I'd originally written this way back in the early days of my blog before each post had its own page. I wanted to reference it, so I thought I'd repost it. It's a discussion of my confusion over a paper of Marion's regarding Anselm's Ontological Argument. Those of you familiar with Anselm might be surprised that it is discussed seriously. After all, it's generally thought that Kant made a rather conclusive point when he pointed out that existence isn't a predicate, so the argument fails. However Marion argues that the Ontological Argument isn't actually Ontological at all. Rather it is getting at what Levinas calls the absolute other. Now I'll confess I just don't buy the way Marion reads it. There seems to be a fundamental problem. I've discussed this with a few people who disagree. So it's probably an error and blindness on my part. I ought to write a few posts on this in the future.
I've edited the post somewhat from the original one from back in 2003
Why is the topic of Anselm's argument still relevant? The "Descriptive and Formal Ontology" site offers some great perspectives I think. This all relates to the topic of transcendence that I've been thinking about for a few years and which is, in its way, very key in the history of philosophy and religion.
I was recently reading Marion's article on Anselm's "ontological" argument in Flight of the Gods. I ended up with a few questions about his reading of Anselm and by association the theological turn in philosophy.
Basically Marion points out that Anselm's argument is only called the ontological argument starting with Kant. He argues that it only becomes directly associated with Being and beings with Descartes and is "perfected" with Leibniz. I'll not go through the details of his arguments on that nor how it relates to thinking Being as a being. (Heidegger's so-called onto-theology) Rather I wish to bring up his movement towards negative theology.
One of the moves Marion takes with respect to Anselm's argument is to suggest that by portraying it as "that which nothing greater can be conceived" the argument hinges on negative theology. It doesn't speak of beings or Being at all but rather what can not be spoken. "One must stress this point: God, if there is such a being, can be thought of only as something that we cannot conceive. As a concept, God admits only His very transcendence of any conceivable concept at all." (87) However it is here that Marion makes his glaring error. Anselm ties the "that which nothing greater can be conceived" with God. Yet the negative theology is not of God (of which something positive has been said - that which nothing greater can be conceived) Rather the negative is of this "greater."
This fact suggests that logically the rhetoric of Marion requires that this "nothing can be said of" is that which is greater than God. Now in some theological systems, especially the more mystic oriented ones, this in not at all uncommon. In has, for instance, precedence in Kabbalism. There we have the highest speakable dynamic of God signified by Keter or the crown. This is roughly akin to the One of neoPlatonism. However Kabbalism recognizes an unspeakable beyond this, called the En-Sof and often spoken of using negative theology as nothing. (Or more literally no-thing)
I don't want to focus on Marion too much, since to me much of his language, while denying God as being describes and requires God as being. (Indeed in the quote above he says of God, "if there is such a being.") Further one must note that in the argument, Anselm says, "there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality." Perhaps Marion will bring up the Platonic form of apophasis, acknowledging a possible play on the Platonic difference between logos and nous. For some Platonic commentators direct apprehension is of nous and not logos and thus escapes language. (This is common in the neoPlatonic tradition) We must acknowledge though that for Marion's deconstruction of Anselm the "greater" can not lie in nous either. Anselm explicitly denies this.
My question is of what this implies, if we take Marion's argument seriously. (His argument - not his conclusions) First off it seems to follow Heidegger (against Marion's wishes) and make God absent from this place of pure transcendence. Rather it makes God immanent in an essential way. God must, if we take Anselm seriously, be what is thinkable and not this greater than thought. Further if we take Marion's apparent view of the transcendent as an Other which can not be spoken - the Other of mysticism - it must be the source of all prior even to the Being that emanates in neoPlatonism. God has left and is absent from this place, but apparently still "relates" in a way.
While this movement doesn't necessarily make God a being the way Mormons think of him, it does, I think suggest a problem with the relationship of how one thinks Being and God. If we adopt more of a Heideggarian and Derridean sense of this God being essentially absent then the only place to put God seems to be more in line with a Mormon view.
Perhaps I'm missing something in this. I recognize that this is the exact opposite of what Marion wishes to do. However it seems that his argument leads in the opposite direction of what he wants. Further I recognize that it is in the difference between Being and beings that the real play takes place. I've intentionally not delved into that with the possible result of making some of my comments slightly misleading. Hopefully I'll have some more thoughts on all this soon.
