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Ontological arguments from experience: Daniel A. Dombrowski, Iris Murdoch, and the nature of divine reality

Citation: Burns, Elizabeth (2012) Ontological arguments from experience: Daniel A. Dombrowski, Iris Murdoch, and the nature of divine reality. Religious Studies, 49 (4). pp. 459-480. ISSN 0034-4125 (Print), 1469-901X (Online)

Burns_Murdoch_Ontological_Argument_Rel_Stud_11_12.pdf

Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

Dombrowski and Murdoch offer versions of the ontological argument which aim to avoid two types of objection - those concerned with the nature of the divine, and those concerned with the move from an abstract concept to a mind-independent reality. For both, the nature of the concept of God/Good entails its instantiation, and both supply a supporting argument from experience. It is only Murdoch who successfully negotiates the transition from an abstract concept to the instantiation of that concept, however, and this is achieved by means of an ontological argument from moral experience which, in a reversal of the Kantian doctrine, depends ultimately on a form of the cosmological argument.

Creators: Burns, Elizabeth (0000-0001-7009-9948) and
DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0034412512000340
Official URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/religious-...
Subjects: Philosophy
Keywords: ontological argument, Iris Murdoch, Daniel A. Dombrowski
Divisions: University of London International Academy
Dates:
  • September 2012 (accepted)
  • 23 November 2012 (published)

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