Home | Philosophy

Plantinga’s Criticism of Kant’s Objections to Anselm’s
By: Tamela Ice

I
In God, Freedom and Evil, Alvin Plantinga argues that Kant’s objections to Anselm’s version of the ontological argument are fraught with difficulty, irrelevant, and unwarranted because Kant misunderstands Anselm’s argument. Kant responds to Anselm’s argument as if it is a non-modal argument (treating “existence” as a first-order predicate). Plantinga, on the other hand, interprets Anselm’s argument as a modal argument (treating “existence” as a second-order predicate). Plantinga restates Anselm’s version of the ontological argument and claims that this argument is both valid and sound.
In this paper, I will explicate Plantinga’s rendering of Anselm’s argument in modal terms followed by his criticisms of what he considers to be the most important of Kant’s objections. I will then clarify Plantinga’s own modal version of the ontological argument. Finally, I will address Plantinga’s claim that Kant’s objections are irrelevant and unjustified. I will show that Plantinga commits two logical errors: begging the question and inconsistency. Moreover, I claim that Plantinga’s version of the ontological argument does not justify knowledge claims about the existence of God. Plantinga is ultimately justifying the rationality of faith. Thus, his argument does not refute Kant, and Plantinga steps beyond reason to faith – precisely where Kant says we must.

II
Plantinga reads Anselm’s argument as a reductio ad absurdum. That is, as an attempt to “prove a given proposition p by showing that its denial, not-p leads to (or more strictly entails) a contradiction or some other kind of absurdity.” Plantinga suggests that if we replace the phrase in Anselm, “the being than which nothing greater can be conceived” with the term “God,” Anselm’s argument looks something like the following :
(1) God exists in the understanding but not in reality.
(2) Existence is reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone. (premise)
(3) God’s existence in reality is conceivable. (premise)
(4) If God exists in reality, then He would be greater than he is. [from (1) and (2)]
(5) It is conceivable that there is a being greater than God is. [(3) and (4)]
(6) It is conceivable that there be a being greater than the being than which nothing greater can be conceived. [(5) by the definition of “God”]

Plantinga says that since (6) is self-contradictory, the conclusion would be that:
(7) It is false that God exists in the understanding but not in reality.
Plantinga points out that “it follows that if God exists in the understanding, He also exists in reality; but clearly enough He does exist in the understanding … Therefore, He exists in reality as well.”
According to Plantinga, we can see Anselm’s argument as a modal argument if we understand key phrases and restate Anselm’s original argument. The key phrases are :
(1) A being that exists in the understanding is, for Anselm, intended to mean that someone has thought of or thought about that being. (We might understand this as having a concept, in Kantian terms).
(2) Anselm understands something that exists in reality as meaning the thing in question really does exist.
(3) For Anselm, to say that a “certain state of affairs is conceivable” means that this state of affairs is possible in our broadly logical sense, there is a possible world in which it obtains.

Plantinga then restates step (3) as
(3') It is possible that God exists.
And, step (6) can be restated as
(6') It is possible that there be a being greater than the being than which it
is not possible that there be a greater.

If the premises of the argument are true at all, they are necessarily true. Plantinga explains that (1) is the assumption from which Anselm wants to infer a contradiction. There are only two premises in the argument, (2) and (3). The remaining steps are consequences of previous steps. Steps (3') and (6') attribute modality (possibility, necessity, contingency) to another proposition, thus they are “either necessarily true or necessarily false.” It follows, then, that if the premises of the argument, as restated, are true at all, they are necessarily true. Moreover, (1) leads to a contradiction, and it is necessarily false.

The preceding is an explanation of how Plantinga interprets Anselm’s argument as a modal argument. This is the point on which Plantinga argues that Kant’s objection is irrelevant. I will now lay out Kant’s objections and Plantinga’s criticisms.

