Question

Regarding the ontological arguments you discuss in your book The First Existent, concerning Anselm’s argument for proving God, it seems that one could propose an ontological argument of this sort that runs into a problem:
I can conceive of something than which nothing smaller can be conceived, and if that thing exists in my mind as existing, then it is not the smallest thing that can be conceived. It therefore follows that the thing that exists in my mind exists there only in my mind, and does not exist in my mind as existing in reality. It follows, then, that the entire existence of the thing is only in my thought, and not in my thought as existing in reality.
And this necessarily exists only in my mind, and has no other attribute at all, for it is not a thing that exists as existent and can therefore have other attributes; rather, it exists only in my mind, and its attribute is only what I define in my mind. Alternatively, one could argue that the more any further definition or any additional attribute applies to it, the more it turns out that it is not the smallest thing that can be conceived, since one can conceive of something smaller than it that lacks that attribute. It follows that the definition “than which nothing smaller can be conceived” means: devoid of any attribute that can be conceived at all. And among these attributes is the attribute of existence, since a thing conceived in my mind as existing is greater than a thing conceived in my mind as X and nothing more.
And if that thing than which nothing smaller can be conceived were conceived by us as actually existing, then it necessarily follows that existence does not require any attribute whatsoever, and existence itself is devoid of all attributes. And if the existence of that thing is possible, then what I conceive is something than which nothing smaller can be conceived, for the whole of its being conceived is its possibility of existing in my thought as existing. But since the thing that exists in my thought is smaller than the thing in my thought as existing, it follows that there exists in my thought something that does not exist.
And this cannot be, since existence requires existence within the system in which it arises; it cannot be that the existence of the thing in my mind consists in its not existing outside the mind, and in its lacking any existence whatsoever. For that does not give existence to what is in my mind by virtue of its not existing outside it but existing within it. Can there be an existence whose entire content is that it is altogether nonexistent?
After all, I conceive the existence of the smallest thing that can be conceived, but this leads to something impossible: that there be in my mind something that does not exist in my mind at all, and that this be its existence in my mind.
Seemingly, this actually leads us to Kant’s argument about conceivability: that one cannot conceive of a definable thing and then force some conclusion about the world from that definition or give it any sort of validity.
Or else we are compelled to say that what exists is not greater than what does not exist, but that existence in the intellect as existing places the thing on another plane of apprehension. Something like what Kant said about actual existence can perhaps also be said about existence in the intellect, and something existing in my thought not as existing in reality is an image that exists in my thought equally as existing.
To be sure, this argument does not establish the thing in a different way from how we first conceived it, unlike Anselm’s argument, where he establishes the thing that “exists in his mind” as “existing in his mind as existing” — and that is the beauty of his argument. But if one can draw a conclusion merely from conceiving something, that is, from floating an intelligible definition, then in this argument we are led to something intelligible in our minds, yet impossible on the other hand — unlike a plain contradiction such as a round triangle, which from the outset cannot be conceived. Moreover, there necessarily exists in our minds something than which nothing smaller can be conceived.
But perhaps one could argue that conceiving something as existing does not contradict understanding the definition, unlike this argument, where after analyzing the definition it may become unintelligible. For when we say that something exists in my mind, and then according to the continuation of the definition we are really saying that no thing exists, therefore the smallest thing that can be conceived and exists in my mind has one single necessary attribute: existence in my mind. And if existence in my mind requires some thing, then that thing is part of the attribute of the smallest thing that can be conceived in my mind, and this is the smallest thing with that attribute, and apart from it, it admits of no attribute.
Thank you very much; I would be glad to hear a response.