Over at inessentialism.com he hosted the 12th Philosopher's Carnival. My post on the Socratic Method method got a nod. In passing, after discussing an other post on Anselm's Ontological Argument, he said the following:
Looking back to Clark's post on the Socratic method, I am left to ponder whether the noncontradiction between inconceivability and possibility leaves us in any better shape than its converse would imply - does the absence of Aporia, here, denote anything pertaining to the limits of our language games? Or, does it usefully falsify a culturally embedded truth and clear the ground for further discussion. I am inclined to accept the latter.
In the comments I wrote the following:
Just as a note, I think Marion tried to get at this with his paper "Is the Ontological Argument Ontological." I'd briefly discussed it in a repost a few days ago. My criticism probably only makes sense if one has actually read the paper, so it's definitely not the ideal blogging exercise. (It was largely lifted from an email discussion) However I think it does touch upon a few issues. Marion tries to get at the idea that the argument is actually designed to suggest there are things that can't be conceived. Thus his reading is more in line with what I attributed to Socrates. However where I think he goes astray is in still treating this "greater than which can not be conceived" in terms of being. i.e. I think against his best efforts, he reifies it.
I think what the aim was is to reread Anselm in pre-Rationalist fashion where we talk in terms of ontology. Instead one is to move to a more mystic reading ala the pseudo-Dionysus or Meister Eckhart. Then we end up with this "great than which can not be conceived" being "conceived" of in terms of say the Other of Levinas. Whether one can actually argue this convincingly is a different matter.
I think the argument for the Aporia in Anselm is that this must be conceivable in that it must exist in the mind and yet we can't really conceive of it. That is we can conceive of the statement but not the object, but the argument more or less requires that if we can conceive of the statement we can conceive of the object.
I'm skeptical. But given your comments I thought you might find it interesting.
Who is Marion?
Jean-Luc Marion is a French philosopher in the phenomenological tradition and one of the big figures in the so called theological turn in French philosophy the last decade or so. He is best known for his phenomenology of givenness although I think other philosophers touch on the same issue. (I rather like, for instance, Derrida's The Gift of Death which I think touches upon the phenomenology of the gift in its own peculiar way) He's also famous for the notion of the "saturated phenomena." This is the idea that intentions always exceed in content our intuitions. (Thus it is an example of the "more and less" that one finds as a common criticism of content of any sort in Continental Philosophy) The idea is that when I intend and object I intend the whole object which is always more than any set of perspectives, intuitions, or relations can exhaust. Gadamer has a few similar notions as well.
Indeed I tend to think that a lot of Continental Philosophy are many people making the same points over and over again - it's much rarer that they get into the nitty gritty of where they disagree.
Am I the only one who reads Anselm's "ontological" argument as a two-pronged argument for the non-existence of God?
First: By defining God as "greater than which can not be conceived", we can deny the traditional conception of God by simply conceiving of one greater. In other words, if we take God to be the creator of this world, and we can conceive of even slightly less imperfect, we've just refuted God (and simultaneously opened the door to Gnosticism.) [NB: this also applies to gods who create non-ex-nihilo, as we can imagine a god able to improve, even slightly, the cosmic substance used to create...]
Second: If we examine Anselm's argument structurally (as Marion does, quite nicely) we see that it relies on the premise that existence is greater than non-existence. This is demonstrably false-- any circular object I find, for example, will always be less perfect than the abstract circle of my imagination. Existence is not a perfection, as Anselm would have it-- it is an imperfection. If God is perfect, he necessarily cannot exist.
Nice, and partially why I never found Marion's argument terribly compelling although I never quite put it into those words. I've had a few discussions with folks sympathetic to Marion and I always felt like I was missing something in the argument because it seemed to move in a direction like you suggest.
I should add though that it is interesting in Heideggarian terms precisely because it does move one from privileging actuality into privileging potentiality. Thus it moves one towards nothing in the sense of Heidegger's notion of nothing. I think Marion tries to do this as well but there is a gap because he's trying to do two contradictory moves at once.
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