Creationists

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Belief in the god would only be warranted if it was true. If you think that is a separate issue then you admit the whole reformed epistemology is irrelevant. If you think existence of god is true but existence of super Giraffe is not then you need EVIDENCE (and a theory specifying what 'god' IS). You cannot escape.


I have 'Warranted Christian Belief' 2000.

Since my objection comes in several lines, and your response seems to mix them up, I think I need to repeat them before we continue:

1) The theory is vague. While it is widely accepted that a properly basic belief is a belief that is justified without the need for further justification, there is no rigorous definition on what is counted as a properly belief IN REFORMED EPISTEMOLOGY. Likewise, there is on once and for all definition on what properly basic belief is considered warranted.

2) The criterion is too wide. It does not distinguish between logical and empirical truth. It does not distinguish when a sentence is meaningful or not (say, it is possible for those typical astrology prediction to be considered basic?)

3) The criterion is too narrow. How does one know the truth producing facility is perfectly functional, etc.?

Wrong, proving the existence of God is not the aim of Reformed Epistemology; you seem to be missing the point. Pantinga is agreeing that religious beliefs are only truly warranted and properly basic, if they are true. That does not mean that they cannot have a warrant, if they remain somewhat unconfirmed.



Wrong. You are reading book three on warrant by Alvin Plantinga. The definitions are given in his first book. Your complaint is like reading Return of the King and throwing a hissey-fit because Frodo is already on his way to Mordor. Plantinga's standard, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online:

"As Plantinga develops it in his (1983), beliefs are warranted without Enlightenment-approved evidence provided they are (a) grounded, and (b) defended against known objections. Such beliefs may then themselves be used as evidence for other beliefs. But what grounding amounts to could be debated. More recently, Plantinga has proposed an account of warrant as proper functioning. This account seems to entail that S's belief that p is grounded in event E if (a) in the circumstances E caused S to believe that p, and (b) S's coming to believe that p was a case of proper functioning (Plantinga 1993b)."



Wrong, Plantinga certainly does distinguish. His argument was that empiricism was too restrictive, not that its criteria were wrong.



I have been waiting for you to mention proper function... please note the term is proper function, not perfectly functional. Proper function, within epistemology, is something more complicated than just having reliable cognitive functions. It relates to the mind, doing well, what it is supposed to be doing. Plantinga has actually devoted an entire book to the subject (his second on Warrant). Now Plantinga argues that truth and proper function are linked... he also spends most of the book smashing, utterly, all other definitions of proper function in epistemology. His victory over proper function has been nearly total, to the point where it is now difficult to craft secular epistemology without attempting to avoid the use of the term. Most secular forms of epistemology actually just assume that they have proper function, as a component of their philosophy, Plantinga revealed that they don't... they were just assuming it without justification. Many philosophers actually think that Plantinga has proven in his work on Proper Function that naturalistic epistemological views are irrational. On Reformed Epistemology, proper function is defined and defended as one would expect. On Reformed Epistemology, the uniformity of nature is solved and understandable, it escapes the problem of induction. Naturalistic philosophies, as Plantinga points out, do not solve the Problem of Proper Function, because there is no proper function. Naturalistic philosophers might deny proper function is necessary for their views (another victory for Plantinga), but Plantinga has enlisted it as a powerful tool in his. Sorry if this is a bit mashed, proper function is really difficult to describe articulate in total; I suggest you get the book and give it a read.

On the other hand he cannot assert that Christian belief are warranted either. Therefore he fails to answer to the 'de jure' question

Provided we are agnostic about the existence of god, the theist is unable to provide a justification to believe in god (i.e. independent of the existence of god).


Argument? He simply asserts that one has no duty to follow the criteria set by the 'atheists'. See? You cannot claim you are rational by your own lower standard. Why he doesn't simply claim that belief in god doesn't need to be rational?



I have been waiting for you to mention proper function... please note the term is proper function, not perfectly functional. Proper function, within epistemology, is something more complicated than just having reliable cognitive functions. It relates to the mind, doing well, what it is supposed to be doing. Plantinga has actually devoted an entire book to the subject ...[/quote]
I only have his paper Positive Epistemic Status and Proper Function
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2214067?origin=JSTOR-pdf
which is probably better written than his book. I think my point still holds. In order to talk about whether one is properly functional (in additional the environment must be perfectly right that one is not mislead), one need to be given what a properly functional being is supposed to do, and in the case of Plantinga the design plan of god. Even in the bible this is not clear: god supposes us to live in the Edan and we never need science and philosophy.

