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On Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2010 On Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism Emmett Frank Mashburn University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Epistemology Commons, and the Metaphysics Commons Recommended Citation Mashburn, Emmett Frank, "On Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2010. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/824 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Emmett Frank Mashburn entitled "On Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Philosophy. John E. Nolt, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Richard E. Aquila, E. J. Coffman, John R. Hardwig, Carl G. Wagner Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Emmett Frank Mashburn, Jr. entitled “On Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Philosophy. John Nolt, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Richard Aquila E. J. Coffman John Hardwig Carl Wagner Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) On Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Emmett Frank Mashburn, Jr. August 2010 Copyright © 2010 by E. Frank Mashburn All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation, with love and steady affection, to my wife and best friend, Louise. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I’d like to thank John Nolt. He met with me numerous times to talk, think, work through problematic formulations, and encourage me during the long process. He also took it upon himself, in the midst of an extremely busy schedule, to head the committee and direct the entire project. I would also like to thank the other committee members: Richard Aquila, E. J. Coffman, John Hardwig, and Carl Wagner. They are greatly appreciated, not only for their expertise, but also for the sacrifice of their time. Incalculable, vast thanks go to my wife Louise for all of her patience, understanding, support and confidence. Thanks also to my children (David, Emma, Zach, and Rhett), my mother Charlotte, my close friends (you know who you are), and the staff and supporters of WDA. iv ABSTRACT Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism (EAAN) begins with the following simple idea: the evolutionary process of natural selection selects organisms due to adaptive behaviors, but not necessarily due to true beliefs . If this notion is even possibly true, then it is also possible that some (or many) of our own beliefs are not veridical and that our reasoning processes may not successfully point to truths (but are merely evolutionarily advantageous). Once the deliverances and processes of our cognitive faculties have been thus called into question, it seems improper to provide an argument that one can trust one’s cognitive faculties and processes (because such an argument requires the presupposition of what one is trying to prove). The reflective metaphysical naturalist, upon seeing this, realizes that she has a defeater for her belief in the reliability of her cognitive faculties, and this eventuates into a defeater for all of her beliefs (including the belief in naturalism). So, a belief in naturalism, when conjoined with a belief in current evolutionary theory, puts the reflective naturalist in an epistemically undesirable (i.e., irrational) position. It is better, Plantinga says, to discard one’s belief in metaphysical naturalism. Plantinga’s argument is not a globally skeptical one. His ultimate goal is to persuade people to give up naturalism as a metaphysical explanation, and to adopt theism instead. EAAN is an argument against naturalism that is intended to open a door for some later argument for theism; EAAN in itself is not an argument for theism. In this paper, I attempt to: (1) explain EAAN via its historical development and refinement; (2) examine what I feel to be some of the most important critiques of EAAN (along with some of Plantinga’s responses); (3) put the argument in an Extended Summary in Logical Form; (4) comment upon the Extended Summary and, in the process of discussing the premises, settle upon what I feel to be the two main contested premises of EAAN; and, (5) conclude that Plantinga’s argument has thus far survived attack, and explain why I expect it to continue to do so in the future. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. Introducing EAAN ……………………………………………………………….......1 II. EAAN and Its Development ..…………………………………..……….….…........11 III. Some Concerns about EAAN and Evolution ……..………..….……………………53 IV. Some Concerns about Probability…………………………………………………...81 V. EAAN and Some Issues Concerning Skepticism and Epistemic Circularity ……….89 VI. Regarding EAAN and Similarities with Some Important Related Arguments .......107 VII. Some Thoughts on Defeaters Given the Probability Thesis ...…………..…..........126 VIII. An Extended Summary of EAAN in Logical Form, with Discussion of Premises (1) through (6)………………………………........................................................147 IX. An Extended Summary of EAAN in Logical Form: Discussion of Some Premises after Premise (6), with Particular Attention to Premise (10) ..…...……………….194 List of References ……….....………………………………………………….….. ….206 Vita .…..…………………………………..……………………………………..……..213 vi CHAPTER ONE Introducing EAAN In 1993, Alvin Plantinga published the first two books of his eventual trilogy on epistemic warrant. 1 The first book, Warrant: The Current Debate ,2 was a survey of many important contemporary accounts of warrant. 3 Plantinga found all of these accounts unsatisfactory for various reasons. In the second book, Warrant and Proper Function ,4 he explicated his own version of warrant, defined there briefly by him as that “… elusive quality or quantity enough of which, together with truth and belief, is sufficient for knowledge …”. 5 In the last chapter of WPF there appeared an argument where Plantinga maintained that the holding of metaphysical naturalism and current evolutionary theory 6 is epistemically faulty in an important sense. This argument, dubbed by him the Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism (hereafter EAAN) was refined in the third book of his trilogy, Warranted Christian Belief, 7 and in later articles. 8 1 The third and final book of the trilogy, Warranted Christian Belief , was published seven years later, in 2000. 2 Hereafter WCD . 3 Warrant being defined here as “that, whatever precisely it is, which together with truth makes the difference between knowledge and mere true belief.” Alvin Plantinga, Warrant: The Current Debate (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 3. 4 Hereafter WPF . 5 Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) v. 6 I.e., holding these two beliefs together at the same time. 7 Hereafter WCB ; Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 8 See principally Alvin Plantinga and Michael Tooley, Knowledge of God (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008); Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Alvin Plantinga, “Reply to Beilby’s Cohorts” in James Beilby, ed., Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (Ithaca: Cornell, 2002) 204-275; and Alvin Plantinga, “Respondeo” in Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Plantinga’s Theory of Knowledge , Jonathan L. Kvanvig, ed. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996) 307-378. For an extensive list of articles responding early on to EAAN, see Alvin Plantinga, “Reply to Beilby’s Cohorts” in Beilby, 204, footnote 1. 1 Plantinga argued in EAAN that it is irrational for a reflective person to accept the conjoining of naturalism with current evolutionary theory (roughly understood). 9 He has summed up his argument as follows: … naturalism and contemporary evolutionary theory are at serious odds with one another – and this despite the fact that the latter is ordinarily thought to be one of the main pillars supporting the edifice of the former … I am not attacking the theory of evolution … I am instead attacking the conjunction of naturalism with the view that human beings have evolved in that way … I have argued
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