- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- (A) The Argument from Intentionality (or Aboutness)
- (B) The Argument from Collections
- (C) The Argument from (Natural) Numbers
- (D) The Argument from Counterfactuals
- (E) The Argument from Physical Constants
- (F) The Naïve Teleological Argument
- (H) The Ontological Argument
- (I) Why Is There Anything at All?
- (J) The Argument from Positive Epistemic Status
- (K) The Argument from the Confluence of Proper Function and Reliability
- (L) The Argument from Simplicity and (M) The Argument from Induction
- (N) The Putnamian Argument (the Argument from the Rejection of Global Skepticism) [also, (O) The Argument from Reference, and (K) The Argument from the Confluence of Proper Function and Reliability]
- (N) The Putnamian Argument, (O) The Argument from Reference, and (P) The Kripke-Wittgenstein Argument from Plus and Quus
- (Q) The General Argument from Intuition
- (R) Moral Arguments (actually R1 to Rn)
- (R*)The Argument from Evil
- (S) The Argument from Colors and Flavors
- (T) The Argument from Love and (Y) The Argument from the Meaning of Life
- (U) The Mozart Argument and (V) The Argument from Play and Enjoyment
- (W) Arguments from Providence and from Miracles
- (X) C.S. Lewis’s Argument from Nostalgia
- (Z) The Argument from (A) to (Y)
- The <i>Kalam</i> Cosmological Argument
- The Argument from Possibility
- The Necessity of Sufficiency
- Afterword*
- Appendix Plantinga’s Original “Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments”
- Index
The Ontological Argument
The Ontological Argument
Patching Plantinga’s Ontological Argument by Making the Murdoch Move
- Chapter:
- (H) The Ontological Argument
- Source:
- Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God
- Author(s):
Elizabeth D. Burns
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
William Rowe claims that Anselm’s ontological argument, as restated by Alvin Plantinga, begs the question because, in order to know the truth of the key premise—“It is possible that God exists in reality”—we must know, independently of the argument, that God exists in reality. This chapter argues that Rowe focuses on Plantinga’s restatement of Anselm’s argument at the expense of Plantinga’s own version of the argument, and that Plantinga anticipates and addresses Rowe’s objection. Although Plantinga concedes that a rational person could reject his argument’s central premise, it might be possible to build on Plantinga’s argument by adding a further step derived from Iris Murdoch, which shows that the existence of God is not only possible but necessary, and therefore actual. This reconstruction is not an ontological argument in its purest form, but a fusion of elements from ontological, moral, and cosmological arguments for the existence of God.
Keywords: ontological argument, fusion argument, Anselm, Alvin Plantinga, William Rowe, Iris Murdoch
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- (A) The Argument from Intentionality (or Aboutness)
- (B) The Argument from Collections
- (C) The Argument from (Natural) Numbers
- (D) The Argument from Counterfactuals
- (E) The Argument from Physical Constants
- (F) The Naïve Teleological Argument
- (H) The Ontological Argument
- (I) Why Is There Anything at All?
- (J) The Argument from Positive Epistemic Status
- (K) The Argument from the Confluence of Proper Function and Reliability
- (L) The Argument from Simplicity and (M) The Argument from Induction
- (N) The Putnamian Argument (the Argument from the Rejection of Global Skepticism) [also, (O) The Argument from Reference, and (K) The Argument from the Confluence of Proper Function and Reliability]
- (N) The Putnamian Argument, (O) The Argument from Reference, and (P) The Kripke-Wittgenstein Argument from Plus and Quus
- (Q) The General Argument from Intuition
- (R) Moral Arguments (actually R1 to Rn)
- (R*)The Argument from Evil
- (S) The Argument from Colors and Flavors
- (T) The Argument from Love and (Y) The Argument from the Meaning of Life
- (U) The Mozart Argument and (V) The Argument from Play and Enjoyment
- (W) Arguments from Providence and from Miracles
- (X) C.S. Lewis’s Argument from Nostalgia
- (Z) The Argument from (A) to (Y)
- The <i>Kalam</i> Cosmological Argument
- The Argument from Possibility
- The Necessity of Sufficiency
- Afterword*
- Appendix Plantinga’s Original “Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments”
- Index