Frege's Criticism of the Ontological Argument

Joachim Bromand (Universität Bonn)

Abstract: Frege’s analysis of existential propositions and his criticism of the ontological argument has often been reduced to the slogan "Existence is not a predicate". Since Rudolf Carnap’s The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language (1931) this slogan has become a paradigmatic example of the application of analytic tools in pursuing the project of criticising traditional metaphysics. In his book The Miracle of Theism John Leslie Mackie, too, considers the slogan to be a "fatal" blow to the ontological argument. On closer analysis, however, the above slogan turns out to be harmless; furthermore, Frege’s criticism of the ontological argument does not consist solely in this slogan. The talk will examine the different objections Frege raises against the ontological argument and assess their strength.

PD Dr Joachim Bromand is private docent at the University of Bonn and assistant professor at the University of Mannheim. He works on epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics and the philosophy of language. He is the author of "Philosophie der semantischen Paradoxien" (Mentis 2001) and "Grenzen des Wissens" (Mentis 2009) and has (co-)edited a number of volumes, including "Wittgenstein und die Philosophie der Mathematik" (Mentis 2018) and "Gottesbeweise von Anselm bis Gödel" (Suhrkamp 2011).