Alvin Plantinga

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Alvin Cornelius Plantinga (born 15 November, 1932 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, of Frisian ancestry) is a contemporary American philosopher known for his work in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion. His current position is John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is a Calvinist, despite his professorial enrollment at a Catholic University. Like Richard Swinburne, he is a contemporary philosophical apologist for Christianity. He gave the 2004-5 Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews University, titled Science and Religion: Conflict or Concord (to be published).

Contents 1 Education 2 Philosophical Views 2.1 Argument that evolutionary naturalism is incoherent 3 Bibliography 3.1 Works by Plantinga 3.2 Representative Assessment 4 External links

Education

Plantinga won a scholarship to Harvard University, but left in 1951 to study at Calvin College (Grand Rapids), where William Harry Jellema was teaching philosophy. Following his time at Calvin, Plantinga studied at the University of Michigan from 1954-1955, alongside such future luminaries as William Alston, William Frankena and Nancy Cartwright. He received his doctorate from Yale University (1955-1958). He began teaching at Wayne State University, then spent almost 20 years at Calvin College before moving to the University of Notre Dame.

Philosophical Views

He is best known for:

• A contemporary redeployment of the ontological argument using modal logic. The argument, thanks also to Norman Malcolm and Charles Hartshorne, enjoyed renewed interest in the 20th century.
• His "free will defense" response to J. L. Mackie's logical argument from evil, in which he introduced the concept of transworld depravity.
• His "reformed epistemology" attacks on internalist foundationalism
• His "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism" (see below), discussed by 12 philosophers in Naturalism Defeated?

In 1993 Plantinga's first two volumes of an epistemological trilogy on the concept of warrant were published. These fueled the discussion about what has to be added to true belief in order to be able to say that we have knowledge. In the first book, Warrant: The Current Debate, Plantinga introduces, analyzes, and criticizes 20th century developments in Anglophone epistemology (Chisholm, BonJour, Alston, Goldman and others). In the second book, Warrant and Proper Function, he introduces the notion of warrant as an alternative to evidence and goes deeper into topics like self-knowledge, memories, perception, and probability. In 2000, the third volume, Warranted Christian belief, was published. Plantinga expands his focus of warrant from strictly epistemological issues to examine whether theistic belief can enjoy warrant. He argues that this is plausible.

Argument that evolutionary naturalism is incoherent

Plantinga has argued that evolutionary naturalism is incoherent[1]. To this end, he quotes Darwin as follows: Template:Quotation Plantinga's argument contends that natural selection, as it is currently understood, is not thought to produce in organisms the ability to reliably perceive the external world — let alone construct accurate cosmologies. He quotes contemporary philosopher of mind and philosophical naturalist Patricia Churchland to buttress this claim. Template:QuotationSince according to philosophical naturalism, the theory of philosophical naturalism itself was conceived by evolved human beings, Plantinga continues, it is highly unlikely to be an accurate perception of the external world.[2] Theistic approaches, whether evolutionary or otherwise, would not suffer the same fate.

The view that naturalism undercuts its own truth claims was also argued by C. S. Lewis in the third chapter of his book Miracles.

Bibliography

Works by Plantinga

• (ed) Faith and Philosophy, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964.
• (ed) The Ontological Argument, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1965.
• God and Other Minds, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967; rev. ed., 1990. [ISBN 0801497353]
• The Nature of Necessity, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974. [ISBN 0198244045]
• God, Freedom, and Evil, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974. [ISBN 0041000404]
• Does God Have A Nature? Wisconsin, Marquette University Press, 1980. [ISBN 0874621453]
• and Nicholas Wolterstorff (eds) Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, Indiana & London, 1983. [ISBN 0268009643]
• Warrant: the Current Debate, Oxford University Press, New York & Oxford, 1993. [ISBN 0195078616]
• Warrant and Proper Function, Oxford University Press, New York & Oxford, 1993. [ISBN 0195078632]
• The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader, James F. Sennett (editor), William. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1998. [ISBN 0802842291]
• Warranted Christian Belief, Oxford University Press, New York & Oxford, 2000. [ISBN 0195131924]
• Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality ed. Matthew Davidson, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. [ISBN 0195103769]

A full bibliography of writings published before 1985 can be found in "Bibliograpy of Alvin Plantinga", James E. Tomberlin and Peter Van Inwagen (eds) Alvin Plantinga, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1985, pp. 399-410.

Representative Assessment

• Ferrer, Francisco S. Conesa, Dios Y el Mal, La Defensa del Teísmo Frente al problema del mal según Alvin Plantinga, Pamplona: University of Navarre Press, forthcoming.
• Beilby, James (ed) Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York & London, 2002.
• Kvanvig, Jonathan (ed), Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Plantinga's Theory of Knowledge, Savage, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996.
• Claramunt, Enrique R. Moros, Modalidad y esencia: La metaphysica de Alvin Plantinga Pamplona: University of Navarre Press, 1996.
• McLeod, Mark S., Rationality and Theistic Belief: An Essay on Reformed Epistemology (Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion), Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993.
• Linda Zagzebski (ed.), Rational Faith, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993.
• Sennett, James, Modality, Probability, and Rationality: A Critical Examination of Alvin Plantinga's Philosophy, New York: P. Lang, 1992.
• Hoitenga, Dewey, From Plato to Plantinga: an Introduction to Reformed Epistemology, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
• Parsons, Keith M., God and the Burden of Proof: Plantinga, Swinburne, and the Analytic Defense of Theism, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York, 1989.
• Tomberlin, James E., and Peter van Inwagen (eds) Alvin Plantinga, Profiles Volume 5, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Boston & Lancaster, 1985.

External links

• Alvin Plantinga's Home page at the University of Notre Dame
• Alvin Plantinga: The Analytic Theist
• Professor Alvin Plantinga's autobiographyde:Alvin Plantinga

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