Warrant and Proper Function

by Plantinga, Alvin

• ISBN13: 9780195078640
• ISBN10: 0195078640
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-05-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In this companion volume to Warrant: The Current Debate, Alvin Plantinga develops an original approach to the question of epistemic warrant; that is what turns true belief into knowledge. He argues that what is crucial to warrant is the proper functioning of one's cognitive faculties in theright kind of cognitive environment. Although this book is in some sense a sequel to its companion volume, the arguments do not presuppose those of the first book and it stands alone as a stimulating contribution to epistemology.

Table of Contents

Warrant: A First Approximation	3	(18)
Proper Function	4	(7)
The Design Plan	11	(6)
Reliability	17	(4)
Warrant: Objections and Refinements	21	(27)
The Design Plan	21	(21)
Two Concluding Comments	42	(6)
Exploring the Design Plan: Myself and My Past	48	(17)
Knowledge of Myself	48	(9)
Memory	57	(8)
Other Persons and Testimony	65	(24)
Other Persons	65	(12)
Testimony	77	(12)
Perception	89	(13)
Perceptual Belief as Knowledge	89	(2)
Perceptual Experience	91	(2)
Perceptual Beliefs as Basic	93	(5)
Perceptual Beliefs Formed on the Basis of Experience	98	(1)
Nature, Nurture, and Perceptual Judgments	99	(3)
A Priori Knowledge	102	(20)
A Priori Knowledge Initially characterized	103	(5)
A Priori Knowledge Is Knowledge	108	(2)
Fallibilistic A Priorism	110	(3)
A Priori Knowledge and the Causal Requirements	113	(4)
Why Propositions Cannot Be Concrete	117	(3)
Back to the Causal Requirement	120	(2)
Induction	122	(15)
The Old Riddle of Induction	124	(4)
The New Riddle of Induction	128	(9)
Epistemic Probability: Some Current Views	137	(22)
Epistemic Probability and Statistical Probability	139	(3)
Theories of Epistemic Probability	142	(17)
Epistemic Conditional Probability: The Sober Truth	159	(17)
The Two Faces of Epistemic Probability	159	(6)
An Account of the Normative Component	165	(3)
Replies and Comments	168	(8)
Coherence, Foundations, and Evidence	176	(18)
Coherence and Foundations	177	(8)
Evidentialism	185	(9)
Naturalism versus Proper function?	194	(22)
Naturalistic Analyses of Proper Function	199	(12)
So What's a Poor Naturalist to Do?	211	(5)
Is Naturalism Irrational?	216	(23)
The Problem	216	(3)
Darwin's Doubt	219	(9)
A Preliminary Argument against Naturalism	228	(1)
The Main Argument Against Naturalism	229	(10)
Index	239