Graham Oppy

This paper is a critical examination of Stephen Neale's *The Philosophical Significance of Godel's slingshot*. I am sceptical of the philosophical significance of Godel’s Slingshot (and of Slingshot arguments in general). In particular, I do not believe that Godel’s Slingshot has any interesting and important philosophical consequences for theories of facts or for referential treatments of definite descriptions. More generally, I do not believe that any Slingshot arguments have interesting and important philosophical consequences for theories of facts or for referential treatments of definite descriptions. Friends of facts and referential treatments of definite descriptions can, and should, proceed with the construction of their theories, blithely ignoring the many Slingshots which now litter the landscape. (Of course, there may be other considerations which should give such theorists pause -- but those are other considerations.)

In this Introduction, we begin with two relatively uncontroversial matters: the broad contours of the history of discussion of ontological arguments, and the major topics that require discussion in connection with ontological arguments. We then move on to consideration of the much more difficult task of the characterisation of ontological arguments—i.e. the task of saying exactly what ontological arguments are and explaining how they differ from, say, cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments for the existence of God—and then the equally contested question of the provision of general objections to ontological arguments, including, in particular, attempts to show that there could not possibly be a successful ontological argument. Finally, we consider some often-neglected questions about how to assess the merits of arguments, with a particular eye on the assessment of the merits of ontological arguments.