When Anselm introduced the ontological argument in the Proslogion in the eleventh century it soon attracted a response entitled, ‘A Reply to the Foregoing by a Certain Writer on Behalf of the Fool’. That ‘certain writer’ was Gaunilo of Marmoutiers. The reply is the only known work of Gaunilo’s and nothing much is known about this Benedictine monk. In the reply Gaunilo introduced arguably the most distinctive objections ever raised against the ontological argument.
As a theist, Gaunilo accepts the conclusion of the ontological argument that God exists. However, he disagrees with Anselm that the argument succeeds in proving the existence of God. That is why he puts forward an objection to Anselm on behalf of ‘the fool’, by which he means the atheist. Gaunilo purports to undermine the argument by advancing the following claim: the ontological argument must contain a flaw because
if it were successful in proving the existence of God, there would be
parallel parodies that are equally successful in proving the existence of absurd entities.
As an example, Gaunilo introduces a parody which purports to prove the existence of ‘the greatest possible island’: consider an island-than- which-no-greater-island-can-be-thought. Such an island exists at least in the mind because anyone can understand the phrase ‘an island-than-which- no-greater-island-can-be-thought’. Now does such an island exist only in the mind or does it exists both in the mind and also in reality? If that island exists only in the mind another island can be thought that is even greater than that island. Such an island is thought to have all the characteristics that the original island has and it is also thought to exist in reality. However, it is contradictory to say that an island can be thought that is greater than the island in question. That is, it is impossible that an island can be thought that is greater than the island-than-which-no-greater-island-can-be-thought. Hence, it is impossible that the island-than-which-no-greater-island-can- be-thought does not exist in reality and, therefore, such an island does indeed exist in reality. However, as Gaunilo says, we all know that there is no such island in reality.
Gaunilo’s purpose is not to ridicule Anselm. His purpose is rather to show that, given that we can concoct the absurd island parody, there must be something wrong with the ontological argument somewhere. Gaunilo’s parody objection is often regarded as only a second-class, supplementary objection to the ontological argument or as a mere curious consequence that one can derive from it. In fact many critics treat the parody objection as a supplement to a more substantial objection to the ontological argument.42
Few critics regard it as something that could constitute a serious objection. Yet the parody objection has a number of virtues that other objections lack.
First, unlike many other objections, the parody objection does not dispute any of the ontological argument’s controversial metaphysical assumptions.43
This becomes evident when comparing the parody objection with the first objection discussed above, according to which the ontological argument is based on the false assumption that existence is a predicate. We saw above that that objection is not easy to defend because, in order to defend it, one has to prove not only that the ontological argument presupposes that existence is a predicate – which is controversial in its own right – but also that existence is, indeed, not a predicate – which is even more controver- sial, independently of the debate over the ontological argument. The parody objection, on the other hand, does not involve this sort of complication. The parody objection accepts, at least for the sake of argument, all the premises of the argument and all the assumptions that it makes. It then constructs a parallel argument that reveals an apparent absurdity entailed by the onto- logical argument. In this sense, the parody objection is as metaphysically and dialectically sympathetic as possible to the ontological argument, until the last stage, where it purportedly reveals its absurdity. The parody objec- tion is also distinct from the second objection discussed above, according to which the ontological argument is question-begging. Even if we assume that the ontological argument is not question-begging we can still construct the island parody, which, again, seems to show that there is something wrong with the ontological argument.
Another virtue of the parody objection is that it is applicable to multiple versions of the ontological argument. Consider again the first objection to the argument. That objection was introduced by Kant mainly to refute
Descartes’s second version of the ontological argument. The objection seems to
refute the second version because that version appears to assume that exist- ence is a predicate when it states ‘existence is a perfection’. It is, however, far from obvious that the same objection applies to Anselm’s version and Descartes’s first version because, as we saw above, they do not seem to be
committed to the claim that existence is a predicate. Unlike Kant’s objec- tion, the parody objection does seem applicable to all versions of the onto- logical argument because a parody argument can be constructed merely by rephrasing relevant components of any version of the ontological argument. As I mentioned above, Gaunilo uses the objection to undermine Anselm’s version of the ontological argument; Gassendi, Descartes’s contemporary, uses it to undermine Descartes’s version of the argument (by appealing to a parody argument for the existence of a ‘perfect Pegasus’);44 and Graham
Oppy uses it to undermine even Gödel’s modal version of the argument mentioned below.45
Of course, the parody objection is not almighty. One main drawback of the objection is that even if it is successful it does not pinpoint exactly what is wrong with the ontological argument. If the objection is successful it shows only that there is something wrong somewhere in the argument.46 So,
borrowing Schopenhauer’s analogy, the parody objection can show only that the magician’s production of a rabbit is a trick without specifying exactly where the rabbit is hidden. However, while it would be interesting to know exactly what is wrong with the ontological argument, the parody objection alone potentially is sufficient to refute the argument.
Is the island objection then successful in refuting the ontological argu- ment? The answer, unfortunately, seems to be no, as it appears to exhibit several flaws. First, the island objection fails because the island parody is not strictly parallel to the ontological argument. The purpose of the island objection is to construct a parody argument such that (i) it is exactly parallel to the ontological argument; and (ii) it entails an absurd conclusion that the greatest possible island exists in reality. The island argument fails to satisfy (i) because the scope of the island argument is not the same as that of the ontological argument. While the ontological argument is concerned with the set of all possible beings, the island argument is concerned with a significantly smaller subset of it, namely, the set of all possible islands. Consider a parallel example. Suppose that we construct an argument that is concerned with all possible people. We then construct its parallel parody that is concerned with all possible weightlifters, which, of course, consti- tute a subset of the set of all possible people. It is far from obvious that the fact that a parallel argument about all possible weightlifters entails an absurd conclusion tells us anything about the plausibility of the original argument about all possible people.
Second, the island argument is based on an assumption to which proponents of the ontological argument are not committed. The ontological argument is
based on the implicit assumption that there are intrinsic maxima for prop- erties traditionally attributed to God as that-than-which-no-greater-can-be- thought.47 So, for example, it assumes implicitly that there is a maximum
amount of knowledge that God, or any being, can have. Similarly, the island argument is based on the implicit assumption that there are intrinsic maxima for properties that an island can have. So, for example, it assumes implicitly that there is a maximum number of beautiful palm trees or pleasant beaches that any island, in particular, an island-than-which-no-greater-island-can- be-thought, can have. However, proponents of the ontological argument, who are committed to the assumption that there are intrinsic maxima for God’s properties, such as knowledge, are not committed to the assumption that there are intrinsic maxima for an island’s properties. Moreover, there is an obvious reason to reject such an assumption about an island’s properties: For any island i it is always possible to make i greater by adding, for example, one more beautiful palm tree or one more pleasant beach.48
The island objection is, therefore, unsuccessful. It is not strictly parallel to the ontological argument because its scope is too narrow and it makes an assumption about intrinsic maxima that the ontological argument does not make.