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‘Something than which nothing greater can be thought’ and Kant's Ens Realissimum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Morgan Keith Jackson Open the ORCID record for Morgan Keith Jackson [Opens in a new window]
Morgan Keith Jackson*
Affiliation:
Department of Studies in Religion, Durham University, Department of Theology and Religion and The University of Sydney, 12 Landridge Road, Fulham, London SW6 4LD
*
mjac3670@alumni.sydney.edu.au; m.k.jackson@dunlem.ac.uk
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Abstract

In this paper, I explore Kant's much-studied critique of the ontological argument, seeking to place Immanuel Kant and Anselm of Canterbury more directly in contact with one another; I do this in two ways. First, I discuss the historical reception of the ontological argument in Kant's eighteenth century context. Second, I move the discussion away from the first Critique, and look towards Kant's Pre-critical discussion of the ontological argument in The Only Possible Argument, where he initially sets out his primary objection. By shifting the focus towards these areas of Kant's thought, I aim to achieve three interrelated goals. First, I show that Kant had a limited knowledge of the history and origins of the ontological argument, which was transmitted to him through Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten, who put a Cartesian spin on it. Second, I provide textual evidence which shows that Kant's objection does not succeed against Anselm's argument. Third, I elucidate that Kant's identification of God as the ens realissimum is compatible with Anselm's identification of God as ‘something than which nothing greater can be thought’.

Keywords

AnselmKantOntological argumentEns RealissimumProslogion
Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 103 , Issue 1103 , January 2022 , pp. 77 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Plantinga, Alvin, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1974), p. 97Google Scholar.

2 Plantinga, Alvin, God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of the Belief in God (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 27Google Scholar.

3 Matthews, Gareth, ‘The Ontological Argument’, in Mann, William E., ed., The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Religion (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 81–102Google Scholar.

4 While Peter Millican suggests that Anselm's argument fails, he states that it does not fail because it violates some deep Kantian principle. See Millican, Peter, ‘One Fatal Flaw in Anselm's Ontological Argument’, Mind 113 (2004), pp. 437-476CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6 Anselm is no stranger to featuring in texts with a focus on Analytic Theology. A reference to the Monologion and De Grammatico show Anselm's engaging in what we may aptly label analytic theology. See Wood, William, Analytic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021)Google Scholar.

7 Logan, Ian, Reading Anselm's Proslogion: The History of Anselm's Argument and its Significance Today (London: Taylor & Francis, 2009), p. 156Google Scholar.

8 Reference to Kant, with the exception of the Critique of Pure Reason, refer to the Akademie edition, Kant's gesammelte Schriften, ed. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990-)Google Scholar Unless otherwise stated, translations are from the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, ed. Guyer, Paul and Wood, Allen (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1998-)Google Scholar. Citations to the first Critique are to the A (first edition) and B (second edition).The following abbreviations are used: CPpR= Critique of Practical Reason, OPA= The Only Possible Argument, GS= Gesammelte, LPR= Lectures on Religion, OP= Opus Postumum, OIT= What does it mean to orientate Oneself, CJ= Critique of Judgement, NE= New Elucidations, RPT= On a recently prominent tone. See A574/B602; A605-6/B633-4; A605-6/B633-4.

9 A586/B614; OPA 2:85.

10 In the New Elucidation, Kant first puts forward an argument for the existence of God, from the concept of possibility. Despite this, in Beweisgrund Kant offers the most developed proof for the existence of God via the concept of possibility. See NE, pp.1–45.

11 It is noteworthy to mention that Kant in Refl 3706, sets out an early, but detailed criticism of the ontological argument for the existence of God. However, the dating is opaque; it may date as early as 1753 and as late as 1777. See, Refl 17:240-17:243.

12 A742-744/B770-773; CPrR, 5:4, 108-114, 121, 125, 134-135; LPR, 28:1084; OIT, 8:139; CJ, 5:546; OIT, 8:142; OP, 22:115.

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14 LPR, 28:1003.

15 GS, XVIII, p. 500.

16 GS, XX, p. 349.

17 GS, XVIII, p. 782.

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19 Oppy, Graham, Ontological Arguments and Belief in God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 5Google Scholar. Also, it is only in a letter sent to a Mersenne, after the publication of the Meditations, that Descartes mentions Anselm for the first time: ‘I shall look at Saint Anselm at the first opportunity.’ See Cottingham, John et al, The Philosophical Writing of Descartes, vol II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 46Google Scholar.

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21 Ibid., p.348.