I think what he and the people he criticized in the paper (which does not include falliblist) miss one point: we have a testable theory on the reliability of human senses and reasoning. These facilities are fallible (indeed, human conscious works very differently from what people commonly think, see Dennett's Consciousness explained). However, as this textbook on Karl Popper points out:

Well he can provide justification; not in the sense that you are asking for it. Reformed Epistemology relates to the justification an individual has to believe something. Plantinga's criteria defend this to the point of individual justification, he does not argue past that to the point of a proof (using reformed epistemology, he has argued proofs in relation to other matters though). What you are doing is conflating my being able to prove something to you and my own justification for believing it myself. Plantinga, rightly points out, that given proper function a person who has little doubt his mind is properly functioning, he is warranted to believe in his own innocence, despite the evidence.

You need to keep in mind the twin aims of Plantinga; he is not trying to prove Christian beliefs, rather, he is showing that they can be tested, by a standard, and that they survive this test. If they cannot be falsified through attack then a certain degree of warrant would be awarded to these beliefs; since his standards are falsifiable and survive the test
.
Plantinga's Aims:
First, a public project aimed at showing that there is no objection to Christian belief unless Christian beliefs can be shown to false and, second, a private project aimed to provide the Christian community with a plausible account of how Christian belief is warranted.

As to the 'de jure' question, you have utterly missed the point. Reformed Epistemology does NOT attempt to show that Christian belief is warranted.

Dr. William Lane Craig on the subject:
Plantinga doesn’t claim to show that his model is true but merely that for all we know, it may be true, and, moreover, if Christianity is true, then something like the model is very likely to be true. If he succeeds in establishing these modest claims, he will have shown that there is no objection to Christian belief apart from demonstrating that Christianity is false, or, as he puts it, there is no de jure objection to Christian belief independent of a de facto objection.

What Plantinga is attempting to remove the objection that Christian belief cannot be warranted, even if it is true.



He does not simply do anything. He rather meticulously goes about the problem of showing why classical foundationalism is a self-refuting position.






You are not actually engaging with what Plantinga has said on the subject. Plantinga's view is that if the universe has a proper function, that is, it is designed and ordered; one is warranted, for the most part, in deducing the uniformity of nature. Uniformity of nature can be explained and is justifiably expected and so the problem of induction evaporates.



This is because, Plantinga is a falliblist... however, proper function provides one with epistemic warrant for thinking that our cognitive faculties are reliable. Plantinga points out, rightly, that on naturalism, one has no reason to trust any outcomes, due to the likelihood of entirely naturalistic faculties producing more wrong than right beliefs.



As I said previously, I like Karl Popper. I do not however like this view. What he is doing here is justifying how we go about the creation of a scientific consensus. The consensus no doubt does work through the falsification of prepositions. However, it works through the falsification of propositions that come about in large part through inductive reasoning. Popper is actually dodging the problem here, since a naturalist, as Plantinga points out, has a fallibilistic defeater for most of the results that occur through inductive reasoning.

What is the point of telling other people if claiming your belief is justifiable, if you are only to justify belief for yourself? This kind of 'justification' is no better than the super Giraffe believer justifying himself.


It is Plantinga who confuses the question.
De facto objection: god does not exist
See the gap? No assuming the non-existence of god does not imply one can assume the existence of god. So Plantinga's version is wrong.


Classical foundationalism, is just a small subset of scientific empiricism (which includes verificationism and fallibism). His 'argument' is just red herring.


In other words, he 'solves' the problem by simply asserting that the principle of induction works. What is more ironic is that he believes an agent that can and did suspend such uniformity of nature at will.


Wrong.
1) Falliblists maintains that all theories must be testable _by_evidence_. That is what Plantinga is against.
2) Plantinga talks about basic belief and justification. Falliblists are against that.
Plantinga is nothing but a variation of foundationalist.


Nonsense. Please open another thread if you want to discuss EAAN.


See the text again. No inductive reasoning is ever used. That is sort of the whole point. We want to do something similar to inductive reasoning but we do not want the liability.

Looking at your posts - couple high character references in the Love and Dating section, I see.

You were a Creationist? well, that is consistent with your demonstrated level of - let us say - discernment.

Delusional is not accurate. I would accept deluded, I would accept excessively authority-referenced. I would accept inadequately skeptical.

So - you switched authorities. It happens.

You hear this, you read that, you move with a different crowd.

Being with [in this case] the less wrong crowd [because evolutionists who are not antitheist are much less wrong than Creation Science people] may make you trendier, it does not however increase your chances of critical thought.

