a necessary being.
A priori reasoning solely involves the analysis of the definition of concepts.
The definition of contingent beings is that their existence depends on something else.
The existence-conditions of contingent beings are therefore separate to their definition.
So, a priori reasoning cannot determine the existence of contingent things.
E.g.:
I can know a priori that a perfect island depends on water to exist, but not whether that water does exist.
So I can’t know a priori whether a perfect island, or any other contingent thing, exists.
For necessary beings, by contrast, there is no supra-definitional existence requirement.
The ontological argument therefore works exclusively in the case of the greatest conceivable being.
So, there’s a relevant difference between God and contingent things like Islands which explains why the logic works exclusively for God.
Its logic cannot be tested where it doesn’t belong, through reference to contingent beings.

AO2: Gaunilo’s critique that God is beyond our understanding

Gaunilo objects to P3, the claim that God is in our mind/understanding.
He invokes the classical notion that God is beyond our understanding.
In that case, Anselm can’t go on to conclude that God being the greatest being requires that he is not just in our understanding, but also in reality.

Response:

Anselm replies with an analogy: just because we cannot look directly at the sun, doesn’t mean we can’t see by sunlight.
Similarly, just because we can’t understand what God is, doesn’t mean we can’t understand that whatever God is, God is the greatest conceivable being.
We can understand that in a hierarchy, like greatness, there must be a highest point or ‘intrinsic maximum’, to use Plantinga’s modern term.
That’s all we need to understand for Anselm’s argument to work.
When we combine that with the premises that it is greater to exist, we can then deduce the conclusion that the greatest conceivable being exists.
We don’t need to understand what a maximally great being actually is, only that whatever it is, it is the pinnacle of the greatness hierarchy.

Evaluation:

Firstly, Gaunilo’s critique doesn’t work against Anselm’s 2nd form of his argument, which doesn’t rely on a premise about God existing in the mind.
Secondly, Gaunilo misunderstands P3 and commits a straw man fallacy, attacking a claim Anselm didn’t make.
In P3, Anselm uses ‘in intellectu’, meaning ‘can be conceived or thought about’, not ‘fully understood’.
Anselm didn’t mean God is in the mind in the sense of us having full knowledge of God’s substantive nature.
He just meant that we understand something proper to the form of God; that God is maximally great.
So, Anselm’s defence works because knowing God to be the greatest being, and knowing what it is to be the greatest being, are two distinct things.

AO2: Kant’s 2nd critique: existence is not a predicate

The ontological argument claims that denying God’s existence is an incoherent denial of what God is (a maximally great/perfect being).
Kant responds that this misunderstands what existence is by treating it like a predicate (a description of what a thing is).
He illustrates: there’s no conceptual difference between 100 coins in reality versus only in the mind.
If existence were a predicate, it would describe a quality of the real coins.
They would then have more qualities and thus be conceptually different to the mental coins.
But, they are not: 100 coins is just 100 coins, defined by the predicates of 100, round, shiny, etc.
So, existence is not a predicate.
This attacks the premise that existing is greater or more perfect.
If existence is not part of what God is, we can deny God’s existence without incoherently contradicting what God is.

Response:

However, Descartes’ epistemology doesn’t rely on Anselmian scholastic attribution of predicates to subjects, but on intuition.
We rationally appreciate that God is inseparable from existence, just as a triangle is inseparable from three sides.
So Kant’s criticism fails to target Descartes’ formulation.
Malcolm also defends Anselm:
Kant is correct, but only about contingent existence.
The reason for the existence of a contingent thing is dependence on something else, so is external and not a defining part of it.
However a necessary being contains the reason for its existence within itself.
So, necessary existence is a defining quality of a thing, in a way contingent existence is not.
So necessary existence is a predicate.

Evaluation:

So, both Anselm and Descartes’ approaches succeed against Kant’s criticism.
Kant makes the same mistake as Gaunilo, thinking an argument for a necessary being could be undermined by showing it fails when applied to contingent things like coins.

