[Vision2020] More on Plantinga

[josephc at mail.wsu.edu]

Michael,

Thanks again!

You write: "From what I can tell from the more recent discussions,
BonJour's insistence on internal reasons just becomes the fundamental
presupposition of the internalist; the externalist just starts with the
opposite intuition."

It is more than this. The internalist says that reasons are essential to
genuine knowledge. The externalist says otherwise. This is a fundamental
disagreement. Knowledge without reason strikes me as a contradiction. If
not, then why not? I’d like to know what reason there is in support of
externalism other than the avoidance of skepticism. The worry by
internalists like myself is that Plantinga is satisfied with 'dumb luck,'
getting it right without knowing 'why,' winning the lottery, so to speak.
Why think that such dumb luck counts as genuine knowledge?

You write: "However, 'having plenty of reasons' to reject the
belief in question is part of the overall functioning of this person's
cognitive faculties; 'having reasons' is just part of the overall design
plan."

The point isn’t that having reasons cannot be dealt with on Plantinga's
model. Rather is that having reasons is not required by Plantinga's model.
But as the above suggests, it should be required.

You write: "And although 'design plan' is built into the foundation
of his theory, a theistic account of it is not, as you point out by
referencing attempted naturalistic accounts."

How can you have a design without a designer? If Plantinga intended
something more inclusive, then he would have used other terminology.
Aristotle never talked about design, though he did talk about 'proper
function.' (See below as well.)

You write: "Well, I'm not sure why a theistic point of view cannot equally
account for and be equally critical of the diversity of opinions that are
in fact
present amongst the peoples of the world. It might be good if you fleshed
this claim out a bit. Perhaps I'm not fully understanding the claim.  And
I'm also still not sure how Plantinga's externalism inherently rules out the
possibility of atheism.  But this seems to be addressed by the previous
discussion."

I wrote: "According to Plantinga: 'a belief has warrant [or justification]
for one if and only if that belief is produced by one’s properly
functioning cognitive faculties in circumstances to which those faculties
are designed to apply; in addition, those faculties must be designed for
the purpose of producing true beliefs.' (Clark, op. cit.)" You did not
object to this definition. (Sorry but my Plantinga books are all in my
office; I'm stuck with stuff I can get off the web!) Again, a design
presupposes a designer. I was a bit careless in that my comments should
have been limited to basic beliefs as opposed to knowledge in general.
Otherwise, I stand by what I said.

In any event, either the above definition of 'proper function' allows one
to conclude the existence of a single God or not. If so, then atheism is
ruled out as a basic belief and so is polytheism. If not, then both of
these options are alive and you are wrong to suppose that Plantinga's
theory is supportive of the claim that (the one and only) God exists. I
can live with any of these results.

You write: "As a final note, I should say by now that I think there is
something
troubling about limiting an analysis of 'knowledge' to merely propositional
knowledge to begin with."

I am not limiting the concept of 'knowledge' in any way. I recognize that
there are a multitude of meanings of this term that philosophers as a
whole should consider. But I can't do everything and as such I must limit
my own investigations. Because of this, I limit my investigation to the
problem of skepticism and the concept of propositional 'knowledge.' No
doubt in limiting myself in this way, I concede that I do not and will not
know everything. I can live with that! I limit myself to the things that
I'm interested in because I must limit myself and because I might as well
have fun while doing so!

Thanks!

Joe Campbell