Proponents of modal versions of the ontological argument have traditionally defended the prernise that God possibly exists by arguing that such a premise is more plausible than its negation. In this paper I argue that such a defense is insufficient to justify acceptance of the premise within the scope of a modal proof, and that this insufficiency accounts for the lack of probative force of these versions of the ontological argument. Rather, I claim that what is needed is a defense (...) of the claim of God’s possibility against the claim that He possibly does not exist. I give reasons for suspecting that no such defense is possible within the scope of modal ontological arguments. (shrink)

In this paper I present three problems for Simmons' singularity theory of truth as he presents it in Universality and the Liar. I begin with a brief overview of the theory and then present the three problems I see for it. The first problem shows that the singularity theory is in conflict with our ordinary notion of truth. I present a set of sentences that the singularity theory evaluates differently than does our pretheoretic concept of truth. The second problem shows (...) that Simmons' theory is incomplete, in the sense that there are sentences of its object language of which it does not have the resources to evaluate. The third problem suggests that Simmons theory does not, contrary to the claim of the book, allow for semantic universality. I consider Simmons' extension of the singularity theory to accommodate truth-in-a-context and show that it is inconsistent with his basic theory. Specifically I present a sentence which diagonalizes out of the basic theory. (shrink)