Study Questions for Philosophy 1000 C Fall 2004 II.
III.
Rowe
1.
What does ‘a priori’ mean?
2.
What does ‘a posteriori’ mean?
3.
Do you think that any argument that begins with nothing but a concept and
concludes that something answering to that concept must exist can work (i.e. have
true premises, be valid and not beg the question)? Discuss (consider other kinds of
examples here, not just the ontological argument)!
4.
What does Rowe mean by an ‘impossible thing’? What does he mean by a ‘possible
thing’? A ‘necessary thing’?
5.
How does Rowe interpret Anselm’s notion of ‘existence in the understanding’?
6.
What do you think of ‘existing in the understanding’ as a way of describing what’s
going on when we think of something? Does this way of speaking lend aid to
Anselm’s argument? How?
7.
What sorts of characteristics contribute to ‘greatness’ (in the sense used in the
ontological argument)? Is it fairly straightforward to determine which characteristics
belong here and which don’t, or is it going to be difficult?
8.
Why does Anselm need to claim that existence in reality is a ‘great-making quality’?
How does Rowe interpret ‘greater than’?
9.
Is existence always a great-making quality? What about the cruelest possible
person? Wouldn’t it be better if this person did not exist?
10. Suppose existence is a great-making quality. Does it follow that, for any nonexisting but possible being, it would have been greater than it is if it existed? Does a
non-existing being have any degree of greatness (or any other quality) at all?
11. What are the 3 premises Rowe invokes in his reconstruction of Anselm’s argument?
12. What is a reductio ad absurdam proof?
13. What does Rowe say is the main reason why philosophers in general have rejected
Anselm’s argument?
14. Can you think of a reason why Guanilo’s island argument isn’t just as good as
Anselm’s ontological argument (that is, can you think of a reason why God is really
a special case here)?
15. Does Rowe’s reply to Guanilo work? What sort of thing would an actually existing,
wonderful island be? (It would surely be a better land than a non-existing, wonderful
island!)
16. If the greatest possible island is an impossible thing, should we also worry that the
greatest possible being of all might also be an impossible thing?
17. What does Kant mean by saying that ‘existence is not a predicate’?
18. Explain how claims of existence and non-existence get interpreted when we hold that
existence is not a predicate.
19. Does Rowe’s appeal to fictional entities show that we don’t really presuppose
existence when we predicate a quality of something? Is Merlin really a magician?
Or is that just ‘code’ for ‘Merlin is said to be a magician in the stor.’?
20. What do you think of the brute force ontological argument in section IV? If it
doesn’t work, why doesn’t it? Could Anselm’s argument succeed where this crude
version fails? Why, or why not?
21. What is a ‘magican’? A ‘magico’?
22. What conclusion does Rowe think Anselm is entitled to, given his premises? How
does this differ from the conclusion Anselm wants?
23. Where does Anselm’s conception of God fit on the table of existing and non-existing
but possible things, if in fact s/he doesn’t exist?
24. What distinguishes our usual understanding of ‘God is a possible thing’ from what
Anselm draws from it, according to Rowe’s analysis?
25. What logical flaw does Rowe finally ascribe to Anselm’s argument?