Questions about Anselm’s ontological view
Hello Rabbi Michi,
I would like to ask about lessons 13 – 14 (on YouTube) on the topic of faith, regarding Anselm’s ontological view.
Question 1 – Fraud
There is something “not right” about implanting any concept in a person, when he does not understand the meanings of the concept, and then “informing” him that it includes additional things.
I liken it to a teacher asking a student if he is willing to do everything he is told to do, and when the student answers “yes,” the teacher tells him to “jump off the roof.” Let’s assume that the concept of “doing everything he is told” actually includes jumping off the roof. However, when the student agreed to this, he (the student) did not mean it, and when asked why he contradicted himself and did not jump off the roof despite having pledged to do everything the teacher tells him, he will say, “That’s not what I meant.” In other words, perhaps this was the intention on the teacher’s part, and on his part, the student’s refusal to jump off the roof constitutes a contradiction of what he pledged to do, but on the student’s part, the interpretation of “do everything I tell you” does not include an order to jump off the roof in the first place, and therefore on the student’s part there is no contradiction between the order and his refusal to jump off the roof.
In this way, I perceive Ansen’s statement as a type of deception. “Something greater than that cannot be conceived” does not, in the “villain’s” opinion, include the statement “and it exists both in the mind and in reality.” When Ansen writes at the beginning that the villain “understands what he hears,” and based on this understanding assumes that this understanding also includes the final understanding that “it exists both in the mind and in reality,” this is incorrect. In other words, Ansen bases the final necessity of the actual covenant with God on the villain’s initial understanding, and not on the very abstract concept that includes within it the reality of “something greater than the universe cannot be conceived.” If so (that everything is based on the villain’s initial understanding), then in my opinion, as stated, it is a deception, because that is not how the villain understood the concept. Lest you say, the words “something greater than that cannot be conceived” were in the villain’s head. But we are not dealing with wordplay, but with the understanding of a concept.
Question 2 – Type of statement
Why, in order to bring up a type of statement whose understanding requires treating this statement as true, does Ansen bring up all this nonsense? After all, seemingly a very simple statement like “God truly exists in reality” achieves the same result. After all, the villain understands this statement, but he thinks it is not true. Then we can come and say that the concept “truly” includes within it the understanding that God does indeed truly exist in reality, because if He does not truly exist, this contradicts the understanding of the concept “God truly exists in reality.”
Question 3 – A negative statement that contradicts the positive statement.
In the end, Ansen’s proof is based on the initial understanding of the concept at the head of the villain. Ostensibly, the concept “there is no God” (“the villain said in his heart there is no God”), or in our case, the concept “there is nothing greater than which one cannot conceive of” is a concept whose power is no less than the concept “there is something greater than which one cannot conceive of”. And why would the force of the consequence of one concept outweigh the force of another, when these two statements are equal in their origin and strength. In other words, perhaps it is possible to come to a believer and tell him “there is nothing greater than which one cannot conceive of”, and then say that understanding this concept includes the understanding that in reality “there is nothing greater than which one cannot conceive of”, after all, if there is in reality “something greater than which one cannot conceive of”, this contradicts the concept that “there is nothing greater than which one cannot conceive of”.
1. You can present anything with an indignant intonation as if it were dishonest. The concept of perfection is well understood on its own. It is true that the proof is surprising in the sense that it removes existence from this concept, but that is the nature of any logical proof. If you expect every result of a logical argument to be acceptable to the listener in advance, you empty all logical arguments of their content. The comparison to the teacher and the student is ridiculous. Clearly, the villain did not mean existence when he agreed on perfection. That is exactly what the proof does, and so on.
If the villain thinks that perfection does not include existence, then let him raise this argument as a counterargument and that’s it. What is there to talk about fraud here?! The claim about fraud actually shows that the proof is valid. The villain supposedly claims that if he knew that existence is included in perfection, he would not agree to accept perfection. But this is nonsense, of course, for several reasons. The main one is that the villain is not supposed to accept the assumption that God is perfect. This is a definition, not an assumption.
2. Here you seem to have missed the entire logic of the argument. The argument is not based on assumptions but on definitions. The argument you proposed is based on assumptions that can be rejected. There are similar appeals based on the “non-existent” principle, and I addressed them in my first book.
3. What you have described here are claims and not concepts or definitions. You are again mixing these two up and thus missing the whole sting of Anselm’s (and not Ansen’s) argument. It proceeds from definitions and not from premises.
I think I didn't clarify my question properly.
My point is this: As you emphasized several times during the lessons (13 – 14), ontological evidence is not about the world but about man. That is, evidence does not prove that there is “something greater than which no one can conceive”, but evidence proves that every person who understands the above definition must treat it as true in reality. Perhaps we could say that ontological evidence is about the subject and not about the object. My point is: evidence does not prove the existence of the object, but proves to the subject that he must treat the object/understand the object as existing in reality.
