Task summary:
Below is a partially completed philosophy paper. (There are two th
Task summary:
Below is a partially completed philosophy paper. (There are two thesis options. Please select only one.) Please answer provided questions.
Full order description:
Dear Freelancer,please complete the task
MAIN DETAILS:
Anselm’s ontological argument is an a priori argument for the existence of God. Anselm argues that denying the existence of the greatest possible being, God, leads to a contradiction. Gaunilo, a contemporary of Anselm, provided a famous parody of Anselm’s argument. He argued that if Anselm’s argument were sound, we could construct a parallel argument to prove the existence of the greatest possible island or indeed, the greatest possible anything. That’s absurd. In this paper, I’ll examine a response on behalf of Anselm and argue that it [succeeds/fails].
Suppose that the greatest possible being does not exist in reality. (assumption for reductio)Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone.(background premise)
There could be a being greater than the greatest possible being, since there could be a being with all the greatest possible being’s attributes plus the perfection of existence in reality. (from 1 and 2)
Premise 3 is absurd. (follows from the meaning of greater than’ and ‘greatest)
Therefore, the greatest possible being, God, exists in reality. (from 1 and 5)Please note that I have bolded certain key expressions in the argument. This will make it easier to follow an objection to the argument.
Why should we regard this conclusion as absurd? Well, it shouldn’t be quite this easy to prove the existence of something. Moreover, almost no one believes in the existence of the greatest possible island.In light of this objection, what should we think about Anselm’s argument? Well, that depends on the relative quality of the two arguments. I’ll assess them in the next section.
Argument
Anselm could respond to Gaunilo by arguing that there’s something wrong with the concept of the greatest possible island and showing that the same problem doesn’t arise for the concept of the greatest possible being. I’ll examine this response carefully, and I’ll argue that [insert your thesis here]
[A suggestion for structuring your argument: Examine two questions carefully in turn.”What is the greatest possible being like?” “What is the greatest possible island like?” Is one of these questions more controversial or more difficult to answer than the other?
Why or why not? What does this tell us about Anselm’s argument?
Dear Freelancer, additional comments: “you just need to complete the argument section of the paper, where it says insert thesis here… make sure to clearly state the thesis that you think the introduction succeeds or fails and also to pay attention to the suggestion for stucturuing your argument”
All the questions… like how does the greatest possible being relate to the greatest possible island