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Questions tagged [plantinga]

Alvin Plantinga (1932- ) is an American analytic philosopher. He taught at Calvin College and the University of Notre Dame. He is known for the Free Will Defense, the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism and his role in Reformed Epistemology.

The links below provide information about Alvin Plantinga:

The following links describe the free will defense:

The following links describe the evolutionary argument against naturalism:

The following links described reformed epistemology:

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Does Alvin Plantinga's account of epistemic warrant require belief in God?

On Plantinga's account, true belief becomes knowledge under epistemic warrant; and epistemic warrant requires the 'proper functioning' of our cognitive faculties in the right kind of cognitive environment. Plantinga further holds that the resulting…
Tom Morris
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How do I go from ◊∃x□[∃y(y=x) ∧ Mx] to ∃x□[∃y(y=x) ∧ Mx]?

I've been thinking about the ontological argument recently. I'm trying to go from ◊∃x□[∃y(y=x) ∧ Mx] to ∃x□[∃y(y=x) ∧ Mx] I choose that formulation because that seems to express x having the property of necessary existence and essential…
Dante Alighieri
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What makes a basic belief a properly basic belief?

I'm currently looking into Plantinga's reformed epistemology and I'm trying to wrap my head around what makes a basic belief a properly basic belief. I understand what a basic belief is, in that it is a non-inferential belief. Plantinga seems to…
Mr. Zed
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How do adherents to Plantinga's "free-will defense" against the problem of evil explain that God is free and immune to moral evil at the same time?

The free-will defense is an argument commonly attributed to Alvin Plantinga, who developed it as a response to the logical problem of evil. However, in developing this argument Plantinga unwittingly ended up reinventing/rediscovering the Molinist…
Mark
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Is the logical problem of evil still argued?

Mackie (in "The Miracle of Theism" for instance) has argued that the supposed incompatibility between an all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally perfect God and the existence of evil actually demonstrates an internal inconsistency among many theists'…
florence
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Who are some contemporary philosophers outside of the "new atheism" authors who have responded to Plantinga's works?

I'm looking for contemporary philosophers other than those typically labeled as part of the New Atheism movement (i.e., Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Victor J. Stenger) who have responded to some of Alvin…
Vinko Vrsalovic
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How does Plantinga's defense of free will align with omniscience

I've been reading about Plantinga's defense of free will and I can see how omnipotence is aligned with the existence of evil. What evades me, is how he resolves the conflict between foreknowledge and free will. The article speaks about "weak…
Dmitry Ornatsky
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What is the explanation for inferring existence in every possible world from existence in some in Plantinga's Ontological Argument?

I found the following version of the Ontological Argument online (I'm pretty certain its Plantinga's but I couldn't find an exact source). Here is how it goes: It is possible that a maximally great being exists. If it is possible that a maximally…
Jordan Goulet
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Where can one find the most fully developed version of EAAN with the four-part defense of premise 1?

Having just completed Alvin Plantinga's book Where the Conflict Really Lies, I was a bit surprised to learn that he now takes a different approach to defending premise 1 of the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) than he has in the past.…
DicePower
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How does Plantinga's free will defense of God's benevolence work?

The purpose of the defense is to show that omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent God is consistent with the existence of evil in creation. The most popular version of the defense is due to Alvin Plantinga, see How does Plantinga's defense of free…
Conifold
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Does externalism solve the Münchhausen trilemma?

In traditional (access-)internalist epistemology, justification is a relation between beliefs, or sets of beliefs. My belief that it will rain today is justified by beliefs about the season, my beliefs about the expert predictions of meteorologists,…
Adam Sharpe
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How do non-theists explain the reliability of our cognitive faculties given Plantinga’s EAAN?

Plantinga argued in his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) that given naturalistic evolution we cannot expect our cognitive faculties to be reliable. This contradicts our experience that these cognitive faculties actually are reliable. …
Frank Hubeny
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Does Alvin Plantinga's book Knowledge and Christian Belief offer any substantial updates to Warranted Christian Belief?

The stated primary goal of Plantinga's Knowledge and Christian Belief (2015) was to condense the content of Warranted Christian Belief (2000) into a shorter and more accessible book. My question is whether the explanations and arguments from…
user22491
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Plantinga's Free Will Defense and his stance on God's omnipotence

I'm having trouble understanding exactly what Plantinga is saying in regard to God's omnipotence. He states quite clearly that it is not logically impossible for a world in which free creatures who only do good to exist. However, he argues that it…
Erik M
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Is Western atheism a kind of Protestant religion?

Alvin Plantinga, while setting up his evolutionary argument against naturalism in Where the Conflict Really Lies, writes (page 311): Now it is not clear that naturalism, as it stands, is a religion; there is enough vagueness around the edges of the…
Frank Hubeny
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