•  2
    Reformed Epistemology
    In Charles Taliaferro & Philip L. Quinn (eds.), A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Wiley-blackwell. 1997.
  •  13
    Why Propositions Cannot Be Concrete
    In Alvin Plantinga & Matthew Davidson (eds.), Essays in the metaphysics of modality, Oxford University Press. 1969.
    In this chapter, a segment from my book Warrant and Proper Function, I argue that propositions cannot be concrete objects. In particular, I examine various ways in which the concretist might explain what it is for a proposition to be possible or necessary. I then demonstrate that the concretist is forced either to count far too many propositions as necessary or hold that blatant contradictions are possible. I conclude the chapter by suggesting that abstract objects, such as propositions, can sta…Read more
  •  398
    Reason and Belief in God
    In Alvin Plantinga & Nicholas Wolterstorff (eds.), Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, University of Notre Dame Press. pp. 16-93. 1983.
  •  132
    De Essentia
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 7 (1): 101-121. 1979.
    In this paper I propose an amendment to Chisholm's definition of individual essence. I then argue that a thing has more than one individual essence and that there is no reason to believe no one grasps anyone else's essence. The remainder of the paper is devoted to a refutation of existentialism, the view that the essence of an object X (along with propositions and states of affairs directly about x) is ontologically dependent upon x in the sense that it could not have existed if x had not existe…Read more
  •  18
    Chapter 9 is the first of two chapters that apply the findings of the previous eight chapters of The Nature of Necessity to some traditional problems in natural theology. The Problem of Evil is the objection to theism that holds that the conjunction of the propositions, God is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good and There is evil in the world, is necessarily false. The Free Will Defense is an effort to show the two propositions are compatible, and in the process of the defence, I use the con…Read more
  • Two dozen (or so) arguments for God: the Plantinga project (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2018.
    Thirty years ago, Alvin Plantinga gave a lecture called "Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments," which served as an underground inspiration for two generations of scholars and students. In it, he proposed a number of novel and creative arguments for the existence of God which have yet to receive the attention they deserve. In Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God, each of Plantinga's original suggestions, many of which he only briefly sketched, is developed in detail by a wide variety of accomplish…Read more
  •  412
    Response to Churchland
    Philo 13 (2): 201-207. 2010.
    Paul Churchland argues that Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism is unsuccessful and so we need not accept its conclusion. In this paper, we respond to Churchland’s argument. After we briefly recapitulate Plantinga’s argument and state Churchland’s argument, we offer three objections to Churchland’s argument: (1) its first premise has little to recommend it, (2) its second premise is false, and (3) its conclusion is consistent with, and indeed entails, the conclusion of Plantinga…Read more
  •  14
    In Warrant: The Current Debate, I canvassed contemporary accounts of warrant, and found them inadequate. In this chapter, I begin to develop my own account of warrant. After introducing the notions of proper function, a cognitive environment, and a design plan, I arrive at the following first approximation of warrant: a belief B has warrant for an agent S if and only if the relevant segments of S's cognitive design plan are functioning properly in a cognitive environment, sufficiently similar to…Read more
  •  6
    Some of Roderick Chisholm's more recent work has displayed a conception of warrant, which differs substantially from his earlier conception of warrant. In this chapter, I explain postclassical Chisholmian internalism and then offer four critical observations about it. First, it is relatively uninformative ; second, it remains internalist, but loses the principal philosophical motivation for internalism by moving away from deontology. Third, it is not the case that for a given belief B, there is …Read more
  •  9
    In this chapter, I take stock of the arguments and conclusions of the previous nine chapters, noting that the idea of proper function figures prominently in the difficulties from which the main current views of warrant suffer. This fact suggests that the notion of proper function is much more deeply involved in our idea of warrant than is currently recognized. In Warrant and Proper Function, I shall examine this suggestion in detail; in this chapter,, I give an outline of the content of Warrant …Read more
  •  15
