Spinoza and the Ontological Proof

Abstract

I should like in this paper to characterize the “ontological proof” for the existence of God. In so doing I will discuss Wolfson’s¹ analysis of the proof and argue that his characterization is not, as has been claimed, wholly mistaken, but is insufficient. I will also argue that the more adequate characterization here proposed gives us a good account of Anselm’s and Descartes’s proofs but that on that account, there is no “ontological proof” in Spinoza or at least not in the text where it has usually been thought to be located. In conclusion, I will touch upon the confusion of metaphysical notions and epistemological notions such as that between conceivability and possibility, which has conflated quite different sorts of arguments under the heading “ontological proof.” It is clear from these preliminary remarks that the term “proof” is being used in the wide sense of argument and not in the narrow sense of valid or successful argument. Nor will I be concerned with the validity of those arguments which qualify as ontological.

This paper overlaps in part with a paper ‘Bar-On on Spinoza’s Ontological Proof’ presented in 1976 at a conference on Spinoza of the International Institute of Philosophy. The Proceedings of that conference will be published.