Skeletal Structure of Ontological Essay (Basic)

a) Simple outline of the argument, AO1 does not test skills of evaluation. 

Ontological Argument:

• a priori
• logically analytical 
• deductive, 
• self evidently true/logically necessary 

Anselm: 1st Argument (that which nothing greater can be conceived)

 2nd Argument (rebuttal to Gaunilo: necessary, in intellectu vs de re)

Descartes: 

The perfect being, triangle analogy, cogito ergo sum

supremely perfect being, he was a rationalist philosopher. 

Norman Malcolm: 

either impossible or necessary, not contingent

necessary existence is perfection -> God has all perfections, therefore he cannot not exist, necessary existence, self contradictory, God must exist. 

Alvin Plantinga:

maximally great/excellent, multiverse, must be better to exist in more than one world, therefore God must exist -> MODAL FORM 

b)

Ontological Argument: it’s features make it a powerful argument that is hard to dispute vs Aquinas: claimed that things cannot be reliant on simply a priori as our human minds lack the ability to discern things about God. 

Anselm’s first argument

Gaunilo’s perfect island vs Anselm’s first argument, ‘transitional error’

same form, true premises, but a false conclusion. 

‘I can conceive of an island that than which no greater island can be thought, it must possess all perfections, existence is a perfection so the island must exist. 

Anselm’s second argument 

Gaunilo had misunderstood -> God cannot be compared to a contingent concept, because God is necessary     -> Descartes

Kant: 

existence is not a predicate and we should not be so quick to believe in this -> it is not self contradictory to reject the existence of the whole triangle (analogy from Descartes) -> Hume