iscussion about the truth-value of an analytic statement. Either it is true, it is false, or one cannot prove either of those possibilities. One cannot differ in opinion when looking at an analytic statement. Synthetic statements are those that are not analytic. Synthetic statements cannot be answered by reason alone; in addition, one needs evidence given by the senses. "An apple always falls to the ground" is synthetic; I can try to prove this by empirical evidence, but I can find no mathematical proof of it. It is impossible to prove any synthetic statement with 100% evidence. Therefore, in the case of synthetic statements, we can do two things: believe them, disbelieve them or suspend judgment. He tries to prove the existence of something without any reference to the world. It seems reasonable to assume that it is impossible to prove whether something does or does not exist from its definition alone. Existence as AttributeKant reasoned that 'existence' is not an attribute of an object, like 'temperature', 'size' etc. According to Kant existence is not something that can be associated with the definition of an object. (Cottingham, 1996: 245) For instance, take the definition for 'quircle': A quircle is a circle that exists. Now it seems impossible for us to reach any other conclusion than that a quircle, and thus a circle, exists, for that's what the definition tells us. But this is obviously not good reasoning, for we could prove that anything exists, using this method. We conclude that 'existence' is not an attribute that can be used in a definition. Therefore, the existence or non-existence of God cannot have anything to do with the definition of God, and Anselm's Ontological Argument fails.Is God the greatest thing that can be conceived?What is greater than a huge birthday cake? Two huge birthday cakes! A very bad children's joke that can be applied to everything, and has through the years been applied to many things, suddenly...