The distinction is necessary because, as Plantinga points out, there are things that one cannot prove to others that are rational to accept. There was a time when epistemologists did not make this distinction. You might not think that this victory by Plantinga is all that important or that his position is just obviously true. It is however important to develop warrant on this level.



Except, this is not Plantinga's position. If, as you say, you have read 'Warranted Christian Belief', you would know this.



Well Verificationism is already dead, why ought Plantgina engage with it? Rather he chose to deal with the evidentualist objections to theistic belief and he has done so admirably.



This argument was overcome in the seventeenth century by Christian Philosophers because God changing the laws of the universe was a rare event and we can state with a fair amount of justification that it is unlikely in relation to experimentation.



It is true that this is what a fallibalist is, but this is not all of what a fallibalist is. Fallibalism holds that, on naturalism, knowledge is impossible and uniformity of nature cannot be reasonably inferred. Plantinga agrees with this position. However, Plantinga's philosophy is not naturalistic, rather he is a theist who is a proponat of the theistic grounding of proper function. At this point, the two trains of thought diverge, fallibalism however, has thus far not mounted a decent attack on Plantinga's formulation of proper function as a foundational position. Rather, they have focused their efforts on cognitive fallibalism (really a sub-point of what he is talking about) and utterly missed his foundationalist point.



Maybe true, but that would only be a trivialization of the language. Plantinga is a naturalistic fallibalist and a theistic foundationalist; the distinction is an important one if one does not want to miss the point. Treating the positions as mutually exclusive does not deal with the fact that Plantinga already assumes that; that is the basis of his argument from and discussion of proper function.



Plantinga's discussion of proper function overlaps with the EAAN. The EAAN is a presupositionalist argument attempting to show a conflict in the worldviews of naturalists between proper function and evolution. What he is saying in relation to naturalism as a whole and proper function, IS NOT (capitals for emphasis only), a discussion of the EAAN.



This underlined statement is ridiculous. You are simply assuming that there is no induction in science; which I think, is just obviously false. Which is the reason for my statement relating to how this is not true. I explained in my last post why this is not so. Simply declaring Popper right and not engaging with my argument stating why I think he is mistaken is just epic question begging. Also, as I put forward earlier, Popper's position does not create knowledge, there is no epistemic difference between a false theory and a true theory on his view.

Where is induction used in fallibalism? And if science follows fallibalism, where is induction being used?

Plantinga does not make the leap that religious experience is of itself, knowledge. What he argues is that we have a sense of God and that this sense has a proper function; from this he argues that it therefor can produce knowledge. In relation to Christian Theism, he holds that the internal investigation of the holy spirit and the proper function sensus divinitatis together creates warrant; unless one has a defeater for it. Most scholars that deal with Reformed Epistemology, grant this point and then work to create a defeater. This is why, by the time Plantinga got to writing his third volume, some much of it is devoted towards the answering of these criticisms.



Certainly, Plantinga argues that the cognitive faculties have a proper function; he does not claim that they are infallible. Hence why he includes so much discussion relating to defeaters.



This logic is terrible. Firstly, they did not make a comment that relates to the proper function of the universe. Secondly, name me one universal constant that has changed since the 17th Century?



Plantinga argues that if naturalism is true, then strict fallibalism is all we can hope for and that there can be no proper function. I am not sating that Plantinga is a naturalistic fallibalist; I am just saying he is a fallibalist in regards to naturalism. Which is exactly what I said in my previous post. You have misread or misrepresented what I have said.

From my last post:
'Fallibalism holds that, on naturalism, knowledge is impossible and uniformity of nature cannot be reasonably inferred. Plantinga agrees with this position. However, Plantinga's philosophy is not naturalistic, rather he is a theist who is a proponat of the theistic grounding of proper function. At this point, the two trains of thought diverge....'





I put these two together because they make my point for me. Your first position, that if something is corroborated and unfalsified then it is knowledge, is itself a use of inductive reasoning.... so you have answered your own question. Secondly it does not follow that a corroborated unfalsified position is knowledge, all it is is corroborated and unfalsified. Thirdly, the statement 'a corroborated unfalisified theory is knowledge' is unfalsifiable so it excludes itself from its own reasoning.

But he did made the leap to claim that 'proper function' does generate some beliefs and whatever those beliefs are knowledge. To begin with, how do we tell which belief we have come from proper function? How does it follow that these beliefs are 'knowledge'? Even you admit that the result of this proper function may be fallible.


1) I did not claim that empirical knowledge must be true in the realist sense. You are presupposing.
2) I only said that empirical knowledge must be falsifiable. Non-empirical claims are not included (However, god is empirical).
3) The first sentence is DEFINITION. It is not an empirical statement (indeed, it says nothing about the universe), and I did not claim it is empirical knowledge.
Therefore your argument completely miss the point.

