The Pope and an atheist are having a discussion...

and it slowly gets more and more heated until eventually the Pope can't take it anymore and he says to the atheist - "You are like a man who is blindfolded, in a dark room who is looking for a black cat that isn't there."

The atheist laughs and says - "With all due respect, we sound awfully similar. You are like a man who is blindfolded, in a dark room who is looking for a black cat that isn't there but the difference is you think you've found it.

Evidently, this piece of reasoning cannot be torpedoed on the basis that it presupposes that there is something than which nothing greater can be thought of, as it only requires that something is thought of than which nothing greater can be thought of. But Anselm makes it clear that anyone who claims to understand the phrase “that than which nothing greater can be thought of” has to think of something than which nothing greater can be thought of, which, therefore, being thought of, is in the intellect, as its object. By the above argument we can see, however, that it cannot be only in the intellect, whence we concluded that it has to be in reality, too.

That is why sensible people who have faith in god or gods don't bother with such paltry arguments and the time-wasting talking-past-the-other that this thread so amply exemplifies. — Janus

Similarly Banno offers the following, a worthy candidate: — Leontiskos

As he says: “what if someone were to say that there is something greater than everything there is [...] and [that] something greater than it, although does not exist, can still be thought of?” Evidently, we can think of something greater than the thing greater than everything, unless the thing that is greater than everything is the same as that than which nothing greater can be thought of. But Anselm’s point here is precisely that although, of course, there is nothing greater than the thing greater than everything, which is supposed to exist, something greater than what is greater than everything still can be thought of,if the thing greater than everything is not the same as that than which nothing greater can be thought of. So if the thing greater than everything is not the same as that than which nothing greater can be thought of, then something greater still can be thought of; therefore, that than which nothing greater can be thought of can be thought of, even if it is not supposed to exist.

Will someone be good enough to provide as an aid to navigation a simple proposition expressing exactly what they think Anselm proves? And the same service for Gyula Klima's paper? — tim wood

The problem with objecting to the two-place predicate M()() in premise (1) without looking at premise (3) is... — Leontiskos

Why don't you think he is making use of ampliation in (1)? — Leontiskos

Your objection relies on the idea that some concepts cannot exist even as beings of reason — Leontiskos

Banno is engaged in a form of concept denial, which he would need to flesh out. — Leontiskos

It sounds like you're saying that we can't have a being of reason if it isn't a being. Or in other words: we can't think of what doesn't exist. "X doesn't exist, therefore we cannot think of it." — Leontiskos

But the proof at hand does not assume that — Leontiskos

you simply overlook Klima's "ampliation" — Leontiskos

Trouble is, that is not what g:=ix¬(∃y)M(y,x) says. God is still a thought object, albeit the greatest thought object. — Banno

Following the analogue, the first transfinite number is

ω:=min{x∣x is an ordinal and ∀n∈N,n<x}

You need something like this, but with g for ω. But notice that ω is an ordinal, and is define as greater than any natural number. This avoids the contradiction that would result if ω were defined as greater than any other ordinal, or as a natural number greater than any natural number.

So you can't just write g:=ix¬(∃y)M(y,x) without a problem, becasue it may be that there is no greatest individual. You need god to be something else, not an individual or not a part of the domain or something, to avoid shooting yourself in the foot.

But if you manage that, you have the analogue of the transfinite numbers - no sooner have you defined g as the greatest, and then you can bring to mind something greater than g, and the problem repeats itself.

So even as there is good reason to think that it is not possible to make sense of "the largest number", it is difficult to see how to make sense of "the greatest individual". — Banno

Gaunilo of Marmoutier took this approach — Count Timothy von Icarus

if the issue is that the conclusion must be contained in the premises, that's a problem for all deductive arguments. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Maybe you could reply to what I said about (1). — Banno

Your misrepresentation is still there: (1) g=dfix.~($y)(M(y)(x)) (as well as the other lines of the proof where similar problems occur). — Leontiskos

Klima is explicit that step (2) is a supposition and that step (1) is a definition, so I'm not sure what you're attempting to disagree with. — Leontiskos

Okay, so you're not actually objecting to step (2) of the proof? — Leontiskos

Yet no one would understand each other if they were always making different sounds to refer to different things in each instance, so we "cannot" have a human language that works like that. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Good. This is what I mean by "engaging the paper." — Leontiskos

In fact, much of your quote is a misrepresentation of what Klima writes in the paper. You were presumably copy/pasting without checking to see if the output was accurate. A bit more care would be welcome, given how much people struggle with formal logic even before you start incorporating symbols like $, ", ®. — Leontiskos

You are saying the number does not exist, but you also require that the thought object of the number does not exist. — Leontiskos

As he says: “what if someone were to say that there is something greater than everything there is [...] and [that] something greater than it, although does not exist, can still be thought of?” Evidently, we can think of something greater than the thing greater than everything, unless the thing that is greater than everything is the same as that than which nothing greater can be thought of. But Anselm’s point here is precisely that although, of course, there is nothing greater than the thing greater than everything, which is supposed to exist, something greater than what is greater than everything still can be thought of, if the thing greater than everything is not the same as that than which nothing greater can be thought of. So if the thing greater than everything is not the same as that than which nothing greater can be thought of, then something greater still can be thought of; therefore, that than which nothing greater can be thought of can be thought of, even if it is not supposed to exist.

However, if reference wasn't fixed by convention at all there would be no need for languages in the first place. The sound of "dog" could be arbitrarily assigned to some referent in each instance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You haven't engaged with the paper at all, — Leontiskos

↪Wayfarer I don't wish j's thread to turn into a discussion of Davidson. — Banno

(1) g=dfix.~($y)(M(y)(x))
(2) I(g)
(3) ("x)("y)(I(x)&R(y)®M(y)(x)))
(4) R(g)
(a) M(g)(g) [2,3,4, UI, &I, MP]
(b) ($y)(M(y)(g)) [a, EG]
(5) ($y)(M(y)(ix.~($y)(M(y)(x))) [1,b, SI]

...those affections feed into our thinking in ways we cannot hope to understand — Janus

Do you think we can say that the world is always already interpreted for the dog? — Janus

This experience, on McDowell's view, provides her with a reason to believe that the cat is on the mat because in having this experience, the fact of the cat being on the mat is made manifest to her. — Pierre-Normand

On the paradigmatic account of reference in contemporary philosophical semantics, owing in large part to Russell’s Theory of Descriptions, the burden of reference is taken to be carried basically by the bound variables of quantification theory, which supposedly reflects all there is to the universal logical features, or “deep structure” of natural languages.