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Collin (2022) attempts to break the symmetry between the modal ontological argument for the existence of God and the reverse modal ontological argument against the existence of God by drawing on some Kripkean lessons about a posteriori necessity. He argues that there is an undercutting defeater for taking God's non-existence to be possible. In this paper, I reply that taking the Kripkean considerations about a posteriori necessity into account does not help break the symmetry. For we can argue in a similar way that there is an undercutting defeater for taking God's existence to be possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it possible that there are extended simples—material objects extended in space or spacetime that have no proper parts? The most commonly cited argument for this possibility is based on a version of the Humean principle: namely (and with some qualifications), any pattern of instantiation of a fundamental relation is possible. In this paper, we make the Humean argument fully explicit, and criticise it from three aspects—the Disjunction problem, the Pluralist problem, and the Accidentality problem. First, the original argument only shows a disjunctive thesis: either extended simples are possible, or unextended complexes are possible. In order to reach the desired conclusion, some additional premise is needed. Yet, even though we agree that the Disjunction problem can be met, we argue that the Humean argument fails to establish the possibility of extended simples, for two reasons: the first comes from compositional pluralism, and the second is about the definition of accidental properties. We contend that the latter two problems put the proponents of the Humean argument in serious difficulty. Thus, metaphysicians who hold that there are extended simples should find better arguments for this view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, a number of metaphysicians have been working on the issue of the metaphysical grounds of identity facts. In this paper, I will survey a variety of accounts of identity facts through a particular lens. These accounts will be examined in light of the so-called 'purity' principle, a principle intriguing many discussions on metaphysical grounding in recent literature. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I will indicate what sorts of accounts of identity facts the purity principle rules out and what sorts of accounts it allows. Secondly, I will pinpoint some patterns of how the purity principle may interact with first-order metaphysical inquiries in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leftow's theist concept-nominalism is proposed as a theory of properties which is compatible with God's aseity and sovereignty. In this article, I focus on the question of whether theist concept-nominalism is successful in answering a notorious problem in the literature on properties, i.e. the regress problem. In the second section, I summarize TCN by illustrating what its ontology is and how its theory works. In the third section, the regress problem is recast within the framework of TCN. In the fourth section, I present my solution to this problem. In the final section, several objections to my solution are addressed and replied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]