Kant's criticism of Anselms ontological argument

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Outline

Anselm claims that to have the concept of God in your mind means God exist, and therefore to not believe is a contradiction. Although Kant believed in God, he argues that rejecting God is not contradictory. But if you reject only the predicates and not the subject then it is contradictory.

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The triangle example

The triangle is the subject, and its three sides its predicate. If someone was to reject the fact that a triangle has three sides, that would be contradictory. But if you the reject the whole thing (the subject and predicate) then there is nothing left to contradict. The same applies to God. Remove his existence, and you also remove all his predicates (omni's), so that a contradiction becomes impossible.

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Anselm claims existence is greater than non existe

For example: to not only imagine something, but paint it also is greater than being able to only imagine something as paint it doubles the amount of its existence. Anselm argues of course we can all imagine God, but considering God is the ultimate being, he must exist as well. Kant disagrees with this argument.

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The 100 gold coins example

When 100 gold coins exist in reality they contain the exact same predicate as to when they exist in the mind. The concept does not change in any way, regardless of where they exist. Thus existence cannot be a predicate otherwsie the concept would be different when it has a reality. Furthermore If I say 100 gold coins exist, and that existence is a predicate, then I say that 100 gold coins posseses the quality of existence. If I say 100 gold coins do not exist, I can say it lacks the quality of existence. This is problematic, as clearly a thing has to exist in the first place in order to lack a quality. Therefore existence is not a predicate, nor a analytical statement, existence is rather snythetic, it relies on evidence to be affirmed.

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