Atypican's ontological argument isn't ontological
For some wierd reason I have to make a new debate about this so i'll make it short and simple.
the argument presented by Atypican on the existence of God is not ontological due to the fact that it requires observation and is not an a priori argument.
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Hi yes I'm just saying I think he is trying to use pure reason to prove his point if that is the case then his argument is ontological by definition...., from what I know ontological arguments do not use observation but rely on pure reason to prove there point. Hope this helpsOntological arguments are arguments, for the conclusion that God exists, from premises which are supposed to derive from some source other than observation of the world—e.g., from reason alone. In other words, ontological arguments are arguments from nothing but analytic, a priori and necessary premises to the conclusion that God exists. His first two premises do not infer the third premise. And the first three premises do not infer the conclusion. Its just a bad argument; that is why you might think it is not an a priori argument, since it makes no sense, thus, making one think that a premise is missing. For example, the second premise states that "A god is a being regarded by at least some, as worthy of worship", while the third premise is this: "Some worshipped beings are appropriately labeled as a god, gods or god." However, simply because a thing is labeled as worthy of worship does not necessarily imply that it is worshipped; likewise, a thing that is worshipped does not necessarily imply that the thing that is worshipped is regarded as worthy of worship. This does not follow. One might think that a deistic god is worthy of worship but not worship it; one might worship a cat but at the same time think that it is not worthy of worship. Hence, there must be a premise not mentioned here and it must come from a posteriori knowledge, since nothing a priori can lead one to the third premise. Moreover, the first premise, "It is impossible to worship a non-existent being" holds no water at all, and in conjunction with the other two premises does not infer that "The question isn't about the existence of god(s) but what truths can we know about god(s)". Its just a bad argument that was not well though out. One thing that he would have learned in philosophy class, if he had taken some, is that philosophers are extremely skeptical of arguments. This is why most intellectual philosophers do not leave out even the smallest of premises, because philosophers can destroy an argument very easily without the "middle-man" premises. A priori means it doesn't need outside experience to know its true, and several of his premises require an understanding of society to know. I'm not really arguing about whether or not the argument is bad, this thread just deals with whether or not his argument really is ontological. His first two premises are a priori. They are assumptions, which are not validated yet, though. From merely looking at it, his argument is a priori, but to validate the premises would require a posteriori reasoning; hence, his argument is more along the lines of a backwards synthetic a priori system. The reason it is a prior, though, is because they are both antecedents of a conditional statement ("if... and" with an implied "if" on the "and"), which do not require validation. It is p>q statement of a conditional. The argument, though, is not complete yet, since neither the "p" nor "q" have been proven true and can only be proven true by reality, thus, arising my point for why his argument is not good: the missing premises are a posteriori premises. However, ontology deals with the nature of "being." This argument does in places refer to ontology and could, therefore, be considered ontological. However, the argument in total is not dealing with ontology. |
