♦ Jack of Diamonds
the ontological and a priori family
The Argument from the Possibility of God
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
La Monadologie (The Monadology)
DemonstrativeConcludes that something exists.
- Argument form
- Modus ponens (chained: a possibility lemma from P1–P3, then P5 carries possible to actual)
- Concludes to
- God as such (the being of all positive reality)
- Premise ground
- Conceptual (a limit is a lack of reality; a being of all positive reality encloses no contradiction)
- Modal strength
- Necessary (essence encloses existence: if possible, then actual)
- What it licenses
- Period
- Eighteenth Century (1714)
- Tradition
- Rationalist (Leibnizian)
Further reading
- Source text, public domain
La MonadologieLa Monadologie (1714) - Leibniz.pdf - A scholarly account
Read an exposition of the argument - A principal objection
Read the objection in full - Further reading
'That a Most Perfect Being Exists' (1676) states the Latin version of the same proof; the card reconstructs the Monadologie version instead.
This formulation is ours, composed from the primary source and compressed to fit the card; the argument admits of other statements. Objections have been made to every argument in the deck; where one is linked above, it is chosen by us, not written by us.
ergocards.com/possibility-of
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