Evidence · Case 07 · Philosophy
Alvin Plantinga, “Warrant and Proper Function”
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Plantinga uses warrant as his name for whatever it is, “enough of which distinguishes knowledge from mere true belief.” His account is that a belief has warrant when it is produced by cognitive faculties that are working properly, in the kind of environment they were made for, according to a design plan aimed at producing true beliefs. On this view perception and memory give us warranted beliefs without our arguing for them, and belief in God could work the same way.
Sources
Alvin Plantinga, “Warrant and Proper Function” (Oxford University Press, 1993)
Objections & responses
- Plantinga’s proper-function account of warrant is one theory among many and has well-known counterexamples. Isn’t building an argument on a contested theory of warrant building on sand?
Proper functionalism is contested, and this whole claim is an argument to weigh, not a settled result. The core move does not depend on the details, though. On any theory of warrant that ties it to reliability or to the belief’s origin, whether religious belief is warranted will depend on whether it is true, which is the conclusion drawn here. The argument is robust across theories of warrant that make warrant depend on facts outside the believer’s head, which is most of them.