And the Word Became Flesh: Logic and the Ontological Argument in Leibniz, Kant and Frege

摘要

Historically, the philosophical literature on the ontological argument has primarily been concerned with the assessment of the argument in terms of its validity or lack thereof. Rarely have the logical foundations of validity itself been investigated in their relation to the argument. My thesis seeks to remedy this omission by investigating the correlation between changing conceptions of logic and ontological argumentation. To do so, I discuss the conceptions of logic employed by three of the most notable modern expositors of the ontological argument: Leibniz, Kant and Frege. I characterize their conceptions of logic in terms of formality and modality and subsequently relate these characterizations to their respective critiques of the ontological argument, establishing that an important correlation exists between one's conception of logic and one's assessment of ontological argumentation. In conclusion, I argue for the importance of understanding ontological argumentation not only in terms of its validity within a given conception of logic, but also in terms of the validity of the conception of logic itself.