Plantinga's Proper Functionalism, Knowledge, and Rationality
Dissertation, University of Miami (
1997)
Copy
BIBTEX
Abstract
Epistemic warrant is that property which converts true belief to knowledge. A theory of epistemic warrant known as "proper functionalism" has been developed recently by Alvin Plantinga. In this study I explore and evaluate Plantinga's new theory of epistemic warrant. In chapter one, I lay out in some detail Plantinga's proposed account of epistemic warrant. Chapters two through four are devoted to a careful consideration of critiques of proper functionalism by three of Plantinga's leading critics and Plantinga's responses to those criticisms. In chapters five and six, I develop my own criticisms of Plantinga's account, and contend that the conditions which Plantinga proposes in his account of warrant are neither jointly sufficient nor individually necessary for warrant. ;While proper functionalism is not satisfactory as a theory of epistemic warrant, it can be modified slightly and converted into an illuminating theory of rationality with respect to belief. In chapter seven I sketch a proper functionalist explication of an objective conception of rationality. Then in chapter eight I consider another conception of rationality, a subjective conception, which is parasitic upon that considered in chapter seven, and which thus significantly involves proper functionalist considerations