Further to this (that evidence is towards the subject), in addition to this, the existence of evidence depends on the subject. That is, without the understanding subject – evidence does not exist at all. My point is: not only is the ontological view of the subject and not of the object, but also that the existence of the view of the subject depends on the subject's understanding of the definition. This is different from objective view, which does not depend at all on the existence of a subject. The assumption that all humans are mortal and the assumption that Socrates is a human and therefore mortal, does not depend on the understanding of any subject, and even to the extent that all humans become complete fools, Socrates will be mortal. On the other hand, in the ontological view, if all humans become complete fools who are unable to understand the definition “something greater than which no one can conceive”, then there is in fact no relevance to the view, since the view proves that a subject who understood the definition must accept it as true in reality, but if there is no subject who is able to understand the definition, then in any case he is not obliged – logically – to treat it as true in reality.
If we continue along this line, it will be possible to say something else: according to Anselm's method, there can be two genius professors, one of whom heard (and understood) the definition (“something greater than which no one can conceive”) and one of whom did not. The professor who heard – must logically treat it as true in reality, and the professor who did not hear – does not have to and does not even need to logically treat it as true in reality, also according to Danselm. All of this, as stated, because all vision begins with the understanding of the subject and is not a vision of the object.
If the things so far are correct, then we have come to the conclusion that, unlike other logical visions, even if the other side does not accept my assumptions and claims, I am entitled to claim that the other side is wrong. Therefore, with regard to the ontological vision, if the other side did not understand (for some reason) the definition, Anselm has no claim against him, and Anselm will not claim that the other side is wrong about anything. This is because the logical mechanism of Anselm's vision begins to "operate" only in someone who has understood the definition and the definition is placed in his head.
Now – and here comes my question - if the other side, the ”villain”, claims that he understood the concept ”something greater than which no one can conceive” As something that does not include the fact that that thing exists in reality in practice, how can Anselm come and claim to him that the definition does include within it the relation to that existing thing that is truly in practice.
As stated above, if Anselm's view were objective and independent of anyone's understanding, then I would accept the view, after all, what do I care how the villain understood the definition, this is the definition and this is the definition. But when the entire existence of the view depends on the villain's understanding, then it is measured by the degree of the villain's understanding, and if the villain did not understand the definition in this way, the view must be nullified, and I judge him as someone who did not understand the definition at all, regarding which Anselm would admit that he does not need to logically refer to this definition as a definition that is realized in reality.
In conclusion: a. Anselm's view is towards the subject, b. The existence of Anselm's view depends on the understanding of the subject, c. Therefore, the subject's understanding of the definition other than as Anselm understood it is equivalent, in terms of the existence of the view, to a misunderstanding of the definition at all.
I hope that my question is now understood. I would be happy to answer it.
I accepted and refined it. Thank you.
Continuing with 2, after I understood this point, something interesting and amusing emerges that I had not noticed before. According to the ontological view, in fact, whoever understands the sentence "there is no such thing as nothing greater than which no one can conceive of" will be obliged to treat the concept as a concept realized in reality, since the words "there is no such thing as nothing greater than which no one can conceive of" are a presupposition, and the words "there is no such thing as nothing greater than which no one can conceive of" are a definition.
Did I understand correctly?
I still don't see a question here. Even a person who doesn't accept any premise of an argument won't accept its conclusion and will be mistaken. A person who doesn't understand the meaning of "there is the most perfect thing imaginable" will indeed not be convinced by the evidence. But there is no such person. Every reasonable person understands this concept. Anyone who doesn't understand it is stupid, and is no different from someone who doesn't understand any premise of any other argument.
I didn't understand your question at the end. His argument is about someone who understands the concept, not someone who understands a particular claim.
Indeed, when I look at the matter, I stand by my mistake.
My mistake lay in the fact that I compared someone who has never heard of Anselm's definition and therefore does not believe in God, with Anselm not claiming that by virtue of his ontological evidence it is proven that this person thinks something that is a mistake (this is different from “ordinary” evidence, when someone does not accept my assumption, I believe that he is mistaken in that he does not accept my correct assumption and therefore also reaches a wrong conclusion). Anselm would only claim that the moment this person hears his definition, he will be obliged to treat it as true in reality as well. I also compared such a person to a person who has heard of the definition, but does not agree with the assumption that ”a true perfect” must also exist in reality. In such a case, Anselm indeed has an argument with him in the assumption and the conclusion.
I don't know if you understood my point of error, but anyway, thank you very much!
Regarding the second matter, I didn't come to ask, but to clarify that I understood correctly the matter that comes out a little amusing: that a person who hears and understands from his teacher the sentence "There is no such thing as nothing greater than which no one can conceive of" will in fact be obliged to accept - according to Anselm's method - the existence of God (this is because of the separation between the assumption "there is/is not" and the definition).
Indeed, it is true. It is like a person hearing from his teacher that the principle of causality says that a certain event has no cause. If he understands the principle of causality, he understands that the teacher was wrong and that the event has a cause.
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