On The Critique Of Kant, The Ontological Proof Of The Existence Of God

Kant concluded that there are only three probable ways of proving the existence of God by means of speculation reason:physico-theological proving cosmological-theological proving and ontological theological proving.And Kant thought that the ontological theological proving is substantial and prior in the three ways.So Kant's critique on the existence of God focused on the ontological theological.We thought that the ontological proof of the existence of God,which Kant faces, is an immanent and logical proposition modified by many philosophers.And it has three important characters.First,"existence" is an attribute.That means "existence" has to attribute to substance like other attributes.Anselm,who made the first ontological proof of the existence of God in philosophy history,did depend on the principle honestly.Second,ideas and realism is logical isomorphic.This is Descartes' principle in his ontological proof of the existence of God.(But as Descartes' opinions, there is another principle in his proof called "understanding honesty".It is to say that he realized the nature of sense's death.Third,we can conduct existence by means of logical necessity.Descartes' principle that ideas and realism is logical isomorphic made Leibniz confirm at last that idea and existence logical isomorphism relations. That is to say,the logical relations between our ideas must be isomorphic to the relations between realisms.The relations of realisms are logical framework which is as same as ideas'.In history,Anselm Gaunilon and Gassendi rebutted ontological proof of the existence of God.Generally speaking,the traditional rebuttals to ontological proofs don't success though they have their own valid.Gaunilon did not point the proof's key. On contrary,his rebuttal was made in to Anselm's indirect evidence of the ontological proof of the existence of God.Gassendi denied Descartes' evidence of the ontological proof of the existence of God.He pointed out the key of the proof that existence is not a real predict.By his analysis on existence,he pointed out that "existence" is not an attribute,and existence can only be proved by experiences.The "perfect" has its meaning in logical form,but "existence" has its meaning in experience.We can see that Gassendi's analysis relays on the opposition of empiricism and rationalism,and he can't solve the conflict between knowledge and experience.Gassendi had not absolute encourage like Hume to deny the knowledge.The rebuttals went to the cross while the ontological proof of the existence of God had been modified:Is the experience rational,how can we face the challenge of the increasing knowledge? The problem goes into a new horizon,and this is the horizon of Kant's critique.The most difference between Kant's critique and rebuttals before him is that Kant solve the problem by a pure rational attitude.He thought the key to the problem is analysis of the proof.First,he pointed out that the unconditioned necessity of judgment is not the same as an absolute necessity of a thing.Kant thought that unconditioned necessity of judgment is logical necessity,while an absolute necessity of a thing is material necessity.Second,he analyzed the two meanings of Being.That is to say,he defined the two meanings of affirmation.Third,he thought Being is obviously not a real predict,that is it is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing.He defined the meaning of existence:existence is an absolution affirmation of a thing,and so is distinct from predicates that should be defined in the relation of other things.Forth,Kant thought the idea of the realest existence is an outcome from empirical analogism.We can conclude two substantial characters.First,experience is the symbol of existence.Second,synopsis constructs the existence.By analyzing its essential categories,namely,being,existence and God,Kant revealed their meanings and relations,which showed his newly empirical ontological view.Kant's critique on the ontological proof of the existence of God is very successful, but he did not solve the proof.We think there are two defaults in his critique.First, temporal mechanism is obscure.Though Kant had related time to existence,he can not explain how time is as a mechanism to dominate existence.Second,the dilemma of transcendental-self.Though transcendental-self has the function of constructing all experience,it itself is incognizable,and it is a thing in itself. The problem in Kant's critique on the ontological proof of the existence of the God indicates a new thinking about "God existence",and the man who make the new thinking is just Kant.In the transcendental deduction as in first edition of Critique of Pure Reason,Kant opened the way of phenomenological analysis which indicated a transcendent over the meaning of Be in second edition.Through the experience of intuitive judgment,Be and Existence bind each other in the time horizon and God appears in the horizon.