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23 See Leftow, Brian, ‘Aquinas’, in Oppy, Graham, ed., Ontological Arguments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 44–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I thank the anonymous reviewer for bringing this to my attention.

24 See, Bonaventure, Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, 4 vols (Quaracchi, 1934–39)Google Scholar; also, Bernardino Bonansea, ‘The Ontological Argument: Proponents and Opponents’, in Ryan, John K. Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy (Catholic University of America Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

25 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Iq, que. 2.

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27 In his classical work, Der Ontologische Gottesbeweis Sein Problem und seine Geschichte in der Neuzeit (Tübingen: J.C. B. Mohr, 1960)Google Scholar, Dieter Henrich argued that Descartes brought the ontological argument back into discussion by reviving Anselm's argument after criticism by Thomas Aquinas had diminished its popularity in the late middle ages.

28 Röd, Wolfgang, Der Gott der reinen Vernunft: Ontologischer Gottesbeweis und rationalistische Philosophie (München; Verlag C.H. Beck, 2009)Google Scholar; Henrich, Dieter, Der Ontologische Gottesbeweis; and the most recent Uygar Abaci, Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 79–89Google Scholar.

29 OPA, 2:71.

30 Prosl Preface, p. 87.

31 OPA, 2:91.

32 OPA, 2:91.

33 OPA, 2:156.

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35 Ibid.

36 OPA, 2:74.

37 OPA, 2:75; A596-601/ B624-629.

38 Kant gives the example of Julius Caesar (OPA, 2: 72).

39 OPA, 2:74.

40 Chignell, ‘Kant, Modality, and the Most Real Being’, p. 175.

41 Ibid., p.158.

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43 A492-603/B620-631.

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45 OPA, 2:83; 2:89.

46 OPA, 2:77.

47 OPA, 2:80-81.

48 OPA, 2:79.

49 OPA, 2:79.

50 OPA, 2:83.

51 Stang, Nicholas, ‘Kant's Possibility Proof’, History of Philosophy Quarterly 27, no.3 (2010): p, 281Google Scholar.

52 OPA, 2:91.

53 For this reconstruction I am indebted to Nicholas Stang, ‘Kant's Possibility Proof’, p. 284.

54 OPA, 2:91.

55 Stang, Kant's Modal Metaphysics, p. 27.

56 OPA, 2:83.

57 OPA, 2:85.

58 OPA, 2:83-89.

59 OPA, 2:89.

60 Oppy, Ontological Arguments and Belief in God, p. 47.

61 OPA, 2:89.

62 Prosl 18, p. 98.

63 OPA, 2:90.

64 OPA, 2:90.

65 See George Wilhelm, Leibniz, ‘Monadology’, in Robert Latta, ed., The Monadology and Other Writing, §41, p.240.

66 Prosl 3, p. 88.

67 Isaac Newton introduces the notion of space as the ‘divine sensorium’ in Queries 28 and 31 of his Optiks. See Newton, Isaac, ‘Extracts from the Opticks: End of Query 28 (1706)’, in Alexander, H.G., ed., The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956), pp. 171–83, 174Google Scholar.

68 Prosl 22, p.100.

69 Prosl 22, p.100.

70 OPA, 2:85.

71 OPA, 2:86.

72 OPA, 2:87.

73 OPA, 2:85.

74 Prosl 5, p. 89.

75 RPT, 8:400.

76 OPA, 2:91; Prosl 3, p. 88.

77 OPA, 2:89.

78 Prosl 4, pp.88–9.

79 Prosl 4, p. 89.

80 OPA, 2:87.

81 Prosl 4, p. 89.

82 Prosl 3, p. 88.

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86 OPA, 2:72.

87 OPA, 2:72.

88 LPR, 28:1084

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91 As expressed by Hector, Kevin W. in, The Theological Project of Modernism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar

92 In his work, Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law, Christopher Insole (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)Google Scholar, expresses this sentiment comprehensively.

93 OPA, 2:162.

94 A590/B618-A742-44; A742-44-B770-72.

95 Prosl 1, 19, 20, pp. 85-7; 98, 99.

96 For the most recent discussion on this point see Oberst, Michael, ‘The Possibility Proof is Not What Remains from Kant's Beweisgrund’, Kantian Review 25, no.2 (2020): 219CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (See A/591/B619, A630/B658).

97 I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers at New Blackfriars for their insightful comments and making clear to me important historical evidence that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. I would also like to thank Gary Wade and Elizabeth Jackson, who were instrumental in getting this piece into scholarly shape.