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👉 https://untanglephilosophy.com Can you prove God's existence just by thinking about it? Descartes thought so—but Kant wasn’t convinced. In this video, we explore Descartes’ Ontological Argument, Kant’s famous refutation, and a modern response by Alvin Plantinga that challenges Kant’s reasoning.

The Ontological Argument, as presented by René Descartes, holds that God is a supremely perfect being, and that existence is one of the perfections such a being must possess. Descartes claims that just as the idea of a triangle necessarily involves three angles, the idea of God necessarily includes existence. Since God’s essence includes all perfections, and existence is considered one of them, it would be a contradiction to conceive of God without existence. This is an a priori argument, relying purely on reason rather than empirical evidence.

Immanuel Kant rejects this reasoning. He argues that it is not logically contradictory to deny the existence of a subject along with all its predicates. One may reject both the idea of God and the qualities ascribed to God without inconsistency, just as one can reject the idea of a triangle without needing to account for its angles. Furthermore, Kant contends that existence is not a real predicate—it does not add any content to the concept of a thing. Using the example of imagined versus real coins (thalers), Kant explains that positing the existence of something does not add a new attribute to its concept. This objection suggests that Descartes’ argument illegitimately treats existence as if it were a property like colour or shape.

Bertrand Russell supports Kant’s critique by arguing that existence functions differently from standard predicates. He distinguishes between the predicative use of “is” (as in “God’s beard is pink”) and the existential use (“God is”), claiming that ontological arguments mistakenly treat existence as a property like any other.

Alvin Plantinga challenges Kant’s assumption that for a concept and a real object to refer to the same thing, their predicates must align completely. He presents cases where concepts can refer to actual entities even if they lack certain properties found in the real object. For example, the concept of “the tallest man in Boston” does not need to include information about the man’s marital status, even though the real individual must either be married or unmarried. Plantinga argues that this weakens Kant’s criticism and leaves room for reconsidering the ontological argument.

Perfect for University Courses & A-Level Philosophy & Ethics OCR & AQA or equivalent.

🔍 Key Points Covered
▸ Descartes’ Ontological Argument and his claim that existence is a perfection
▸ Kant’s objection: denying existence is not a contradiction
▸ Kant’s argument that existence is not a predicate
▸ Russell’s distinction between the predicative and existential use of “is”
▸ Alvin Plantinga’s critique of Kant’s assumption about concepts

📖 Chapters
00:00 Can We Define God Into Existence?
00:13 Descartes’ Ontological Argument Explained
01:30 Kant: Is It a Contradiction to Deny God?
02:48 Kant: Existence Is Not a Predicate
03:44 Russell’s Clarification on “Is”
04:09 Alvin Plantinga’s Challenge to Kant
05:15 Final Thoughts: Who’s Right?

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📺 Watch next:
   • UNTANGLE: Ontological Argument  

🔬 Sources and Further Reading:
Abela, P. (2013) ‘Immanuel Kant’, in C. Meister and P. Copan (eds) The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion. 2nd edn. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge, pp. 171-182.
Anselm of Canterbury (2008) The Major Works. Edited by B. Davies & G. R. Evans. Reissued edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Augustine (2008) On Christian Teaching. Translated and Edited by R. P. H. Green. Reissued edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, D. & Greggs, A. (2018) Philosophy of Religion for OCR. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Goldschmidt, T. (2020) Ontological Arguments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, I. (2003) The Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by J. Meiklejohn. Mineola, NY: Courier Dover Publications.
Lowe, E. J. (2013) ‘The Ontological Argument’, in C. Meister and P. Copan (eds) The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion. 2nd edn. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge, pp. 391-400.
Plantinga, A. (1966) ‘Kant’s objection to the ontological argument’, The Journal of Philosophy, 63(19), pp. 537-546.

#Descartes #Kant #OntologicalArgument #PhilosophyOfReligion #religiousstudies #ocr #aqa #alevel

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