Ratio 13 (3):213–233 (
2000)
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Abstract
I set out three (modal) cosmological arguments – one for the existence of a necessary fact, one for the existence of a necessary event, and one for the existence of a necessary individual. Although the arguments do not have the same premisses or conclusions, they have the same structure. Moreover, I argue, given some plausible ancillary assumptions, any one of the arguments can be made to do the work of any of the others. I then suggest that the arguments are inconclusive, because they depend on a doubtful principle linking contingency and explicability.