The ontological argument intends to prove the existence of god by the concept of god himself. What I mean by this Is that it intends to prove existence of god by a priori knowladge( knowladge that is independant of any experience) it is also known as Anselmian argument…
-St Anselm’s Ontological Argument:
His ontological proof for the existence of God begins by assuming that the mere concept of God is the concept of a being who possesses all perfections.The fact that the concept of God is the concept of a being ‘than which nothing greater can be conceived’. From this, it follows that if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then a greater being could be conceived that is one that exists both in the mind and in reality. Since existing in reality is considered a greater perfection than existing merely as a concept, it must follow that God, as the greatest being, must exist in reality.
-Descarte’s Support of The Ontological Argument:
Like Anselm, Descartes thought of God in terms of a perfect being. Following Anselm’s first argument, Descartes was in agreement that existence was more perfect than non-existence. For Descartes, God’s existence was part of His essence that a supremacy perfect being must exist is reality or else, he would not be perfect.For Descartes, there are some qualities that an object necessarily has or else it would not be that object. To illustrate this Descartes argued that the essence of a triangle is a ‘three sided plane figure’. To say that God does not exist is rather like saying ‘a triangle does not have three sides’ . In the same way, existence cannot be separated from the concept of God.
– Immenual Kant’s Criticism:
Kant criticized Descartes by an assumption that thinking of a triangle without three sides would be contradictory, but denying the existence of the triangle is not. We can simply assume that a supreme being does not exist, nor does His perfection. Kant claims that existence is not a property or attribute that can be added to a concept. That is, “EXISTENCE IS NOT A PREDICATE.” What predicates means is that beings have attributes, for instance god has an attribute of being omnipotent.. Kant says that existence itself cannot be an attribute of some being.. we cannot an attribute of “Existence” to some being.For example, we might say, “Unicorns have one horn,” but this does not prove there are any unicorns. Likewise, if we say, “God is perfect,” this does not prove that there is one. Existence cannot be a part of the concept of something, The ontological argument tries to take existence as part of the concept of God. so existence is not analytic but synthetic. It relies on evidence to be affirmed, so it is “a posteriori.” We need to go beyond the concept to prove existence.
