The Critique of Pure Reason, Part 6, Section V summary

What happens

1. The cosmological proof starts from experienced existence, infers a necessary being, and identifies that being with the highest reality.
2. The argument depends on deriving necessary existence from a concept, which makes the ontological argument its hidden foundation.
3. The discussion exposes further errors involving causality, an alleged first cause, incomplete conditions, and competing meanings of possibility.
4. An all-sufficient cause can serve as a hypothesis, but this does not establish its necessary existence.
5. Two rules guide inquiry: seek a complete ground, but never treat an empirical condition as the ultimate ground.
6. The ideal of a necessary Supreme Being guides systematic explanation; illusion arises when reason treats this guiding idea as an existing object.

What to notice

The distinction between defining a being and establishing its existence defeats the proof’s central move. A complete concept does not supply the existence being sought.

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