Int J Philos Relig (2007) 62:171172 DOI 10.

1007/s11153-007-9130-0

Daniel A. Dombrowski, Rethinking the Ontological Argument: A Neoclassical Theistic Response

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 172 pp, Hb, US$ 70.00
Donald Wayne Viney

Received: 12 May 2007 / Accepted: 14 May 2007 / Published online: 20 July 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

In numerous books and articles, Daniel Dombrowski has explored nearly every aspect of Charles Hartshornes thought. This book discusses the contribution for which Hartshorne himself is most widely credited, namely, the rehabilitation of the ontological argument. Beginning with his dissertation in 1923, Hartshorne defended the argument as part of a cumulative case for Gods existence. (Dombrowski rightly emphasizes that Hartshorne never considered it as a proof sufcient in itself.) In articles in Philosophical Review (1944, vols. 53 and 54), he answered the challenge to give a non-fallacious syllogistic statement of the argument. Seven years before Norman Malcolms Anselms Ontological Arguments, Hartshorne made the same point in Philosophers Speak of God (1953). He identied one version of the argument in Proslogion chapter II that had been attacked by philosophers from Gaunilo to Russell, and a second version in chapter III, that had been ignored by nearly all of those just mentioned. The argument of Pros. II presupposes that existence is a perfection, but Pros. IIIs argument presupposes that modality of existencespecifically, necessary existenceis a perfection. The second argument, unlike the rst, does not confuse the existential quantier with a predicate. Hartshorne further claried Anselms reasoning in a notice of Malcolms article in The Journal of Philosophy (1961, vol. 58) and in The Logic of Perfection (1962) by expressing it in the formalism of Lewiss S5 modal logic. These developments occasioned a refreshing shift in the literature from rehearsing Kantian objections to debating the metaphysics of modality. Dombrowskis aim is to reconsider the neoclassical case for the modal argument in light of reactions both to Hartshornes work and, more generally, to the ontological argument as a paradigm of metaphysical reasoning. The intent is not to give an exhaustive survey of the critical literature but to respond to representative trends of thought about the argument. The discussion is wide-ranging, competently bringing together disparate thinkers, from deconstructive postmodernists to mainstream analytic philosophers. These groups are often not very good at talking to each other, but Dombrowski at least manages to put them in dialogue with Hartshorne and to make the case for his distinctive approach to the argument and to

D. W. Viney (B ) Department of Social Sciences/Philosophy, Pittsburg State University, 412 G Russ Hall, Pittsburg 66762, KS, USA e-mail: don_viney@yahoo.com

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metaphysical inquiry as an open-ended search for necessary truths about existence. A curious lacuna is that, despite an opening chapter on the history of the argument, none of Hartshornes formalizations of the argument are included, save a position matrix which is less an argument than a list of options (119). Hartshornes neoclassical defense of the modal argument is the centerpiece for arguing, against Richard Rorty (chapter 2) and Mark Taylor (chapter 3), for the very possibility of metaphysics in a postmodern context. Rorty is famous for declaring philosophy otiose. He eschews the projects of getting things right and of seeking certainty about eternal verities. Hartshorne meets Rorty half-way by emphasizing the fallibility of our knowledge of metaphysical necessities. Moreover, the truths in question do not transcend time but are the everlasting features of process. Dombrowski shows that Hartshornes metaphysics is less an attempt to mirror reality (to use Rortys metaphor) than to accurately interpret it, analogous to the way a map can represent a landscape while leaving out a wealth of detail. An illustration is Hartshornes insistence that, at most, the argument shows the necessary existence of God, not the actual states in which God exists. Dombrowski claims that it is precisely this point that Taylor misses in his critique of the viability of philosophy (62f). By focusing on Hegels use of the argument, Taylor wrongly concludes that metaphysics negates divine alterity. Hartshorne, on the contrary, denies that one can infer any contingent state of God from the necessary truth that God exists. Nearly a third of the book (chapters 4 and 5) is devoted to replying to Graham Oppy, who Dombrowski honors as the ontological arguments greatest contemporary critic (26). He accuses Oppy, however, of operating with a truncated conception of the theistic alternatives to classical theism and thereby failing to do justice to Hartshornes neoclassical variety (8889). The relevance of this criticism for the ontological argument is twofold. First, Oppy, like Taylor, treats existence and actuality as roughly synonymous (116). This gives the false impression that Hartshorne thinks one can deduce a concrete reality from an abstract definition. Second, Oppy does not attend to Hartshornes semantics for modal operators. For Hartshorne, the temporal-causal matrix provides the anchor for all discourse about modality. Necessity upon contingent conditions is what must be, given the actual past; unconditional necessity is what must be, given any actual past. Combining these points one can say that divine existence can only be unconditionally necessary whereas divine actuality can only be necessary upon contingent conditions (96f). Making these discriminations also provides an answer to the various parodies of the argument: for example, Gaunilos perfect island can be necessary, at most, upon contingent conditions, like erosion, sea level, tectonic movements, etc. In the last chapter, Dombrowski engages a triad of philosophers who are favorably disposed towards Anselms reasoning: Thomas Morris, Katherin Rogers, and Alvin Plantinga. They accept that God cannot exist contingently, but they resist Hartshornes view that God must exist with some world or other. As they see it, this compromises divine sovereignty and aseity. Dombrowski does not here enter (as he has elsewhere) this thicket of philosophical theology. He simply registers his doubts about the coherence of classical theism. If he (and Hartshorne) are correct, then, barring a workable alternative such as neoclassical theism, the ontological proof becomes an ontological disproofGods existence would be an impossibility. This fact shows that Oppy is mistaken to view debates over the concept of God as unimportant (139). Dombrowski expertly shows the intimate link between Hartshornes defense of the modal argument and his dipolar theism. Moreover, his measured assessment is a welcome counter-point to Oppys strident declaration that ontological arguments are completely worthless (5). No one expects religious conversion from a philosophical argument, but the intelligibility it may bring to the religious life is value enough.

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