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OPPy, Graham. Ontological Arguments and Belief in God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xviii + 376 pp. Cloth, $59.95-The central thesis of this book is that "there are perfectly general grounds on which [the author] can dismiss the possibility of a dialectically effective ontological argument [for God's existence]" (p. 198). Since there is no other purpose ontological arguments can achieve, they are "completely worthless" (p. 199).
The book is organized into four sections, followed by an appendix. The first, which is the subject of chapter 1, is the history of discussion of ontological arguments, including, in addition to Anselm's, that of Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, and the logical positivists.
The second section provides a taxonomy of ontological arguments. Oppy's categories are definitional (chap. 2), conceptual (chap. 3), modal (chap. 4), Meinongian (chap. 5), experiential (chap. 6), and neo-Kantian or Hegelian (chap. 7). The eighth chapter applies this analysis to the arguments of Anselm and Descartes and develops Oppy's primary objection.
The third section examines other global objections to ontological arguments (chap. 9), as well as objections that appeal to the claim that existence is not a...