    In this chapter, I introduce the notion of warrant, and then turn to examine the connections between deontology, justification, and internalism. Central to deontology is the thought that being justified in holding a belief is a matter of having fulfilled one's epistemic duties in forming or continuing to hold that belief. The basic thrust of internalism is that the properties that confer warrant upon a belief are properties to which the believer has some sort of special epistemic access. After a…Read more
  •  8
    In this chapter, I consider coherentism taken generally, and argue that it does not afford the resources for a satisfactory account of warrant. We can better understand coherentism, I think, by contrasting it with foundationalism; I accordingly begin with an examination of ordinary foundationalism. Turning next to coherentism, we find that the coherentist claims that coherence is both necessary and sufficient for warrant in that a proposition has warrant for me if and only if it is coherent with…Read more
  •  4
    In this chapter, I explain and critically examine Laurence BonJour's version of coherentism, as presented in his The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Speaking roughly, BonJour holds that an empirical belief has warrant only if it is an element in a system of beliefs that is coherent in the long run. Somewhat less roughly, BonJour holds that an empirical belief B has warrant for a person S if and only if S has a reason for thinking B to be true; and that reason, on BonJour's view, can only be th…Read more
  •  6
    In order to examine the relationship between warrant and justification, I turn, in this chapter, to the views of Roderick Chisholm, or, more precisely, to the classical Chisholm. In important respects, the classical Chisholm's internalism displays much continuity with the deontological internalism of Descartes and Locke. The classical Chisholm's official position on warrant is that warrant is a matter of fulfilling epistemic obligation – a matter of a proposition's being so related to a person t…Read more
  •  5
    In this chapter, I outline the essentials of Bayesianism and ask whether it contributes to a satisfying account of warrant. From the perspective of my overall project in Warrant: The Current Debate, Bayesianism can be seen as essentially suggesting conditions for a rational or reasonable set of partial beliefs, where a partial belief of an agent S is any belief that S accepts to some degree or another, no matter how small. Although Bayesians tend to speak not of warrant but of rationality, I con…Read more
  •  14
    Rationality, although distinct from warrant, is a notion both interesting in its own right and important for a solid understanding of warrant. In this chapter, I first disambiguate at least five different forms of rationality, and, second, examine the relationship between Bayesianism and rationality. Bayesians often claim that conformity to Bayesian constraints is necessary for rationality. Against this view, I argue that none of the forms of rationality I distinguished requires coherence, and s…Read more
  •  1
    Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16 (2): 183-184. 1984.
  •  10
    World and Essence
    In Alvin Plantinga & Matthew Davidson (eds.), Essays in the metaphysics of modality, Oxford University Press. 1969.
    I begin the essay by introducing the ideas of states of affairs, possible worlds, and truth in a possible world. Making use of these concepts, I argue that each object not only has some properties essentially but also has an essence. I then respond to the objection that my account suffers from the Problem of Transworld Identification. I end the essay by giving a sound modal argument for the claim that human persons are essentially immaterial.
  •  15
    Transworld Identity or Worldbound Individuals?
    In Alvin Plantinga & Matthew Davidson (eds.), Essays in the metaphysics of modality, Oxford University Press. 1969.
    The Theory of Worldbound Individuals is the view that each object exists in just one possible world. In this chapter, I argue that there is no good reason to accept T.W.I. and T.W.I. has implausible consequences. I begin by demonstrating that traditional arguments for T.W.I., including the Problem of Transworld Identification, are based on confusion and do not pose problems for the thesis that objects exist in more than one possible world. In the final section of the chapter, I argue that T.W.I.…Read more
  •  8
    The Nature of Necessity, Chapter VIII
    In Alvin Plantinga & Matthew Davidson (eds.), Essays in the metaphysics of modality, Oxford University Press. 1969.
    The Classical Argument for possible nonexistent objects depends on both the possibility of singular negative existentials and the Ontological Principle. The Ontological Principle is the principle that any world in which a singular proposition is true, is one in which there is such a thing as its subject, or in which its subject has being if not existence. In this chapter, I show that the Ontological Principle is false and that whatever plausibility it enjoys is explained by the truth of a simila…Read more
  •  7
    The Boethian Compromise
    In Alvin Plantinga & Matthew Davidson (eds.), Essays in the metaphysics of modality, Oxford University Press. 1969.