AO2: Kant’s 1st critique: necessity doesn’t imply existence

Gaunilo criticised the conflation of necessity in mental judgement with necessity in reality.
The Island (and Kant’s 100 coins) misapplied this to contingent things.
Kant’s first critique refines Gaunilo’s underlying point by applying it to necessity itself:
A triangle necessarily has three sides.
This proves that if a triangle exists, then it necessarily has three sides.
Similarly, God is defined as necessarily existing.
But again, this only shows that if God exists, then God exists necessarily.
So here Kant grants that necessary existence can be predicated of God, but denies this establishes God’s actual existence.
If God exists, it’s contradictory to deny God’s necessity.
But if God does not exist, then neither does God’s necessity.

Counter:

Malcolm responds that Kant’s criticism is incoherent because a necessary being must exist.
If God is a necessary being, then God must exist.

Evaluation

However, Hick uses modern distinctions between types of necessity to counter Malcolm.
Anselm & Malcolm claim a maximally great/unlimited being cannot have contingent dependencies.
They then treat non-contingency as entailing logical necessity.
Hick objects that non-contingency only means that God is defined as a non-dependent, eternal, self-explaining being (aseity), which Hick calls ‘ontologically necessary’.
This does not entail that such a being must exist, but only how it would exist if it did.
Its existence is not logically required but would be a metaphysical ‘sheer fact’ (Hick).
So, the ontological argument cannot establish the incoherence of God’s non-existence.
It at most proves that if God exists, then God exists in a metaphysically special way (with aseity).
Gaunilo and Kant’s point that conceptual necessity doesn’t entail actual existence was right, but needed these newer distinctions between types of necessity to make clear why.

Conclusion: if using AO2Paragraph 4 – ontological argument fails. If not using Paragraph 4, the ontological argument succeeds.

Note: if a Q is on Gaunilo, you can only use Kant’s critique that develops Gaunilo

If a Q is on Kant, you can only use Gaunilo’s lost island critique – since Kant’s critique developed that.

Question preparation

Revision paragraphs:

AO1: Anselm’s ontological argument
AO2: Gaunilo’s ‘lost island’ objection
AO2: Gaunilo’s critique that God is beyond our understanding
AO2: Kant’s 2nd critique: existence is not a predicate
AO2: Kant’s 1st critique: necessity doesn’t imply existence

Question types:

Question can focus on any of the following:

Anselm (a priori argument based on reason)
Gaunilo
Kant

Can God’s existence be proven a priori? [40]

AO1: Anselm’s ontological argument
AO2: Gaunilo’s ‘lost island’ objection
AO2: Kant’s 2nd critique: existence is not a predicate
AO2: Kant’s 1st critique: necessity doesn’t imply existence

Questions focused on Gaunilo:

Short explanation of Anselm’s argument (AO1 is focused on Gaunilo)
AO2: Gaunilo’s ‘lost island’ objection
AO2: Gaunilo’s critique that God is beyond our understanding
AO2: Kant’s 1st critique: necessity doesn’t imply existence
- Kant can work so long as the relevance to Gaunilo is brought out:
- Kant develops Gaunilo’s underlying idea, that there’s a difference between necessity in the mind and necessity in reality. Gaunilo’s island failed because it tested the ontological argument’s logic through application to a contingent thing, but here Kant makes a better application of Gaunilo’s insight to a case of necessity (a triangle having three sides) to critique Anselm.

Questions focused on Kant’s criticisms

This is a hard one but it can be fine to start with a bit of Anselm vs Gaunilo – so long as they are introduced and framed in relation to Kant:
Anselm is what Kant is going to crificise – and Gaunilo’s critique contains the key premise Kant develops (the distinction between necessity in the mind and necessity in reality), though Gaunilo chooses a poor example (of a contingent thing – the island) which Kant himself mistakenly followed in his 2nd critique (with contingent coins) but developed more successfully in his 1st critique (with the necessity of a triangle having 3 sides).
So:
Anselm’s argument (framed as what Kant attacks), then Gaunilo’s island (noting the key premise Kant later develops, but then explaining why it fails due to going in the wrong direction with the island which is contingent.
AO2: Kant’s 2nd critique: existence is not a predicate
- Ends up making the same mistake as Gaunilo – applying to a contingent thing.
AO2: Kant’s 1st critique: necessity doesn’t imply existence
- Finally applies Gaunilo’s idea successfully to a case of necessity.

