Gödel’s Ontological Proof and its Consistency Consequences

Logica Universalis:1-16 (forthcoming)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper examines the ultrafilter interpretation of Kurt Gödel’s ontological argument and explores its philosophical and mathematical consequences. After reviewing the formulations of Anselm of Canterbury, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Gödel, we show how Gödel’s positivity axioms can be understood extensionally as defining an ultrafilter over the domain of individuals. We argue that this perspective sheds new light on the modal collapse, suggesting that it reflects not merely features of the modal framework, but deeper structural properties of the underlying ultrafilter. We then relate this interpretation to the work of Harvey Friedman, where non-principal ultrafilters and divine objects are used to obtain relative consistency results in set theory.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2026-07-14

Downloads
5 (#2,220,120)

6 months
5 (#1,634,824)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Some Emendations of Gödel's Ontological Proof.C. Anthony Anderson - 1990 - Faith and Philosophy 7 (3):291-303.
Modal collapse in Gödel's ontological proof.Srećko Kovač - 2012 - In Miroslaw Szatkowski, Ontological Proofs Today. Berlin, Boston: Ontos Verlag. pp. 50--323.
On gödel's ontological proof.A. P. Hazen - 1998 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (3):361 – 377.

View all 8 references / Add more references