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Saint Anselm's Objection To The Ontological Argument

1400 Words6 Pages

Philosophy
Hamad aldawood
Monday, March 19, 2018

Introduction
The Ontological Argument was proposed by Saint Anselm to try and ascertain the existence of God. Anselm’s argument is based on the fact that there is a specific concept of God. It establishes the existence of God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" (Roth, 1970, p.270). From Saint Anselm’s argument, it is apparent that Ontological Arguments are mostly deductive and a priori. These arguments intend to determine God’s existence mostly through logic and non-aligned to experience. Anselm’s argument is founded on the belief that God exists in the mind, and thus it is probable for God to exist in reality. According to this claim, something that exists in the mind and can also possibly exist in reality is something greater than it is (Malcolm, 1960). In this case, Anselm contends that God cannot only exist in the mind, but it is possible that he also exists in reality since God is the greatest possible thing. However, there are some other philosophers, including Immanuel Kant, who object this argument, disputing facts about the existence of God. In light of this prelude, this paper intends to focus on discussing Kant’s objection to the Ontological Argument proposed by Anselm, and bring in light the different views of both Kant and Anselm in regards to the claim …show more content…

Besides, Anselm supposes that existence in reality is indeed a great-making quality. This argument is what many philosophers tend to disagree with. Most of the dissenting philosophers try to challenge stem from the basic belief that no expanse of reasonable analysis of any perception is restrained to the existence of anything in reality. Anselm’s leading opponent, Immanuel Kant, puts forward the most vaunted critique of Anselm’s argument. He believes that Anselm’s argument is wrong since existence, in reality, is not a great-making quality (Wilson,

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