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Single Idea 5036

[filed under theme 28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique ]

Full Idea

Descartes' error is in assuming without proof that a most perfect being does not involve a contradiction.

Gist of Idea

Descartes cannot assume that a most perfect being exists without contradictions

Source

comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §5.67) by Gottfried Leibniz - A Specimen of Discoveries p.76

Book Ref

Leibniz,Gottfried: 'Philosophical Writings', ed/tr. Parkinson,G.H.R. [Dent 1973], p.76

A Reaction

Certainly Descartes seems obliged to grasp the concept of God 'clearly and distinctly', so there must be an absence of contradictions. But does Descartes have to prove that there are no contradictions in his concept of a triangle? Is self-evidence enough?

The 38 ideas with the same theme [objections to the conceptual proof of God's existence]:

1688 Properties must be proved, but not essence; but existents are not a kind, so existence isn't part of essence [Aristotle]
12278 'Being' and 'oneness' are predicated of everything which exists [Aristotle]
2636 Many primitive people know nothing of the gods [Cicero]
22736 God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus]
22740 God without virtue is absurd, but God's virtues will be better than God [Sext.Empiricus]
1892 The existence of God can't be self-evident or everyone would have agreed on it, so it needs demonstration [Sext.Empiricus]
1420 Anselm's first proof fails because existence isn't a real predicate, so it can't be a perfection [Malcolm on Anselm]
21251 We can't know God's essence, so his existence can't be self-evident for us [Aquinas]
1864 It is heresy to teach that we can know God by his essence in this mortal life [Anon (Par)]
3632 We mustn't worship God as an image because we have no idea of him [Hobbes on Descartes]
3633 We can never conceive of an infinite being [Gassendi on Descartes]
5036 Descartes cannot assume that a most perfect being exists without contradictions [Leibniz on Descartes]
3638 Existence is not a perfection; it is what makes perfection possible [Gassendi on Descartes]
4817 If a thing can be conceived as non-existing, its essence does not involve existence [Spinoza]
2244 It can never be a logical contradiction to assert the non-existence of something thought to exist [Hume]
21255 No being's non-existence can imply a contradiction, so its existence cannot be proved a priori [Hume]
8451 Existence is merely derived from the word 'is' (rather than being a predicate) [Kant, by Orenstein]
3321 Modern logic says (with Kant) that existence is not a predicate, because it has been reclassified as a quantifier [Benardete,JA on Kant]
13732 Kant never denied that 'exist' could be a predicate - only that it didn't enlarge concepts [Kant, by Fitting/Mendelsohn]
5609 If 'this exists' is analytic, either the thing is a thought, or you have presupposed its existence [Kant]
5608 Is "This thing exists" analytic or synthetic? [Kant]
5610 If an existential proposition is synthetic, you must be able to cancel its predicate without contradiction [Kant]
5611 Being is not a real predicate, that adds something to a concept [Kant]
5612 You add nothing to the concept of God or coins if you say they exist [Kant]
7741 The predicate 'exists' is actually a natural language expression for a quantifier [Frege, by Weiner]
8491 The Ontological Argument fallaciously treats existence as a first-level concept [Frege]
22286 Existence is not a first-level concept (of God), but a second-level property of concepts [Frege, by Potter]
8644 Because existence is a property of concepts the ontological argument for God fails [Frege]
18312 The supreme general but empty concepts must be compatible, and hence we get 'God' [Nietzsche]
5773 The ontological argument begins with an unproven claim that 'there exists an x..' [Russell]
6119 You can discuss 'God exists', so 'God' is a description, not a name [Russell]
5187 When we ascribe an attribute to a thing, we covertly assert that it exists [Ayer]
17573 There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen]
6072 If Satan is the most imperfect conceivable being, he must have non-existence [McGinn]
6073 I think the fault of the Ontological Argument is taking the original idea to be well-defined [McGinn]
3905 'Existence' is not a predicate of 'man', but of the concept of man, saying it has at least one instance [Scruton]
15133 A thing can't be the only necessary existent, because its singleton set would be as well [Williamson]
7417 God can't have silly perfections, but how do we decide which ones are 'silly'? [Joslin]