Anderson and Welty have recently advanced an argument for the claim that the laws of logic are ontologically dependent upon a necessarily existent mind, i.e. God. In this paper I argue that a key premise of Anderson and Welty’s argument—viz., a premise which asserts that \(x\) is intrinsically intentional only if \(x\) is mind-dependent—is false, for on a broadly Fregean account of propositions, propositions are intrinsically intentional but not mind-dependent.

Keith DeRose believes that it is a strength of his contextualist analysis that it explains why the recently much-discussed skeptical Argument from Ignorance (AI) is so persuasive. Not only that, however; DeRose also believes that he is able to explain the underlying dynamics of AI by utilizing solely the epistemological and linguistic resources contained within his contextualist analysis. DeRose believes, in other words, that his contextualist analysis functions as a genuinely self-contained explanation of skepticism. But does it? In this paper (...) I argue that DeRose’s analysis does not function as a self-contained explanation of skepticism since, as it turns out, DeRose’s analysis is simply irrelevant to the main concerns of the skeptic. To the extent that DeRose’s analysis is irrelevant in this way, I conclude that such an analysis cannot be considered a satisfactory treatment of AI. (shrink)

In the second chapter of his Modality, Probability and Rationality, James Sennett argues that Plantinga’s famed S5 Modal Argument (hereafter “MA”) for the existence of an unsurpassably great being is objectionably circular since it’s impossible for one to understand the premises of Plantinga’s MA without understanding these premises to logically entail its conclusion. That is to say, Sennett’s charge is that Plantinga’s MA is circular since there is no understanding of the premises of Plantinga’s MA that is independent of its (...) conclusion. In this paper I argue that Sennett has shown no such thing and that, contrary to strong prima facie appearances, there is an understanding of the premises of Plantinga’s MA that is independent of its conclusion. Consequently, Plantinga’s MA is not circular inthe way that Sennett alleges. (shrink)

A number of counterexamples have recently been leveled against Alvin Plantinga's Proper Functionalism, counterexamples aimed at showing that Plantinga's theory fads to provide sufficient conditions for warrant — that elusive epistemic property which together with true belief yields knowledge Among these counterexamples, Laurence Bonjour s is perhaps the most formidable and, if successful, shows that Proper Functionalism is simply too weak to serve as an acceptable theory of warrant In this paper, I argue that, contrary to initial appearances, BonJour's counterexample (...) is not successful More exactly, I argue that, once it is recognized that a defeasibility constraint is deeply embedded within Plantinga's proper function condition for warrant — a constraint which says, in effect, that a belief B is warranted for an agent S only of S does not possess any defeaters against B — BonJour's counterexample to Proper Functionalism can be handled quite straightforwardly. (shrink)