Document Type : Original Article

Author

• Mehdi Abbaszadeh

Faculty member of the Institute of Islamic Culture and ThoughtFaculty member of the Institute of Islamic Culture and Thought

Abstract

Ontological argument in western philosophy is some arguments for the existence of god in which one tries to approve directly the existence of god from the very notion of god or necessary being in one’s mind – not from characteristics of external beings. Anselm of Canterbury was the first thinker who proposed the idea of ontological argument in medieval philosophy. Different versions of the arguments have been laid forth by some western thinkers; however, some others criticized these kinds of arguments. In Islamic world a similar situation can be seen; some reject all versions of the argument but some agree that a particular description of it can be acceptable. In this paper, firstly, two Cartesian versions of ontological argument and their three Kantian criticisms are explained; secondly, different criticisms of Javadi-Amoli are described. Javadi-Amoli criticized three Kantian criticisms and the second version of ontological argument and finally said that, the argument is fallacy. The paper, then, reviewed all the above ideas in this regard and proved that according to two theories in Islamic philosophy, i.e. Maqulaat-e-Thaani and Nafs ul-Amr, the second version of ontological argument can be acceptable

Keywords

• God
• necessary being
• Ontological Argument
• Descartes
• Kant