Reality, Existence, Possible Worlds

Abstract

Hitherto metaphysics has usually relied upon the same concept of reality that prevails within common sense and natural science, i. e. being a possible object of sensible experience: but according to the rules of logic such a concept is incompatible with the assertion and even the assumption of a supersensible reality. However, we have no reason to consent to it because it derives from an undue absolutization of the pragmatic criterion according to which my actual body is given a pre-eminence over my dreamed or imagined bodies and my real world is given a pre-eminence over all those Leibnizian possible worlds that some analytical philosophers rightly consider to be as real as our real world. In fact, a correct ontology must admit the ultimate identity of possibility and reality; as for the existence of God, it is to be proved a priori, on the model of St. Anselm’s argument, not a posteriori.