“DARWIN’S DOUBT” REVISITED: PLANTINGA AND HIS CRITICS ON THE EPISTEMIC IMPLICATIONS OF NATURALISM
TROY NUNLEYABSTRACT. In the final chapter of “Warrant and Proper Function” Alvin Plantinga makes an argument that evolutionary naturalism is an epistemically incoherent view. Accordingly, if one believes in the doctrine of evolutionary naturalism then the reliability of their belief-forming faculties is called into question to the extent that trust in those faculties becomes irrational to sustain. The first and vital step in this argument lies in demonstrating that the odds of our being reliable cognitive agents given the truth of evolutionary naturalism cannot, upon reflection, be regarded as high. In this article, I defend Plantinga’s case for this claim against several objections that have been offered in the literature. (pp. 44–77)