III
Plantinga begins his criticism of Kant with what he refers to as the “most famous and important objection” to the ontological argument. Plantinga says Kant’s criticism begins with the following:
If, in an identical proposition, I reject the predicate while retaining the subject, contradiction results; and I therefore say that the former belongs necessarily to the latter. But if we reject the subject and predicate alike, there is no contradiction; for nothing then is left that can be contradicted. To posit a triangle, and yet to reject its three angels, is self-contradictory, but there is no contradiction in rejecting the triangle together with its three angles. The same holds true of the concept of an absolutely necessary being. If its existence is rejected, we reject the thing itself with all its predicates; and no question of contradiction can then arise. There is nothing outside it that would then be contradicted, since the necessity of the thing is not supposed to be derived from anything external; nor is there anything internal that would be contradicted, since in rejecting the thing itself we have at the same time rejected all its internal properties. ‘God is omnipotent’ is a necessary judgment. The omnipotence cannot be rejected if we posit a Deity, that is, an infinite being; for the two concepts are identical. But if we say, ‘There is no God’, neither the omnipotence nor any other of its predicates is given; they are one and all rejected together with the subject, and there is therefore not the least contradiction in such a judgment. …

For I cannot form the least concept of a thing which, should it be rejected with all its predicates, leaves behind a contradiction.

Plantinga maintains that Kant seems to be claiming that “no existential proposition – one that asserts the existence of something or other – is necessarily true … no contra-existential (the denial of an existential) is contradictory or inconsistent.” Plantinga finds this claim problematic in that we have no clear idea of the sense in which Kant uses “inconsistent.” Plantinga thinks Kant is saying that “no existential proposition is necessary in the broadly logical sense.” However, Plantinga claims that Kant does not provide an adequate argument for this, if there is an argument at all. Plantinga says the conclusion of Kant’s argument would apparently be:
… if we deny the existence of something or other, we can’t be contradicting ourselves; no existential proposition is necessary and no contra-existential is impossible.

If we ask why this is the case, Plantinga says Kant’s reply would be:

There is nothing outside it (i.e., God) that would then be contradicted, since the necessity of the thing is not supposed to be derived from anything external; nor is there anything internal that would be contradicted, since in rejecting the thing itself we have at the same time rejected all its internal properties.

Plantinga finds this to be an unsatisfactory, and problematic, response. The assertion that ‘God does not exist’ cannot be a necessarily false proposition. Plantinga wants to know what it means to say that there is nothing external to God that would contradict the proposition denying God’s existence. It is another proposition, Plantinga maintains, that will contradict the proposition in question. However, Plantinga says, “Kant seems to think that if the proposition in question were necessarily false, it would have to contradict, not a proposition, but some object external to God – or else some internal part or aspect or property of God.” Plantinga says that this results in a perplexity insofar as propositions are contradicted by other propositions, not by objects in the world, or properties of objects.

If Kant is talking about “propositions about things external to God, or about His aspects or parts or properties,” there are numerous propositions that will contradict the proposition ‘God does not exist,’ for example, ‘the world was created by God.’ Plantinga’s point here is that Kant is unclear as to whether he is referring to objects, aspects, or properties external to God, or propositions about objects, aspects, or properties external to God. If the former, Plantinga says Kant makes no sense. If the latter, Kant is wrong, there are contradictory propositions. Plantinga says Kant cannot mean to say that “no true proposition contradicts God does not exist.” Kant would then be committed to accepting that God does not exist, “an affirmation Kant is by no means prepared to make.”

Plantinga concludes that Kant’s objection is enigmatic. Kant does not, Plantinga claims, provide an adequate argument that contra-existentials cannot be inconsistent. Plantinga says “This passage seems to be no more than an elaborate and confused way of asserting this claim.” Plantinga’s point is that Kant’s objection as expressed in the previous passage offers nothing substantial by way of refuting the Ontological Argument.

Plantinga turns to what he calls the “heart of Kant’s objection to the ontological argument.”

