Stephen A. Makin

I will offer a defence of Anselm's Ontological Argument, building on some suggestions made by Prior. The defence offered avoids one of the objections commonly levelled against the Ontological Argument. I will not consider whether the use of this objection involves a misinterpretation of the argument as put forward by Anselm. It might, for example, be held that the argument of Proslogion 2 is programmatic, and points forward to Prosiogion 3, and arguments given by Anselm in his Reply to Gaunilo. In particular it might be denied that Anselm holds that what is greater about what exists in reality is just that it exists in reality. While what I have to say will start from points made by Prior, I do not intend to suggest that Prior holds that there is a defence possible for Anselm's argument such as I will offer. What I have to say involves emphasizing modal notions, and treating Anselm's argument as a modal argument. Thus it comes down to defending Anselm's argument in Proslogion 3 in preference to the Proslogion 2 argument

This paper is a reflection on some of Elizabeth Anscombe's influential work on causation, in particular on some comments in her Inaugural Lecture at Cambridge, published as ‘Causality and Determination’. One of Anscombe's major concerns in that paper is the relation between causation and necessitation, and she critically discusses the cast of mind which links causality with some kind of necessary connection or with exceptionless generalisation. In place of a semi-technical analysis of causation, Anscombe identifies the obvious and yet little considered core of the causal relation as follows

This paper offers an interpretation of the arguments Aristotle offers in "Metaphysics" 9.4, 1047b14-30, for the two modal theses [1] if (if A is the case then B is the case) then (if A is possible then B is possible) [2] if (if A is possible then B is possible) then (if A is the case then B is the case) Aristotle's arguments for these theses have not typically impressed commentators. I offer two arguments which are relatively faithful to Aristotle's text. The arguments rest on the following pair of claims concerning conditionals and possibility respectively [COND] 'if A then B' is true if and only if in any circumstances in which A obtains, B obtains also [TEST] 'possibly A' is true in a range of circumstances C1... $\text{C}_{\text{n}}$ if and only if assuming A true in any C1 gives rise to no impossibilities, once any further required adjustments are taken into account The arguments and the premises on which they rest are stated without formalisation of the theses [1] and [2]. The argument for [1] is a defensible and persuasive argument. The argument for [2] is invalid, though plausible. That is consistent with our differential verdicts on [1] and [2]. [2] appears to be false: the argument provided for [2] explains why Aristotle might nevertheless have asserted it. The aim of the paper is to justify a more positive verdict on Aristotle's arguments than is usual among commentators