Plantinga’s Interpretation of Epistemological Deontologism

Keywords: justification, epistemological deontologism, epistemic duty, doxastic voluntarism

Abstract

Alvin Plantinga challenges the rooted tradition of thinking about justification as the subject’s fulfillment of his or her epistemic duty. I try to show that, in several respects, Plantinga misinterprets the idea of epistemic duties and that, consequently, his argument against deontologism is not sound. I begin by summarizing Plantinga’s understanding of epistemological deontologism and then offer my own critique of this interpretation, which focuses on five issues: the problem of recognizability of epistemic duty, describing epistemic duty as subjective, Plantinga’s assumption of the principle of obviousness, the understanding of justification as absence of guilt, and the issue of doxastic voluntarism.

References

Brueckner, Anthony. 1996. “Deontologism and Internalism in Epistemology.” Nous 30(4): 527–36. https://doi.org/10.2307/2216117.

Ginet, Carl. 1995. “Comments on Plantinga’s Two-Volume Work on Warrant.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55(2): 403–8.

Greco, John. 1993. “Is Natural Theology Necessary for Theistic Knowledge?” In Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to Reformed Epistemology, edited by Linda Zagzebski, 168–98. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Helm, Paul. 2001. “Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga (review).” Mind 110(440): 1110–15.

Meeker, Kevin. 1998. “Chischolming Away at Plantinga’s Critique of Epistemic Deontology.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76(1): 90–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048409812348221.

Mourad, Ronney B. 2001. “Proper Function and Justified Christian Belief.” The Journal of Religion 81(4): 615–27.

Odoj, Ewa. 2020. Wiara bez świadectw? Wokół Alvina Plantingi krytyki ewidencjalizmu w epistemologii religii. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL.

Plantinga, Alvin. 1983. “Reason and Belief in God.” In Faith and Rationality. Reason and Belief in God, edited by Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, 16–93. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Plantinga, Alvin. 1993a. Warrant: The Current Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Plantinga, Alvin. 1993b. Warrant and Proper Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Plantinga, Alvin. 1995. “Reliabilism, Analyses and Defeaters.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55(2): 427–64. https://doi.org/10.2307/2108562.

Plantinga, Alvin. 2000. Warranted Christian Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sosa, Ernest. 1996. “Plantinga on Epistemic Internalism.” In Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology. Essays in Honor of Plantinga’s Theory of Knowledge, edited by Jonathan L. Kvanvig, 78–83. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Williams, Bernard. 1970. “Deciding to Believe.” In Language, Belief and Metaphysics, edited by Howard E. Kiefer and Milton K. Munitz, 95–111. State University of New York Press.

Zagzebski, Linda. 1993. “Religious Knowledge and the Virtues of the Mind.” In Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to Reformed Epistemology, edited by Linda Zagzebski, 199–225. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Published
2022-12-30
Section
Articles