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Plantinga's Case Against Naturalistic Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Evan Fales
Evan Fales*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Iowa
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Abstract

In Warrant and Proper Function, Alvin Plantinga claims that metaphysical naturalism, when joined to a naturalized epistemology, is self-undermining. Plantinga argues that naturalists are committed to a neoDarwinian account of our origins, and that the reliability of our cognitive faculties is improbable or unknown relative to that theory. If the theory is true, then we are in no position to know that, whereas theism, if true, underwrites cognitive reliability. I seek to turn the tables on Plantinga, showing that neoDarwinism provides strong reasons for expecting general cognitive reliability, whereas the likelihood of that relative to theism is unknowable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , September 1996 , pp. 432 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1996

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Footnotes

†

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242.

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