    The Fregean view of proper names is that proper names express properties. I begin the essay by pointing out the inadequacies of anti‐Fregean views with respect to puzzles presented by empty proper names, negative existentials containing proper names, and by propositional identity in the context of propositional attitudes. I then develop the Boethian view, which claims that proper names do indeed express properties, proper names express essences, and different proper names of an object can expres…Read more
  •  8
    Two Concepts of Modality
    In Alvin Plantinga & Matthew Davidson (eds.), Essays in the metaphysics of modality, Oxford University Press. 1969.
    In the first part of this chapter, I sketch out three grades of modal realism. After developing modal realism, I examine David Lewis's modal theory. I argue that Lewis's theory satisfies none of the grades of modal realism, and that it is really a case of modal reductionism. In particular, I demonstrate that Counterpart Theory is a rejection of the view that objects have properties accidentally or essentially. Moreover, I claim that Lewis merely models things such as propositions, possible world…Read more
  •  8
    As I use the term, externalism is the complement of internalism; the externalist denies that in order for one of my beliefs to have warrant for me, I must have some sort of special or privileged access to the fact that I have warrant, or to its ground. Recent epistemology has seen a flurry of interest in reliabilism, a particular species of externalism, and in this chapter, I examine three externalist and reliabilist accounts of warrant: those offered or suggested by William Alston, Fred Dretske…Read more
  •  9
    In this chapter, I examine John Pollock's conception of warrant, as developed in his article “Epistemic Norms” and his book Contemporary Theories of Knowledge. I argue that his official view of warrant is deeply flawed, foundering as it does on the possibilities of cognitive malfunction. As Pollock uses the phrase, an epistemic norm is a rule describing the circumstances under which it is epistemically permissible to hold beliefs. Central to Pollock's account are several claims about epistemic n…Read more
  •  7
    According to the model I proposed in Ch. 8, Christian belief is produced in the believer by the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit; the result of this work of the Holy Spirit is faith. In Ch. 8, I explored the cognitive aspects of faith, but faith is more than just belief; in producing faith, the Holy Spirit does more than produce knowledge in the believer – the Holy Spirit also seals this knowledge to our hearts, which is to say that the Holy Spirit begins to cure our misdirected wills, pr…Read more
  •  8
    Among objections to Christian belief, we can distinguish between de facto objections and de jure objections, i.e., between those that claim that Christian belief is false and those that claim that Christian belief, whether or not true, is at any rate unjustifiable, or rationally unjustified, or irrational, or not intellectually respectable, or in some other way rationally unacceptable. In Chs. 3 and 4, I argued that no viable de jure objection to Christian belief can be developed in terms of jus…Read more
  •  8
    Warranted Belief in God
    In Warranted Christian Belief, Oxford University Press Usa. 2000.
    In the last chapter, I pointed out that the objections against religious belief made by Freud and Marx amount to the de jure objection that religious belief lacks warrant. By way of response, I offer in this chapter a model, which illustrates a way in which theistic belief could have warrant. On the Aquinas/Calvin model, we have a faculty or cognitive mechanism, which, in a wide variety of circumstances, produces in us beliefs about God; the theistic beliefs thus produced, furthermore, are prope…Read more
  •  5
    Two Kinds of Scripture Scholarship
    In Warranted Christian Belief, Oxford University Press Usa. 2000.
    Continuing an examination of proposed defeaters for Christian belief, I turn in this chapter to some of the issues raised by contemporary historical biblical criticism, arguing that contemporary historical biblical criticism does not serve as a defeater for Christian belief. After a brief discussion of the divine inspiration of Scripture, I distinguish and examine two different kinds of Scripture scholarship: traditional biblical commentary and historical biblical criticism. Historical biblical …Read more