Kelly Fitzsimmons Burton - Reason and Proper Function: A Response to Alvin Plantinga

Kelly Fitzsimmons Burton

Reason and Proper Function

A Response to Alvin Plantinga

First published by Public Philosophy Press 2019

Copyright 2019 by Kelly Fitzsimmons Burton

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For those wrestling with skepticism

Approximately 20 years ago, as a graduate student in philosophy at Arizona State University, I was struggling intensely with the problem of skepticism. Skepticism is the philosophical position that knowledge is not possible, that nobody can really know for sure. The challenge of skepticism, at that time, came primarily through Edmund Gettiers counterexamples to the sufficiency of justification as the component that makes true belief into knowledge. Gettier examples are meant to show us that one may have justified true belief, and still lack knowledge. Perhaps some fourth condition in addition to justification and true belief was needed for knowledge. During my early graduate school training, I considered the gauntlet thrown down. I still believed that knowledge was possible, contra my strong skeptical training. And I still believed that justified true belief (JTB) was the correct path for obtaining knowledge.

My professors at ASU were very much aware of my struggle against the dominant skepticism of the day and encouraged me to read Alvin Plantinga as a possible solution to skepticism and a way to overcome Gettiers challenge to justified true belief as knowledge. Whereas Gettier questioned the sufficiency of the JTB formulation of knowledge, Plantinga questioned the necessity of the JTB formulation. Perhaps the traditional definition of knowledge is mistaken and should be reconsidered?

Plantinga proposes that knowledge is warranted true belief, where a belief is warranted if it is formed by cognitive faculties functioning properly in an appropriate environment, according to a good design plan. He shifts the terms of the discussion from an internalist view of justification to an externalist view of warrant. I read all of Plantingas works on epistemology, which were very recent at the time of my studies, with the anticipation that he would provide a way out of Gettiers skeptical implications. What I found instead was another form of skepticism, a religious form of skepticism, which we can term fideism. I did not focus on Plantingas fideism, but my good friend Owen Anderson did in his work The Clarity Of Gods Existence: The Ethics of Belief After the Enlightenment (Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2008). Instead, I took a critical look at one aspect of Plantingas formulation of warrant, that of proper function, which is the key piece of his externalist account of knowledge.

This short work is my early attempt at defending the traditional JTB account of knowledge. The substance of the work is my original masters thesis. Since I first wrote this thesis, I have written further on the topic of overcoming skepticism by understanding what knowledge is by understanding what is involved in justification. An in depth defense of knowledge may be found in my recent book Retrieving Knowledge: A Socratic Response to Skepticism (Phoenix: Public Philosophy Press, 2018).

My hope in publishing this book is that future graduate students in philosophy will not have to undergo the same intense, and somewhat needless, struggle with skepticism resulting from the Gettier problem and from Plantingas response that I had to undergo. Skepticism leads to cynicism and nihilism, which are contrary to the pursuit of knowledge, the fruit of philosophy. If philosophy is to survive, knowledge of reality must be possible. I heartily believe that knowledge is possible and want to encourage all who read this book to pursue knowledge as the highest end.

Alvin Plantinga, in Warrant: The Current Debate, notes that there is a long history in Anglo-American epistemology that traces back to the classical internalist views of Rene Descartes and John Locke. Internalism is the view that an individual has special access to that quantity or quality that makes true belief into knowledge. This internalism, according to Plantinga, is motivated by deontology or epistemic duty fulfillment. Closely connected with epistemic deontology is justification. Justification (or what Plantinga prefers to call warrant) is that quantity or quality, enough of which makes true belief into knowledge. Plantinga strongly objects to the deontological view of justification, claiming that no amount of duty fulfillment can get us to knowledge. He says justification is neither necessary nor sufficient for warrant.

In Warrant: The Current Debate (hereafter WCD) Plantinga examines several versions of internalism from Classical and Post-Classical Chisholmian internalism, several forms of coherentism, to reliablism to show that none of these views get us to that quantity or quality enough of which makes true belief into knowledge. Plantinga rejects all of these views, arguing that what is needed is a view that takes into account the proper function of our cognitive faculties. He then proposes to give a more accurate account of warrant in Warrant and Proper Function (WPF). Plantingas theory is that a belief is warranted if it is formed by cognitive faculties functioning properly in an appropriate environment and according to a good design plan.

The purpose of this book is to examine Plantingas view of cognitive malfunction in connection with his view of warrant and his rejection of the traditional view of justification. I will argue that the cognitive faculty of reason does not and cannot malfunction in the way that Plantinga either explicitly or implicitly suggests. Consequently Plantingas criticism of justification does not stand. I argue further that if reason is not subject to malfunction and is thus reliable, the traditional view of justification having appropriate reasons for belief in conjunction with true belief, possibly with the addition of a fourth condition (the carefulness criterion) will get us to knowledge.

I would like to thank and acknowledge Dr. Surrendra Gangadean, my first philosophy professor, mentor, and friend, who introduced me to the good life. I would also like to acknowledge the friendship and camaraderie of Dr. Owen Anderson, who was there in the early days of grad school and is still there now.

Without my professors at Arizona State University, this work would not have taken the shape that it did. I thank Dr.s Stephen Reynolds, Steward Cohen, and Bernard Kobes for challenging me to think critically and for chairing my original thesis committee.

I acknowledge my students over 16 years of teaching and the daily challenges that they pose with their probing questions, doubt, and sometimes embrace of the good.

Lastly, I thank my husband, David, who is a constant partner in pursuit of what is true, good, and beautiful.

A lvin Plantinga, philosopher in the area of epistemology, explains contemporary, Anglo-American views of justification in light of the classical internalist views of Rene Descartes and John Locke. He believes that, prior to Descartes, externalism was the dominant epistemic view, going back at least to Aristotle. With Descartes