I am making my way through Relativism and the Foundations of Philosophy by Steven D. Hales (MIT Press 2006). Chapter 1 discusses intuition and how it relates to knowledge; he sketches out "the problem of intuition" (loosely, in my own words: in some sense, philosophy seems to have foundations circularly based on intuition). At the end of the chapter he gives some general objections.
My confusion comes from one specific objection he refutes. It seems there is a claim (which he argues against) that says something like "there are no necessary truths, therefore intuition isn't a problem to the foundation of philosophy." Unlike the rest of the chapter, he states this quite briefly, and I don't follow why this is the case.
Here's the entire paragraph from the book, I bolded the conclusion I don't follow. Page 44 says:
Elgin's second strain of argument concerns alethic modality. Elgin agrees with the common view, defended here, that rational intuition generates beliefs about putative necessities. However, she denies that there are necessary truths. Therefore intuition has no epistemic role to play. [emphasis mine]. Her argument is that a genuine necessity would be "undeniable" and yet "we can almost always find a scenario in which a seemingly necessary truth looks merely possible" (Elgin 1996, p. 57). She thinks that to use modal locutions is to do no more than distinguish what is conceded and what is in question given some particular context of inquiry. As contexts of inquiry change, so do the propositions listed under the category of "necessary." There there are no authentically necessary truths that are so in all contexts of inquiry.
(Hales then goes on to discuss necessary truths.)
Elgin, Catherine Z. 1996. Considered Judgment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
To summarize this question: I do not understand how the conclusion "Therefore intuition has no epistemic role to play" follows from the premise "denies that there are necessary truths."
Can anyone expand on what this argument is?