Alvin Plantinga
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Alvin Plantinga (born 15 November, 1932 in Ann Arbor, Michigan of Swedish ancestry) is a contemporary American philosopher known for his work in metaphysics and in the philosophy of religion. He is widely regarded to be the foremost philosophical apologist for Christianity.
Plantinga won a 'fat scolarship' to Harvard University, but left it in 1951 to study at Calvin College (Grand Rapids), where William Henry Jellema was teaching philosophy. After Calvin, Plantinga studied at the University of Michigan (1954-1955, alongside such future luminaries as William Alston, William Frankena and Nancy Cartwright) and received his doctorate from Yale University (1955-1958). He began teaching at Wayne State University and spent almost 20 years teaching at Calvin College, his alma mater, before moving to the University of Notre Dame.
He is best known for:
- A contemporary redeployment of the ontological argument using modal logic. The argument, thanks also to Norman Malcolm and Charles Hartshorne, enjoyed renewed interest in the 20th century.
- His "free will defense" response to J.L. Mackie's logical argument from evil.
- His "reformed epistemology" attacks on (internalist) foundationalism.
In 1993 Plantinga's first two volumes of an epistemological trilogy on warrant were published. These fueled the discussion about what has to be added to true belief in order to be able to say that we have knowledge. In the first book, Warrant: The Current Debate, Plantinga introduces, analyzes, and criticizes 20th Century developments in Anglophone epistemology (Chisholm, BonJour, Alston, Goldman and others).
In the second book, Warrant and Proper Function, he introduces the notion of warrant as an alternative to evidence and goes deeper into topics like self-knowledge, memories, perception, and probability. In 2000, the third volume, Warranted Christian belief, was published. Plantinga expands his focus of warrant from strictly epistemological issues to examine whether theistic belief can enjoy warrant. He argues that this is plausible.
Alvin Plantinga is John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Plantinga is not Catholic, but a Calvinist.
Some books
- God and other minds (1967)
- The Nature of Necessity (1974)
- God, Freedom, and Evil (1974)
- Does God Have a Nature? (1980)
- Warrant and Propper Function (1993)
- Warrant the Current Debate (1993)
- Warranted Christian Belief (2000)
External links
- Website about Alvin Plantinga
- Alvin Plantinga: The Analytic Theist
- Professor Alvin Plantinga's autobiography
