Peter Millican (2004) provides a novel and elaborate objection to Anselm's ontological argument. Millican thinks that his objection is more powerful than any other because it does not dispute contentious 'deep philosophical theories' that underlie the argument. Instead, it tries to reveal the 'fatal flaw' of the argument by considering its 'shallow logical details'. Millican's objection is based on his interpretation of the argument, according to which Anselm relies on what I call the 'principle of the superiority of existence' (PSE). (...) I argue that (i) the textual evidence Millican cites does not provide a convincing case that Anselm relies on PSE and that, moreover, (ii) Anselm does not even need PSE for the ontological argument. I introduce a plausible interpretation of the ontological argument that is not vulnerable to Millican's objection and conclude that even if the ontological argument fails, it does not fail in the way Millican thinks it does. (shrink)

Chalmers has argued that Bayesianism supports the existence of a priori truths, since it entails that scrutability conditionals are not rationally revisable. However, as we argue, Chalmers's arguments leave open that every proposition is rationally deniable, which would be devastating for large parts of his philosophical program. We suggest that Chalmers should appeal to well-known convergence theorems to argue that ideally rational subjects converge on the truth of scrutability conditionals. However, our discussion reveals that showing that these theorems apply in (...) effect requires assuming scrutability. Consequently, Bayesianism doesn't conflict with Chalmers's scrutability framework, but it doesn't support it, either. (shrink)