‘Being’ is obviously not a real predicate; that is, it is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations, as existing in themselves. Logically, it is merely the copula of a judgment. The proposition, ‘God is omnipotent’, contains two concepts, each of which has its object – God and omnipotence. The small word ‘is’ adds no new predicate, but only serves to posit the predicate in its relation to the subject. If, now, we take the subject (God) with all its predicates (among which is omnipotence), and say ‘God is’, or ‘There is a God’, we attach no new predicate to the concept of God, but only posit the subject in itself with all its predicates, and indeed posit it as being an object that stands in relation to my concept. The content of both must be one and the same; nothing can have been added to the concept, which expresses merely what is possible, by my thinking its object (through the expression ‘it is’) as given absolutely. Otherwise stated, the real contains no more than the merely possible. A hundred real thalers do not contain the least coin more than a hundred possible thalers. For as the latter signify the concept and the former the object and the positing of the concept, should the former contain more than the latter, my concept would not, in that case, express the whole object, and would not therefore be an adequate concept of it. My financial position, however, is affected very differently by a hundred real thalers than it is by the mere concept of them (that is, of their possibility). For the object, as it actually exists, is not analytically contained in my concept, but is added to my concept (which is a determination of my state) synthetically; and yet the conceived hundred thalers are not themselves in the least increased through thus acquiring existence outside my concept.

By whatever and by however many predicates we may think a thing – even if we completely determine it – we do not make the least addition to the thing when we further declare that this thing is. Otherwise, it would not be exactly the same thing that exists, but something more than we had thought in the concept; and we could not, therefore, say that the exact object of my concept exists.

Plantinga’s first question concerns the relevance of this passage to Anselm’s ontological argument. Again, Plantinga thinks Kant is unclear as to his meaning. If Kant means to argue that “it’s not possible to define things into existence,” which is related to Kant’s claim that existence is not a predicate, the question arises as to what it means to assert that existence is not a real property.

On Plantinga’s reading of Kant, the claim that existence is not a real property “is equivalent to … ‘the real contains no more than the merely possible’; ‘the content of both (i.e., the concept and object) must be one and the same’; ‘being is not the concept of something that could be added to the concept of a thing’” etc. Plantinga has no idea what this means or how it is in any way relevant. Kant may be right in asserting that we cannot define things into existence, but Plantinga maintains that this is irrelevant to Anselm’s Ontological Argument. If Anselm has merely added existence as a property, Kant’s criticism would be relevant. However, Plantinga claims that Anselm is not doing this, and his rendering of Anselm’s argument is his support for this claim. Thus, Kant's criticism is unwarranted. Indeed, Plantinga’s only real criticisms of what he thinks of as the heart of Kant’s objection are that it is unclear, at least to Plantinga, what Kant means (that is, we have to assume Kant’s meaning), and it is irrelevant.

In the following section, I will provide Plantinga’s modal version of the argument, which he claims is both valid and sound.

IV
According to P. J. McGrath, there are six standard versions of the ontological argument. The versions of the ontological argument presented by Anselm, Descartes and Leibniz are non-modal arguments. The versions presented by Hartshorne, Malcolm and Plantinga are modal versions of the ontological argument.

Plantinga begins with premise (2) of Anselms’ argument, which he says is confusing. Premise (2) says:

Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone.
Plantinga says that Anselm understand “existence” to be a “great-making property.” Restating premise (2) in terms of possible worlds, and focusing on the property of greatness, as opposed to the possibility of a maximally great being, Plantinga gives the following argument:
(1) There is a possible world in which maximal greatness is instantiated.
(2) Necessarily, a being is maximally great only if it has maximal excellence in every world.
(3) Necessarily, a being has maximal excellence in every world only if it has omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection in every world.

Plantinga goes on to argue:
(4) But if (1) is true, then there is a possible world W such that if it had been actual, then there would have existed a being that was omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect; this being furthermore, would have these qualities in every possible world.
(5) So it follows that if W had been actual, it would have been impossible that there be no such being. That is, if W had been actual,
(6) There is no omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being would
have been an impossible proposition. But if a proposition is
impossible in at least one possible world, it is impossible in every
possible world; what is impossible does not vary from world to world.
(7) Accordingly, (6) is impossible in the actual world, i.e., impossible
simpliciter.
(8) But if it is impossible that there be no such being, then there actually exists a being that is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
(9) This being, furthermore, has these qualities essentially and exists in every possible world.