Evolution is false in my view.

And you base this view on what? Oh, yeah - also which formulation of evolution, and in what major points is it false?

Which is why Plantinga talks about defeaters. Plantinga is not claiming that these beliefs are necessarily true and that they would therefor count as full knowledge. This is the second time I have explained this to you. He claims that these beliefs contain a degree of 'warrant' absent a reasonable defeater. I have already been over this.



I understand that there is some disagreement in relation to the definition of knowledge. Your contention that an unfalsified corroborated position = knowledge, is not something which can be reconciled with any mainstream definition of knowledge. It remains unfalsified and corroborated, but it is not knowledge. I have already listed my criticisms of why Popper's definition of knowledge (he is a great philosopher of science, but has some weak points in relation to epistemology). Even Popper holds that knowledge is objective but on his view one is not able to reach this conclusion; because he denies induction and cannot justify proper function.

You also stated that this view did not involve induction; the statement 'unfalisified + corroborated = knowledge' is an inductive statement. The entire second half of your post, supposedly made in response to my statement actually does nothing but attempt to evade my criticism. As to your claim that it is a definition and not an empirical statement then you are just begging the question in an attempt to hide the fact that your position disguises, rather than avoids induction.

1) You are ignoring my first problem: To begin with, how do we tell which belief we have come from proper function? If there is no way to tell which beliefs are warranted, then the warrant thing is just meaningless.

2) Lack of defeater is not a positive epistemic claim and is therefore irrelevant here. Again, how beliefs generated by proper function and WITHOUT known defeater guarantee knowledge? Is it just definition again?


See what you said. You first admit there is no universal definition of 'knowledge'.


Then you assert that my definition does not fit with 'mainstream philosophy'. What is your idea of 'mainstream philosophy'? Do you really think foundationalism is mainstream?

Since you assert that

I am interested to see in what way quantum mechanics or theory of evolution are anything more than unfalsified and corroborated. Or do you think they are not knowledge?


More seriously, you then conclude that I must have a hidden definition of knowledge and you imagine that think 'unfalisified + corroborated' will satisfy this hidden definition of knowledge, by induction.

Really, your so called criticism is nothing but misinterpreting my words in your foundationalist mind.

You have missed the point; it is not a matter of a belief coming from proper function. It is a matter of whether there 'is' 'proper function'. Anyone can be a skeptic in relation to a belief analysed through cognitive functions; if such functions have a proper function and that function is to establish knowledge then it naturally follows that these beliefs have more warrant than those generated at without proper function. Adding skepticism to the question does not detract from the point being made since Plantinga is not excusing skepticism; rather he is contextualizing it.



It does not guarantee knowledge and no one is claiming that. I get the feeling that thus far, you have not actually come to grips with what Plantinga is contending. All would claim in a falsificationist position; is that if a belief is generated by a faculty with a proper function, it has more warrant than one that does not.



Do not mistake 'no universal position' for a wide open door through which any definition would be acceptable by mainstream philosophy.



Firstly; your position has been criticized out of the mainstream; for the reasons I illustrated. Secondly, foundationalism certainly is mainstream epistemology.



I certainly do think they are knowledge. The definition you have given (corroborated + unfalisified = knowledge) combined with your rejection of the need to make an inductive inference does not give your definition the capability of reaching the conclusion that it is knowledge (see previous posts for reasons). The complaint I made was that we need proper function and or induction to reach the conclusion that these things are knowledge. We can both recognize that this is a mountain, you however have not equipped yourself with the tools with which to climb it.




Your statement was an inductive inference (stating that it is corroborated, is induction, please see this). Your wording was inductive also. Claiming that a total hard-falsificationist position can reach the conclusion that knowledge exists and that no induction is necessary to do this is well and truly debunked within the philosophy of science.

It is clear that you do not understand Plantinga. He thinks that because god designed the human mind for the purpose of knowing the truth, therefore the truth of any belief coming from these devices is guaranteed and needs no further justification -- provided everything works according to the design plan (i.e. proper function). He attributes any failures to failure of proper function, which he thinks is the exception.

Your admission of a falsificationist position is actually arguing _against_ him, and without that foundationalist basis, your claim that

Is just nonsense.



Do not mistake 'no universal position' for a wide open door through which any definition would be acceptable by mainstream philosophy.


Reasons? All you had are just baseless assertions. Exactly how is proper function is involved?


Appeal to non-existent authority again.