Beautiful snow began covering the city around 3pm today, and continued falling until about six. I took a walk in the woods behind my parent’s house in the fresh snow, saw some deer, and drank some green tea from a mason jar. It’s definitely the most I’ve been into natural nature since coming back from China. The snow was clean enough to take a taste of.

The Norton Introduction to Philosophy

This is now getting tricky. There’s phrases in the original text such as “Therefore, if that than which a greater cannot be thought can be thought not to exist, then that than which a greater cannot be thought is not that than which a greater cannot be thought; and this is a contradiction.” ???????

Although tricky, the Reader’s Guide is a great guide to the reading. Alone, I wouldn’t be able to infer as much from the primary text. But with the help of the authors, I’m getting a glimpse into the kind of logic and ontological arguments this 11th century Catholic would create and be celebrated for in his time. Although his arguments don’t hold up today, they did back then. This study of the history of arguments alone is worth my time.

I’m trying my hardest to answer the questions without skipping to the back of the book for the solutions, but in the end will look at them and change my answers accordingly. However, there is a section (“Notes and Questions”) that does not have answers in the book. So while I can make a shot in the dark and answer them, it’s really hard to know if I’m going in the right direction and not just being picky with their language.

Chapter 1: Does God Exist?

First off: What is “God?”

• The God of Scripture and Tradition: A being that did all or most of the things God did in the Hebrew bible or Koran.
• The God of Philosophers: An absolutely perfect being. A being than which none greater can be thought (Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent)
• God as First Cause; God as Designer: Does the natural world owe its existence to something not within nature? In this argument, God doesn’t have to be perfect or play a role in history such as in the Bible.
• God as a Transcendent Source of “Meaning”: A being whose existence gives meaning, purpose, direction, or limits to human life – and by its nature demands devotion, obedience, or love.

When reviewing arguments for and against the existence of God, do the following actions:

• Your first job is to figure out what the author means by the words in his or her text.
• Your second job is to determine what his or her argument is supposed to be.
• Your third job is to decide whether the argument establishes its conclusion.

It’s a mistake to do the following:

• Quibbling with terminological choices
• Co-opting theological terms for your own purposes: “When I say that God exists, I just mean to express my hope for human progress.”
• Just saying “God is an idea or concept” since the meaning of something is separate from what it is. “The debate over God’s existence is a debate over the existence of a real being with extraordinary attributes. It is not a debate about the existence of an idea.”

Some vocab before we start:

• Reductio ad absurdum: “Reduction to absurdity,” “appeal to extremes.” A form of argument that attempts to disprove an argument by showing it leads to extremes, or proving it’s true by showing that if it was not true the result would be impossible or absurd. “The Earth cannot be flat; otherwise, we would find people falling off the edge.”
• a priori: “From the prior.” Knowledge or justification independent of experience, such as mathematics, tautologies, and ontological proofs.
• a posteriori: “From the later.” Knowledge or justification depending on experience or empirical evidence, such as science or personal experience.
• Theodicy: An attempt to answer why god would permit the manifestation of evil and resolving the problem of evil.
• Cosmological argument: Argues that a casual or explanatory sequence in nature must have an origin that is not just part of nature.
• Cosmological fine-tuning argument: If certain constants and basic laws were different, life would not exist.
• Design argument: Parts and functions of organisms are brilliant and complex.

Arguments for Atheism:

• Argument from evil: There is unnecessary harm and evil in the world, and a omnibenevolent god wouldn’t allow it.

Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109): The Ontological Argument, from Proslogion (Chapters 2 and 3)

Anslem is credited with the founding of Scholasticism, which is an effort to provide a philosophical foundation for Christian doctrine which incorporates insights from Greek philosophy.

From the book: “The selection presents two independent arguments. The argument of Proslogion 2 relies on the distinction between existence in the mind and existence in reality. The argument of Proslogion 3 relies on a rather different distinction between things that can be thought not to exist and things that cannot be thought not to exist.”

Anslem believes that everything that exists falls into three categories: Things that exist in the mind alone, things that exist in the mind and reality, and things that exist in reality but not the mind (unknown/undiscovered things). He also assumes that it is greater to exist in reality than the mind alone. So since God is by definition perfect, nothing could be better than God. If it is better, it is not God. Therefore, since whatever exists in the mind alone is not greater, and nothing is Greater than God, he does not exist in the mind alone.

The question of the fool (atheist) is “Does God exist in reality?”

Questions:

Anselm identifies God with “something than which nothing greater can be thought.” Briefly explain this formulation.

• Nothing can be conceived to be better than God.

“It is one thing for an object to exist in the understanding, and another thing to understand that an object exists [in reality].” Explain this distinction using examples of your own.

• If a baker formulates in his head the perfect loaf of bread, it is not the same as actually performing the steps and creating it. Then it exists in reality and mind.

Anselm argues that even though the fool denies that God exists, God must exist in his understanding. Give the argument for this claim.

• In order to deny it, he would need to have in his mind the idea of God.

In Chapter 3, Anselm distinguishes between “things that can be thought not to exist” and “things that cannot be thought not to exist.” Explain the distinction with examples.

• Unicorns can be thought “not to exist”, but the idea of a unicorn cannot be thought not to exist. but numbers cannot as they are fundamental and a priori.

Things I’m Liking

• Peaceful Cooking: Beautiful cooking videos from Japan. Some steps would be better with some explanation, but this is a case form over function. I liked the Green Curry video.
• Berkeley IPA transcription practice: Trying to learn some basic IPA and this is a good tool. I’m testing IPA to pronouncation instead of transcription, and ipachart.com is helping me check my answers.