 If the ontological argument seeks to move from the concept of the ens realissimum to the concept of an absolutely necessary being, both the cosmological and physicotheological proofs move in the opposite direction. Each, that is, argues that there is something that must exist with absolute necessity and concludes that this being is the ens realissimum. Because these proofs aim to identify the ens realissimum with the necessary being, and because the attempt to do this requires an a priori argument (it cannot be demonstrated empirically), Kant thinks that they are both (ultimately) vitiated by their reliance on the ontological proof. More specifically, they are both mitigated by their assumption that the ens realissimum is the only object or candidate that can do the job of existing necessarily. Since he thinks that the ontological argument is in some sense implicitly relied upon in making such a claim, these arguments stand or fall with it. On Kant’s view, as we shall see, they fall.