The ontological argument as a practice of Metaphilosophy: Two Wittgensteinian developments

Abstract This article assesses the metaphilosophical significance of the interpretation given to the ontological argument by two Wittgensteinian philosophers: Norman Malcolm and Morris Lazerowitz. Contrary to the usual approach to the subject, I do not consider what the ontological argument reveals about religious language and reasoning, but what it says about the nature of philosophy. I argue that despite Lazerowitz's and Malcolm's common Wittgensteinian background and shared foundations of philosophy, the opposite conclusions they reach about the ontological argument illustrate their opposite views of philosophy. In Malcolm's approach, the ontological argument can be interpreted as an instance of the paradigm case argument, which by showing the bounds of sense is meant to display the work of language in its entirety. From this perspective, the ontological argument is philosophically irrefutable, as one cannot refute a piece of language. For Lazerowitz, the ontological argument is irrefutable as it represents a philosophical intervention into language and thus must be disregarded.