{"agent_id":"plantinga","agent_name":"Alvin Plantinga","slug":"the-evolutionary-argument-against-naturalism","label":"The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism: is the conjunction of metaphysical naturalism and contemporary evolutionary theory self-defeating, and does the inscrutability of P(R | N&E) yield a defeater for every belief the naturalist holds, including N&E itself?","topic":"The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism","question":"Is the conjunction of metaphysical naturalism and contemporary evolutionary theory self-defeating, and does the inscrutability of P(R | N&E) yield a defeater for every belief the naturalist holds, including N&E itself?","position":"Naturalism — the view that there are no supernatural beings, that nature is all there is — combined with contemporary evolutionary theory yields a self-defeating position. The argument: under *naturalism plus evolution* (*N&E*), the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable (*R*) — that they produce mostly true beliefs — is either low or inscrutable. Either way, anyone who accepts *N&E* acquires a *defeater* for *R*. That defeater cannot itself be defeated, since any prospective defeater-defeater would involve beliefs produced by the very faculties under doubt. The defeater for *R* gives the believer a defeater for any belief her cognitive faculties produce — including *N&E* itself. So *N&E* is self-defeating; one cannot rationally accept it. The conjunction of theism and evolution faces no such problem: a God who designed cognitive faculties for the acquisition of truth gives us reason to regard *R* as high.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Naturalism — the view that there are no supernatural beings, that nature is all there is — combined with contemporary evolutionary theory yields a self-defeating position.","n":[1]},{"t":"The argument: under *naturalism plus evolution* (*N&E*), the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable (*R*) — that they produce mostly true beliefs — is either low or inscrutable.","n":[2]}],[{"t":"Either way, anyone who accepts *N&E* acquires a *defeater* for *R*.","n":[]},{"t":"That defeater cannot itself be defeated, since any prospective defeater-defeater would involve beliefs produced by the very faculties under doubt.","n":[3,4]},{"t":"The defeater for *R* gives the believer a defeater for any belief her cognitive faculties produce — including *N&E* itself.","n":[]},{"t":"So *N&E* is self-defeating; one cannot rationally accept it.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The conjunction of theism and evolution faces no such problem: a God who designed cognitive faculties for the acquisition of truth gives us reason to regard *R* as high.","n":[]}]],"texts":"*Warrant and Proper Function* (1993) Chapter 12 — the founding statement; 'An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism' (*Logos* 12, 1991); *Warranted Christian Belief* (2000) — the WCB-refined version acknowledging an error in the WPF formulation about conditional vs. unconditional probability; 'Naturalism Defeated' (unpublished but widely circulated paper); 'Introduction: The Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism: An Initial Statement' (in Beilby ed., *Naturalism Defeated?*, Cornell 2002); 'Reply to Beilby's Cohorts' (same volume) — the substantial reply to eleven critics; *Where the Conflict Really Lies* (2011) on the broader science-and-religion frame in which EAAN sits. Reception: William Ramsey, Jerry Fodor, and Evan Fales in the *Naturalism Defeated?* volume challenging step 1 (evolution produces reliable cognition); Michael Bergmann, Ernest Sosa, James Van Cleve on the skepticism question; Timothy O'Connor and Richard Otte on the conditional-probability question; W. J. Talbott, Trenton Merricks, and William Alston on the defeater question; Ernest Sosa's second engagement in the Baker Cambridge volume ('Natural Theology and Naturalist Atheology'); C. S. Lewis's *Miracles* Chapter III and Richard Taylor's *Metaphysics* Chapter 10 as anticipations.","works":["*Warrant and Proper Function* (1993) Chapter 12 — the founding statement","'An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism' (*Logos* 12, 1991)","*Warranted Christian Belief* (2000) — the WCB-refined version acknowledging an error in the WPF formulation about conditional vs. unconditional probability","'Naturalism Defeated' (unpublished but widely circulated paper)","'Introduction: The Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism: An Initial Statement' (in Beilby ed., *Naturalism Defeated?*, Cornell 2002)","'Reply to Beilby's Cohorts' (same volume) — the substantial reply to eleven critics","*Where the Conflict Really Lies* (2011) on the broader science-and-religion frame in which EAAN sits"],"reception":"William Ramsey, Jerry Fodor, and Evan Fales in the *Naturalism Defeated?