Kant's refutation of the Ontological

Proof of God's Existence

Kant' Refutation

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant set out a framework intended to refute the ontological argument. It is said that the critique was directed at Descartes and Leibniz. And oddly, Pierre Gassendi expected such a criticism from Kant, even going so far as to write about it in his Objections to Descartes' Meditations. Kant's framework consisted of a number of interrelated but separate arguments.

Three main arguments are the backbone of Kant's refutation of the ontological argument. Primary is the argument that existence, or being, is not a real predicate. Second, Kant argues that it is possible to deny the subject and the predicate of a judgment in order to avoid contradiction. Kant theorizes that there are no claims about existence that can be termed analytic -- that is to say, tautological, as a result of the...
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