Millican on the Ontological Argument

Peter Millican (2004) provides a novel and elaborate objection to Anselm’s ontologi-cal argument. Millican thinks that his objection is more powerful than any other be-cause it does not dispute contentious ‘deep philosophical theories ’ that underlie the argument. Instead, it tries to reveal the ‘fatal flaw ’ of the argument by considering its ‘shallow logical details’. Millican’s objection is based on his interpretation of the ar-gument, according to which Anselm relies on what I call the ‘principle of the superi-ority of existence ’ (PSE). I argue that (i) the textual evidence Millican cites does not provide a convincing case that Anselm relies on PSE and that, moreover, (ii) Anselm does not even need PSE for the ontological argument. I introduce a plausible inter-pretation of the ontological argument that is not vulnerable to Millican’s objection and conclude that even if the ontological argument fails, it does not fail in the way Millican thinks it does. 1