* volume challenging step 1 (evolution produces reliable cognition); Michael Bergmann, Ernest Sosa, James Van Cleve on the skepticism question; Timothy O'Connor and Richard Otte on the conditional-probability question; W. J. Talbott, Trenton Merricks, and William Alston on the defeater question; Ernest Sosa's second engagement in the Baker Cambridge volume ('Natural Theology and Naturalist Atheology'); C. S. Lewis's *Miracles* Chapter III and Richard Taylor's *Metaphysics* Chapter 10 as anticipations.","status":"EAAN is the most aggressive of my arguments and the one most actively contested. The *Naturalism Defeated?* volume (Beilby 2002) organized eleven challenges across four fronts: that evolution does produce reliable cognition (Ramsey, Fodor, Fales); that the skepticism move overreaches (Bergmann, Sosa, Van Cleve); that the conditional-probability apparatus is misused (O'Connor, Otte); and that inscrutability does not yield a defeater (Talbott, Merricks, Alston). 'Reply to Beilby's Cohorts' addresses each. I have acknowledged a technical error in the *WPF* formulation — the preliminary argument conflated the unconditional objective probability of *R* with its probability conditional on background knowledge — and the WCB reformulation repairs it. The main argument survives the repair. The defeater step remains the most actively contested; Sosa's two engagements (*Naturalism Defeated?* and the Cambridge volume) press it from different angles. *Where the Conflict Really Lies* (2011) embeds EAAN in the broader claim that the real conflict in science-and-religion is between science and naturalism, not between science and theism.","era":"1932-present","discipline":"Philosophy, Theology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Where the Conflict Really Lies","page":"pp. 264–265","canonical":"","quote":"Of course you also see that the very reflections that lead you to this position are also no more acceptable than their denials; you have a universal defeater for whatever it is you find yourself believing. This is a really crushing skepticism, and it is this skepticism to which the naturalist is committed.","label":"Where the Conflict Really Lies, pp. 264–265"},{"n":2,"work":"Warrant and Proper Function","page":"pp. 235–236","canonical":"","quote":"It is instead an argument for the conclusion that (for one who is aware of the present argument) accepting naturalism is irrational. It is like the selfreferential argument against classical foundationalism: classical foundationalism is either false or such that I would be unjustified in accepting it; so (given that I am aware of this fact) I can't justifiably accept it.","label":"Warrant and Proper Function, pp. 235–236"},{"n":3,"work":"The Analytic Theist","page":"pp. 142–143","canonical":"","quote":"For that belief, and for each of the premises, he has a reason for doubting it, a reason for being agnostic with respect to it. This reason, obviously, cannot be defeated by an ultimately undefeated defeater. For every defeater of this reason he might have, he knows that he has a defeater-defeater: the very undercutting defeater that attached itself to R and to N&E in the first place.","label":"The Analytic Theist, pp. 142–143"},{"n":4,"work":"Warrant and Proper Function","page":"p. 234","canonical":"","quote":"For that belief, and for each of the premises, he has a reason for doubting it, a reason for being agnostic with respect to it. This reason, obviously, cannot be defeated by an ultimately undefeated defeater. For every defeater of this reason he might have, he knows that he has a defeaterdefeater: the very undercutting defeater that attached itself to R and to N&E in the first place.","label":"Warrant and Proper Function, p. 234"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"belief-in-god-as-properly-basic","label":"Belief in God as properly basic: must theistic belief be grounded in evidence to be rational, or can it be a properly basic belief produced by a properly functioning sensus divinitatis?"},{"slug":"warranted-christian-belief-and-the-aquinas-calvin-model","label":"Warranted Christian Belief and the Aquinas/Calvin model: can specifically Christian belief — the trinity, incarnation, atonement, resurrection — be warranted in the same way generic theistic belief is, or does the move from theism to Christianity require a different kind of justification?"},{"slug":"the-free-will-defense-and-the-problem-of-evil","label":"The Free Will Defense and the problem of evil: is God's existence logically compatible with the evil there is, and does the evidential weight of horrendous suffering yield a probabilistic argument against theism?"},{"slug":"modal-metaphysics-transworld-identity-and-the-modal-ontologi","label":"Modal metaphysics, transworld identity, and the modal ontological argument: are possible worlds abstract states of affairs that the actual world instantiates, do individuals retain numerical identity across them, and does the modal ontological argument show theistic belief rational?"},{"slug":"religious-exclusivism-in-the-face-of-religious-diversity","label":"Religious exclusivism in the face of religious diversity: can exclusivist Christian belief remain warranted when the believer is sincerely aware of equally devout adherents of other religions, or does pluralism defeat exclusivist warrant?"}]}