Anselm’s Ontological Proof for God

Can one have an inconceivable set?

But you’re right that I think there end up being paradoxes here. The bigger question is why on earth we should believe that this “a greater than which cannot be conceived” is God. Now for Anselm it’s because of faith (as the Proslogion makes clear). There is already a theological tradition. But then there’s the question of relating all these “Gods of the philosophers” like Aristotle’s causa sui to the God of the Bible. To me I think things get tricky fast here.

Then there’s the question of what this “Other” is. For Marion it is an excess of intuition (in the phenomenological sense). That is there is more givenness than our concepts can contain. So Marion sees this in terms of the hyerpousia of the medieval philosophers and presumably neoPlatonists. For someone like Derrida it’s the exact opposite. It’s an absolute lack. That debate is quite interesting but also a tad tricky.

For someone who just doesn’t buy into the theology of the medieval era or late antiquity one has to ask what the point of all this is. Thus you can have people like Heidegger or Derrida who rightly pass as atheists adopting this Otherness. Does one move towards a deism or something else?

As I said Mark, I think that issue of conceivability and inconceivability is key. If you accept it then the argument makes sense. If you don’t then it’s ludicrous. And of course there’s the issue of burden of proof there.

I would say that the premise is not that God is greater than anything that is inconceivable. It’s that we can conceive of “a greater than which can not be conceived” which then points us towards this issue of conceivability.

The question of whether comparisons can be done with inconceivable things is a fair one and I think I mentioned it in the post itself. I think the only solution is to continually negate things. Interestingly elsewhere Marion comes up with a “third way” between affirmation and negation which is roughly pragmatic performances. That is a kind of contentless ritual. While he and Derrida disagree on the issue of the hyperousia (and presumably how Marion conceives of Anselm’s argument) this issue of something else than true/false is interesting one. Although part of me thinks it’s sometimes little more than a category mistake.

Sorry, I should have but quotes in there to clarify that. That’s my fault. (Fixed now)

With the way I had it the sentence was ambiguous and I can understand the confusion. (Dang it. I hate when I do that.) Realistically I shouldn’t have used the word “something” either. So I changed that as well.

I can see your point on the second premise which is why I said everyone won’t agree with that. There are two ways to conceive (if I dare use that word) of nothing. As the empty set and as not-a-thing. Heidegger and those who come after him think not-a-thing is very important and you end up with talk like “the nothing nothings.” Of course to folks who reject that notion, who in effect say that to exist is to be conceivable, this is all nonsense. This is why Heidegger and others suggest that before we can do much philosophy we have to engage with the question of being. However clearly many end up with de-facto conception of being.

For Marion it is this conception of being that then leads Kant (and perhaps even Descartes and Leibniz) to formulate the ontological argument as ontological. His point is to suggest we can frame the argument in a way in which it isn’t obviously false. Which if we conceive of being as presence (i.e. as something conceivable to mind) just doesn’t make much sense.

I should add that I still think there is a way to attack Marion’s reading. Indeed one of the very early posts in my blog I discussed Marion and Anselm and what I saw as the problem. Roughly my criticism is that “a greater than which can not be conceived” is still tainted with some conceivability. (I mentioned in passing this in my post above) Thus we end up with both “a greater than which can not be conceived” and then a further negation of that for total inconceivability. But we’re then left with Anselm not going far enough and an argument that might work but which can’t be made (since the first premise is of necessity unsayable) I made some similar points in a discussion with Jim F. of trancendence not long after. (If you read that you’ll note the discussion gets at the not-a-thing versus emptiness. But emptiness isn’t necessarily the empty set as traditional though but more something analogous to the set as a holder for things. Roughly as place itself. I reject Marion’s conception of not-a-thing as hyperousia but am very taken with Derrida and the notion of place.

The other obvious problem is one I mentioned in my post. Why should we conceive of “greater” as less conceivability? Or, in an other oft mentioned criticism of the traditional reading of the argument, why is existence greater than non-existence?

Clark: Whether the argument is convincing really ends up depending upon that final step

I disagree. Step 3 is unsupported, and most likely false, so I don’t think the final step even gets into play.

There’s no inherent reason why existing should be considered “greater” than non-existing. In fact, I think that most evidence would point to the contrary.

In the absence of serious evidence to support step #3, I’d view Anselms’s argument as nothing more than wishful thinking.