Helmut, List: I understand your confusion, but it is basically just a matter of specifying what is meant by "exists" in a particular context. Logically, something "exists" if it is an object in the universe of discourse; in this sense, possibles (1ns) and necessitants (3ns) can "exist," as well as existents (2ns). Metaphysically, at least according to Peirce, something "exists" *only *if it "react[s] with other like things in the environment" (CP 6.495, c. 1906); in this sense, *only *existents (2ns) can "exist." For better or worse, in modern colloquial usage, this careful (and helpful) terminological distinction is now widely ignored or simply unknown--"exists" is practically synonymous with "is real." Perhaps that reflects the extent to which nominalism has further infected our philosophical and scientific discourse since Peirce's day. In any case, he states the following in one of his manuscript drafts for "A Neglected Argument."
CSP: I do not, by 'God,' mean, with some writers, a being so inscrutable that nothing at all can be known of Him. I suppose most of our knowledge of Him must be by similitudes. Thus, He is so much like a mind, and so little like a singular Existent (meaning by an Existent, or object that Exists, a thing subject to brute constraints, and reacting with all other Existents,) and so opposed in His Nature to an ideal possibility, that we may loosely say that He is a Spirit, or Mind. (R 843, 1908) God is "like a mind" (3ns), much more so than "an ideal possibility" (1ns) or "a singular Existent" (2ns), but it would still be a mistake to conceive God as "existing" *within* the 3rd universe; on the contrary ... CSP: Unless we were to think reason in general futile, which neither you reader nor I can, we have the problem before us to explain the sum total of the real, however vaguely. To explain anything is to show it to be a necessary consequence. To say that the total real is a consequence of utter nothing without substance or appearance is absurd. The only alternative is to suppose a necessary something whose mode of being transcends reality. This is vague enough. 'Necessary being' is the equivalent of 'something,' since nothing is self-contradictory and impossible. But a necessary being adequate to account for the sum total of reality, however inscrutable, is not in all respects entirely vague. (R 288:91[178], 1905) God is the "necessary something whose mode of being transcends reality," i.e., all three categories and universes--a unique description that (according to Peirce) "is vague enough" to satisfy anyone that there is such a being, yet "not in all respects entirely vague" since (as Gary R. noted previously) *some *other attributes of God can be deduced from it. The disputes come about when this conception is made any *more *precise than that, especially by different religious traditions with conflicting claims of divine revelation. By the way, Peirce again discusses the ontological argument, although he mistakenly ascribes it to Aquinas instead of Anselm, in a still-unpublished portion of his manuscript draft for a book entitled *Reason's Conscience: A Practical Treatise on the Theory of Discovery*. I apologize for the lengthy excerpt, but I believe that this passage is worth quoting in full. CSP: Another question which has occasioned a vast amount of idle talk about language is whether existence is a predicate. There is a charming argument in Aquinas [Anselm] to prove the existence of God. It runs thus: God is defined as the most perfect being. A mere definition cannot be questioned. We have a right to make the word "god" mean what we like. But an existent being is more perfect than a nonentity. Therefore, God must exist. Now it is commonly held that the discussion of this argument lies quite outside the province of logic, although one would think it was as pertinent to logic as any single argument can be. Therefore, the logicians do not directly notice it. But there can be little doubt that the majority of German logicians would think that if the argument is not sound as it stands, it only needs some amendment to become so. Some of them, however, whose views approximate to mine, as Kant and Herbart (and no doubt there are others, although in such proximity to the blaze of Kant's and Herbart's names, my mind fails to recover them, except Franz Lott, who wrote in the forties) say that existence is not properly a predicate; and that 'God exists' is only a form of words meaning 'Something is God.' Kant says, (Critik d. r. V., 5.598) "Anything you please will do for a logical predicate ... for logic abstract[s] from all special matter. But a *determination* is a predicate that is added to the concept of the subject and enlarges it; and consequently it is not to be regarded as contained in it. *Being* is obviously no real predicate, i.e. no concept to be *added to* the concept of a thing ... A hundred real dollars in value [208] not a bit more than a hundred possible ones ... Let me think of a thing by what predicates I will, if I then think that the thing exists, I do not thereby in the least add to my concept of the thing." The clever psychologist Hans Cornelius endeavors to meet this by giving a whole list of experiential characters that are implied by saying that a thing exists. It is his thinking of the words that prevents his seeing that his list is quite aside from the question. He fails to see that the reason a definition cannot be denied is that to assert anything of a subject that has no reality is no assertion at all and consequently must be allowed to be true, that is, free from falsity. No matter what existence implies since it is the nature of dollars to exist, an imaginary hundred of dollars is an imaginary hundred of existing dollars. They at once exist and non-exist; and there is just wherein their unreality consists. Consequently to say "The hundred dollars supposed to be in my pocket exist," if taken literally would assert nothing at all, any more than to say "The hundred dollars supposed to be in my pocket are dollars." For both sentences, literally understood, are true whether there be or be not such a hundred dollars. But if one says " *Something* in my pocket is a hundred dollars," the case is different; for " *something*" is inapplicable to unreal objects. This is what is meant by saying that existence is not a predicate. Kant is quite explicit: it is not a predicate additional to the conception of the object; while to assert that there exists such an object is a real assertion whose predicate does involve something not implied in the concept of the subject nominative. (R 693:[202-212], 1904; ellipses in original) Once more, I detect here the difference between a nominal definition and a real definition--"God is the most perfect being" is equivalent to the conditional proposition, "if a most perfect being *were *real, then God *would be* that being," but this by itself does not assert that God *is *real; that requires the additional claim, "something is the most perfect being." Note also that the heavy line of identity in the Beta part of Peirce's system of Existential Graphs embodies the principle that existence is not a predicate, because such a line by itself on the sheet *already *asserts that "something exists"--logically, in the universe of discourse--*without *the need to attach the name "existence," as if this were a general concept. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Fri, Oct 25, 2024 at 11:56 AM Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote: > Jon, Gary, List, > > When before someone said, he thinks, that God doesn´t exist, I would have > thought, he is an atheist. Now you say so, but I know, that you are not > atheists. So I am confused. I admit, I haven´t thoroughly adopted the > distinction between reality and existence. Doesn´t "Ens" mean "being" aka > "existent", by the way? Lately I have posted the proposal, that > composition, "being in something", being a part of another thing, may be > different things, according to the three different Peircean categories. Now > I guess, that with existence it may be the same. Existence, "is", is > classification, like in "I am a mammal". Maybe I should ask: Does God exist > as a quality/feeling, does He exist as an actual entity, does He exist as a > function? I would answer the first and the third question with "yes", and > the second with "I don´t know". I can work better with this Peircean > categorial analysis, than to try to at last understand the difference > between real and existing. > > I think, God primarily is an object of worship, and also somebody you > automatically worship too, if you worship somebody or something else, like > a lover, or something beautiful in the nature. Worship is not consumption. > You must know what you eat, but you don´t have to know what you worship. To > try to know God leads to paradoxons, e.g.: Does God think? What is to > think? We think in order to solve a problem. Does God have a problem? No, > by definition, because He is omnipotent. But maybe He has to think in order > to create? Creation is a temporal process, thinking too, but God is > nontemporal. So no thinking reqired. But, if God doesn´t think, is He a > person? What is a person anyway?.............. > > So I think, that trying to analyse God doesn´t help, it only opens up > paradoxons. But worshipping Him does help, because it leads us to respect > other people and the nature, when we see and approve of the divinity in > them. > > Best regards, Helmut >
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