Can existence be treated as a predicate? [40]

Introduction:
A predicate is a word that describes a subject. The question of whether existence could be a predicate is central to the ontological argument for God’s existence. Anselm is accused of having faulty reasoning regarding existence being a predicate.
Gaunilo’s idea that Kant developed was that there’s a difference between necessity in the mind, and necessity in reality.
Kant developed that by:
- In his 2nd critique, arguing that existence cannot be a predicate of a thing that necessitates its existence in reality.
- In his 1st critique, arguing that even if necessary existence somehow were a predicate, that would not imply actual existence.

So:
Anselm vs Gaunilo (minor detail for both) – framed for their relevance to Kant.
AO2: Kant’s 2nd critique: existence is not a predicate
AO2: Kant’s 1st critique: necessity doesn’t imply existence
- Intro sentence: Here, Kant argues that even if necessary existence could be treated as a predicate, that does not have the implications Anselm thought it did. I.e., it cannot show that God actually does exist.

Example of conclusion: Necessary existence is indeed a predicate, as Malcolm argued – however it being a predicate doesn’t have the logical significance Anselm & Malcolm thought it did – because it cannot establish God’s actual existence.

Are Gaunilo’s criticisms of the ontological argument the most effective? [40]

AO1: Anselm’s ontological argument (minor – it’s not the focus)
AO2: Gaunilo’s ‘lost island’ objection
- This fails
AO2: Kant’s 2nd critique: existence is not a predicate
- This looks more promising than Gaunilo, but Malcolm shows it fails
AO2: Kant’s 1st critique: necessity doesn’t imply existence
- This is the most successful critique, and shows Gaunilo had the right insight but it needed developing through proper application to necessity by Kant and then Hick’s modern distinctions between types of necessity.

LOA: Kant & Hick have the most effective criticism

OR: if you want to make it easier for yourself, do both of Gaunilo’s AO2 sections, and then Kant’s existence is not a predicate section – and argue all the critiques fail, so that Gaunilo is not the most effective because none are effective.

Weirdly worded questions:

Whether a priori or a posteriori is the more successful type of argument [40]
Or: Whether God’s existence best justified a posteriori / a priori [40]

This question requires that you judge whether the ontological argument (a priori) is better or worse than a posteriori arguments (teleo/cosmo).
You must do the ontological argument, and then at least one of teleo or cosmo – or both.
You will then have judged whether:
They all succeed (So ontological better – because it tries to prove God’s existence for deductively certain – whereas cosmo/teleo are inductive arguments trying to show the evidence supports belief – but doesn’t prove it for certain).
One type fails and the other succeeds (so the other type is more successful/convincing).
They all fail (equally unsuccessful/unconvincing).

I’d choose these:

AO1: Anselm (short), AO2: Kant (either of Kant’s critiques will do)
- Kant is more of an upgraded critique than Gaunilo to be frank so an essay which leaves our Gaunilo feels more comprehensive than one which leaves out Kant.
AO2: Design arguments after Darwin
- This is a nice one for this purpose because it covers a variety of design arguments and how they interact with the evolution issue, and then more contemporary issues.
AO1: Aquinas’ 3rd way (short), AO2: The fallacy of composition
- Fallacy of composition targets all versions of the cosmological argument and touches on infinite regress issues and the universe needing no cause – so it’s the best for capturing the overall issues.
Or: AO2: The Im/possibility of a necessary being
- This critique of a necessary being works very well because it attempts to attack both cosmological and ontological – but Copleston replies that it only undermines the ontological argument, not the cosmological, making the cosmological seem stronger. However in the end I evaluate that Hume succeeds, showing all varieties of argument to equally fail (though you could evaluate differently if desired).

This question would be answered best if you could highlight how the criticisms of each especially target their a priori or a posteriori nature.
E.g., Kant shows the difficulty of proving existence through definition – which attacks a priori demonstrations of existence.
E.g., most criticisms of the design and cosmological arguments exploit its inductive a posteriori nature – by showing the evidence they point to could be explained by alternative conclusions (evolution, or the universe having no cause, or some scientific cause like necessary matter).