Abstract

In the intriguing final chapter of his book Warrant and Proper Function, Alvin Plantinga argues that naturalism, conjoined with a neo-Darwinian picture, is self-defeating. This argument has drawn its fair share of critical response. Plantinga in turn has recently responded in his as yet unpublished manuscript ‘Naturalism Defeated’. This first volley of debate has helped bring into focus several points of contention between Plantinga and his critics, but to date, the logical structure of the argument has not been an element of the discussion. In this paper I argue that the logical structure of Plantinga’s argument has been misconstrued – that it does not show that naturalism is self-defeating. I argue further that properly reconstructed, it fails to make the case for the (ordinary) defeat of naturalism as well.