Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T21:18:52.649Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Ontological Argument Defended

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Stephen Makin
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘The Ontological Argument’, Philosophy 63 (1988), 8391.Google Scholar

2 McGrath, , ‘The Ontological Argument Revisited’, Philosophy 63 (1988), 529533CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pearl, , ‘A Puzzle about Necessary Being’, Philosophy 65 (1990), 229231CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Oppy, , ‘Makin on the Ontological Argument’, Philosophy 66 (1991), 106114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 In the original statement of (A) the consequent did not include the term ceteris paribus, and that was an error. This may have misled Oppy. McGrath, op. cit., 532f. argues this point well.Google Scholar

4 Oppy, , op. cit., 112.Google Scholar

5 It is not uncommon for statements that the Ontological Argument will not work to pass as objections to it. Compare McGrath, op. cit., 531Google Scholar: ‘…there appear to be good grounds for thinking that the notion of a necessarily exemplified concept does not make sense. If it did, then one could deduce the existence of something from the mere conception of it, and this seems imposs ible’. But if the Ontological Argument were defensible, then it would not be impossible.

6 I owe notice of this sort of example to Nicholas Denyer, who pointed it out to me some time ago.

7 McGrath, Hence, op. cit., 529Google Scholar says that the concept of the greatest prime number does not make sense, since Euclid has shown that there can be no greatest prime number.