Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:56:03.962Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

UNDERSTANDING BASIC BELIEF: AN EVIDENTIALIST REPLY TO ALVIN PLANTINGA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2017

Andrew Norman
Get access

Abstract

Alvin Plantinga dealt a significant blow to the ‘sufficient evidence’ standard of rational accountability when he showed that many beliefs are, as he puts it, ‘properly basic’ – rationally permissible despite appearing to lack an evidential basis. Why, Plantinga asks, can't belief in God be considered properly basic? In this article, I provide a workable account of proper basicality, thereby repairing a long-standing problem with evidentialism. This deepens our understanding of what it means to be rationally responsible, and allows a definitive answer to the theological question: God-belief, it turns out, cannot be considered properly basic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Think , Volume 16 , Issue 47 , Autumn 2017 , pp. 57 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ayer, A. J. (1952) Language, Truth and Logic (Mineola: Dover).Google Scholar
Hume, David (1993) Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Cambridge, MA: Hackett).Google Scholar
Norman, Andrew (2010–11) ‘The Unmaking of Wisdom, Parts 1 & 2: How We Compromise Reason's Capacity to Transform the Human Condition’, Free Inquiry 31.1-2 (December 2010/January 2011 and February/March 2011). Also published in Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism 18.2 (2010), 63–87.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (2015) ‘Is Belief in God Properly Basic?’, in Rosen, G., Byrne, A., Cohen, J. and Shiffrin, S. (eds.) The Norton Introduction to Philosophy (New York: Norton), 87–95.Google Scholar