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Hegel's Defense Of The Ontological Argument For The Existence Of God, Kevin Joseph Harrelson

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

The following dissertation is a study of the "ontological proof' for God's existence, specifically of the controversy concerning this proof from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. As the title indicates, the primary theme is Hegel's defense and reformulation of the proof. I argue for a metaphysical interpretation of Hegel's Science of Logic, by showing that one of Hegel's chief goals in the Logic is to provide a demonstration for the thesis that "necessary existence belongs to God's nature." I conclude that while Hegel offers a coherent and informative account of this thesis, his analysis does not overcome one of …