Plantinga’s argument is valid. The conclusion does follow from premise (1), which claims that there is a possible world in which maximal greatness is instantiated. The important question for Plantinga is whether premise (1) is true, and he thinks it is. Therefore, according to Plantinga, his modal version of the ontological argument is both valid and sound.
In the final section of this paper, I will address Plantinga’s criticisms of Kant’s objections to Anselm’s ontological argument, point out the logical errors committed by Plantinga, and argue that Kant and Plantinga end up with the same conclusion regarding theological knowledge.

V
Plantinga says that “[a]t first sight Anselm’s argument is remarkably unconvincing if not downright irritating,” but this argument is appealing because “many of the most knotty and difficult problems in philosophy meet in this argument. Is existence a property? Are existential propositions – propositions of the form x exists – ever necessarily true?” These are precisely the issues Kant raises in his objections to Anselm’s argument. Thus, Plantinga’s claim of irrelevance is unwarranted. These are some of the most “knotty and difficult problems” in philosophy!

Plantinga commits two logical errors: begging the question and inconsistency. Plantinga admits that his argument does not prove the existence of God. Indeed, it is not a proof at all. As Plantinga notes, “no one who didn’t already accept the conclusion, would accept the first premise (i.e., “there is a possible world in which maximal greatness is instantiated”). Thus, Plantinga’s argument obviously begs the question.

For Plantinga, if premise (1) is true at all, it is necessarily true. Plantinga says, “I think it is true; hence I think this version of the ontological argument is sound.” However, Plantinga cautions that “it does not prove” the existence of God. “An argument for God’s existence may be sound, after all, without in any useful sense proving God’s existence.” Plantinga says that since he believes in the existence of God, he thinks the claim “God exists” is true, and his modal argument for the existence of God is sound. Necessary truth is not grounded on the beliefs of individuals. If Plantinga’s claim is that the first premise is contingently true, then it could be false, but this is inconsistent with Plantinga’s claim that if premise (1) is true at all, it is necessarily true.
Finally, a general understanding of Kant’s intention with the Critique of Pure Reason, and certain distinctions he makes in his explanation of how it is that we can have knowledge, and what it is that we can have knowledge of, will show that Kant and Plantinga arrive at the same place – arguing for the rationality of faith.

In the “Preface to the First Edition” of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant begins by stating “Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of it knowledge, it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.”

The entire Critique can be understood as leading us to the limits of reason. Indeed, with regard to absolute theological and religious knowledge of the existence of God, Kant says we have to go beyond the limits of reason. It is claims to knowledge that Kant is rejecting, along with the tendency to attempt to reason from the logical possibility of a concept to the real possibility of things. Kant’s claim is that we are not justified in making knowledge claims of the existence of God, and that the ontological proof is really no proof at all. With regard to knowledge of the existence of God, Kant says it is “necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.” But, this is exactly what Plantinga claims. Plantinga maintains that although the truth of theism has not been proved, it is not “contrary to reason or irrational” to accept theism. Thus, Plantinga ends up arguing for faith over reason on the issue of knowledge of God’s existence.

Kant says that the “concept of a supreme being is in many respects a very useful idea.” In this sense, Kant is not likely to reject the rationality of theism. Kant’s point is, however, that the idea of God “is altogether incapable, by itself alone, of enlarging our knowledge in regard to what exists” in the world. It seems, at least to me, that Plantinga either misunderstands what Kant is objecting to, or he overlooks the emphasis on knowledge claims.
Kant's arguments may indeed be convoluted and difficult to follow. However, with regard to Plantinga's claim of irrelevance, it is not necessary to attempt to unwrap Kant's arguments. Ultimately, the relevance of Kant's objections rests on his concern with properties, existential propositions, and knowledge. Interpreting Anselm’s argument as non-modal, as Kant seems to, or as modal, as Plantinga assuredly does, leads to the same conclusion. Both end up arguing for faith over reason, and accepting that knowledge of the existence of God is impossible. Thus a modal version of Anselm’s ontological argument is no more insightful, nor does it justify knowledge claims regarding the existence of God any more than a non-modal interpretation of Anselm’s argument.

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Philosophy Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Philosophy
Sign Up as an Author.
Submit Articles
Member Login
Top Authors
Most Popular Articles
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
New Stuff
Forum
Link to Us
Contact Us

Powered by Article Dashboard