Q&A: The Ontological Proof for the Existence of Philosophy
The Ontological Proof for the Existence of Philosophy
Question
In column 364 on ontological proofs, you wrote that “a logical and rational analysis of the definition of a concept can certainly yield insights about the world, since it is the product of observation and not of pure thought. The analysis of the claim ‘I think’ is nothing but reflection on the concepts involved in it (the processes of thought), and therefore from that analysis I can in principle arrive at insights that contain information about the world. However, in my view it is not reasonable that I would thereby arrive at existential statements about the world (such as my own existence, the cogito, or God’s existence, the ontological proof), since contemplating an idea cannot prove to us its realization in the world. And indeed I showed that both the cogito (in the previous column) and the ontological proof (in the first conversation of The First Existing Being and in the first notebook) do not hold water. This is not really an ontological argument. But arguments like those brought by Steinitz (the negation of the round triangle in Berkeley), whose purpose is to deny the existence of objects or principles by virtue of contradictions within them, can on their face certainly be acceptable. I look at the world of ideas and see that there is no such idea, and from this conclude that it also cannot be realized (there is nothing to be realized). For example, I see a contradiction between the idea of a wall that stops every shell and the idea of a shell that penetrates every wall, and they cannot coexist in the world of ideas and therefore also cannot be realized in our world. By contrast, the fact that there is a well-defined idea does not necessarily mean that it is realized, and therefore contemplating it will not yield an existential statement. It seems to me that there is an asymmetry between existential statements and non-existence statements.”
At the end of your article on the ontological proof for the existence of philosophy, you wrote that “I leave it to the reader to ask whether this ontological proof is purely conceptual (that is, whether it follows from conceptual analysis alone without resorting to assumptions), or whether it is based on some assumptions (though not scientific sensory facts).” When I read the column, I thought you were leaning toward purely conceptual analysis, but in light of this remark and the first passage I quoted, it seems that you also see the proof for the existence of philosophy (or for its ability to be realized in practice) as a proof based on assumptions. And if that is indeed the case, my question is: what are those assumptions?
Answer
That is exactly what I asked there. Homework for the reader.
Discussion on Answer
You went on at length with all kinds of claims that I didn’t understand. In the end, did you just want to ask what the answer is to the question I raised there? If you were trying to answer it, present your findings. When I pose a challenge to readers, I mean that they should try their hand at it, not ask me instead.
As for what you write here, the existence of a concept does not arise from a proof. In addition, you assume the validity of the anthropological proof, which seems very questionable to me.
I don’t know what “modaluaric logic” is (maybe modal logic?), and I didn’t understand the connection among all the words in your concluding sentence.
So you’re really going to leave the reader helpless? In any case, do you think it would be correct to say that under such a framing, where the ontological proof arises from observation of the concept, whose very existence arises from the anthropological proof, it becomes an offshoot of Descartes’ anthropological proof (the concept of divinity cannot arise within us on its own, and then observing it, according to Avicenna’s distinction between the possible and the necessary existent, which can be refined by modal logic, explains the necessity of its existence in reality)?