Plantinga and Oppy On Modal Anti-Ontological Arguments
[See Update and Update II] Graham Oppy was kind enough to draw my attention to The Nature of Necessity (1974), in which Plantinga puts forward his modal ontological argument (MOA). Plantinga considers an objection very much like my own (pp. 218-219): "consider the property of no-maximality, the property of being such that there is no maximally great being. If this property is possible, then maximal greatness is not. But, so claims the objector, [this property is] every bit as plausibly possible as maximal greatness." Thus, Plantinga imagines the following modal counter-argument to MOA: 1) No-maximality is possibly exemplified. 2) If no-maximality is possibly exemplified, then maximal greatness is impossible. Therefore, 3) Maximal greatness is impossible. Plantinga concludes that either MOA or this counter-argument is sound. Clearly both cannot be. I question whether either is sound, since I question the coherence of the notion of maxim...