On Anselm (Part 1): 'Why Does Anselm's Ontological Argument Haunt Us?' by O.G. Rose

God is the greatest of all possible beings, and a great possible being which exists is greater than one which doesn’t; therefore, God exists. There you go! How do you feel? Well, if you don’t feel convinced, then you aren’t thinking about the God to which this proof refers; if you are convinced, that might just mean you already believed in God. And so Anselm’s legendary argument haunts us…

There are a million responses to the Ontological Argument, and I will not address them all here, though more of my thoughts on Anselm can be found in Pensées of a Professor (Anselm is a diamond which can be viewed from many sides). Rather, I will leave it to readers to explore the depths of Anselm on their own: from my familiarity with “The Great Discussion,” I will only attempt to offer a small contribution with Epistemological (and thus Ontological) relevance, though if it proves foolish, please discard it. I want to explore “the haunting of Anselm,” our inability to totally shake the Ontological Argument. Whenever we think we’ve escaped it with a reading of Kant or Bertrand Russel, we find it floating around in our minds again, always waiting to be reexamined. And so we do, find it convincing, and then go about our day, only to find ourselves reconsidering the argument a month later. And so we do, find it unconvincing, and then go about our day, only to find ourselves reconsidering the argument months later. And so we go about our lives...

For the full paper, please see:

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Photo by Zoltan Tasi

[dialmformowgli]

Where is the picture from please. <3