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The evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) is a philosophical argument asserting a problem with believing both
evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
and
philosophical naturalism In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe. According to philosopher Steven Lockwood, naturalism can be separated into an ontological sense and a me ...
simultaneously. The argument was first proposed by
Alvin Plantinga Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification), and logic. From 1963 to 1982, ...
in 1993 and "raises issues of interest to
epistemologists Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...
, philosophers of mind, evolutionary biologists, and philosophers of religion".Beilby(2002) p vii The EAAN argues that the combined belief in both evolutionary theory and naturalism is epistemically self-defeating. The argument for this is that if both evolution and naturalism are true, then the probability of having reliable cognitive faculties is low. This argument comes as an expansion of the
argument from reason The argument from reason is an argument against metaphysical naturalism and for the existence of God (or at least a supernatural being that is the source of human reason). The best-known defender of the argument is C. S. Lewis. Lewis first defen ...
, although the two are separate philosophical arguments.


Development of the idea

The idea that "naturalism" undercuts its own justification was put forward by
Arthur Balfour Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, (, ; 25 July 184819 March 1930), also known as Lord Balfour, was a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As F ...
.Victor Reppert, C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea, In Defense of the Argument from Reason (2003) p 46
C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...
popularised it in the first edition of his book ''
Miracles A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divin ...
'' in 1947. Similar arguments were advanced by Richard Taylor in ''Metaphysics'',Beilby(2002) p ix as well as by Stephen Clark,Arthur Balfour, The Foundations of Belief: Notes Introductory to the Study of Theology, 8th ed. Rev. with a new introduction and summary (1906) pp 279–285 Richard PurtillRichard Purtill, Reasons to Believe (1974) pp 44–46 and J. P. Moreland.J. P. Moreland, "God and the Argument from Mind", in Scaling the Secular City (1978) pp 77–105 In 2003
Victor Reppert Victor Reppert (born 1953) is an American philosopher best known for his development of the "argument from reason". He is the author of ''C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea'' (2003) and numerous academic papers in journals such as ''Christian Scholars' R ...
developed a similar argument in detail in his book ''C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea, In Defense of the Argument from Reason''. Contemporary philosophers who have employed a similar argument against physical determinism are James Jordan and
William Hasker R. William Hasker (; born 1935) is an American philosopher and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Huntington University. For many years he was editor of the prestigious journal '' Faith and Philosophy''. He has published many jour ...
. Plantinga proposed his "evolutionary argument against naturalism" in 1993. In the twelfth chapter of his book ''Warrant and Proper Function'', Plantinga developed Lewis' idea, and constructed two formal arguments against evolutionary naturalism. He further developed the idea in an unpublished manuscript entitled "Naturalism Defeated" and in his 2000 book ''Warranted Christian Belief'', and expanded the idea in ''Naturalism Defeated?'', a 2002 anthology edited by James Beilby. He also responded to several objections to the argument in his essay "Reply to Beilby's Cohorts" in Beilby's anthology.Beilby(2002) p 2 In the 2008 publication ''Knowledge of God'' Plantinga presented a formulation of the argument that solely focused on semantic
epiphenomenalism Epiphenomenalism is a position on the mind–body problem which holds that physical and Biochemistry, biochemical events within the human body (Sensory nervous system, sense organs, Neurotransmission, neural impulses, and muscle contractions, for e ...
instead of the former four jointly exhaustive categories.Alvin Plantinga, Michael Tooley, Knowledge of God (2008) pp 31–51 Plantinga repeats the argument in his 2011 book ''Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism''.


Plantinga's 1993 formulation of the argument

Plantinga argues that combining naturalism and evolution is self-defeating, because, under these assumptions, the probability that humans have reliable cognitive faculties is low or inscrutable. He claimed that several thinkers, including
C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...
, had seen that evolutionary naturalism seemed to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism and to the conclusion that our unreliable cognitive or belief-producing faculties cannot be trusted to produce more true beliefs than false beliefs. He claimed that " Darwin himself had worries along these lines" and quoted from an 1881 letter:Beilby p 3 In the letter, Darwin had expressed agreement with William Graham's claim that natural laws implied purpose and the belief that the universe was "not the result of chance", but again showed his doubts about such beliefs and left the matter as insoluble. Darwin only had this doubt about questions beyond the scope of science, and thought science was well within the scope of an evolved mind.
Michael Ruse Michael Ruse (born 21 June 1940) is a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and works on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcatio ...
said that by presenting it as "Darwin's doubt" that evolutionary naturalism is self-defeating, Plantinga failed to note that Darwin at once excused himself from philosophical matters he did not feel competent to consider. Others, such as Evan Fales, agreed that this citation allowed Plantinga to call the source of the problem EAAN addresses ''Darwin's Doubt''. Also, contrary to Ruse's claim, Plantinga gave the name "Darwin's Doubt" not to the idea that the conjunction of naturalism and evolution is self-defeating, but rather to the view that given naturalism and evolution our cognitive faculties are unlikely to be reliable. Plantinga asserts that "this doubt arises for naturalists or atheists, but not for those who believe in God. That is because if God has created us in his image, then even if he fashioned us by some evolutionary means, he would presumably want us to resemble him in being able to know; but then most of what we believe might be true even if our minds have developed from those of the lower animals." Plantinga defined: * ''N'' as naturalism, which he defined as "the idea that there is no such person as God or anything like God; we might think of it as high-octane atheism or perhaps atheism-plus." * ''E'' as the belief that human beings have evolved in conformity with current evolutionary theory * ''R'' as the proposition that our faculties are "reliable", where, roughly, a cognitive faculty is "reliable" if the great bulk of its deliverances are true. He specifically cited the example of a thermometer stuck at placed in an environment which happened to be at 72 °F as an example of something that is not "reliable" in this sense and suggested that the
conditional probability In probability theory, conditional probability is a measure of the probability of an event occurring, given that another event (by assumption, presumption, assertion or evidence) has already occurred. This particular method relies on event B occur ...
of R given N and E, or P(R, N&E), is low or inscrutable. Plantinga's argument began with the observation that our beliefs can only have evolutionary consequences if they affect behaviour. To put this another way, natural selection does not directly select for true beliefs, but rather for advantageous behaviours. Plantinga distinguished the various theories of mind-body interaction into four jointly exhaustive categories: #
epiphenomenalism Epiphenomenalism is a position on the mind–body problem which holds that physical and Biochemistry, biochemical events within the human body (Sensory nervous system, sense organs, Neurotransmission, neural impulses, and muscle contractions, for e ...
, where behaviour is not caused by beliefs. "if this way of thinking is right, beliefs would be ''invisible'' to evolution" so P(R, N&E) would be low or inscrutable #''Semantic'' epiphenomenalism, where beliefs have a causative link to behaviour but not by virtue of their ''semantic'' content. Under this theory, a belief would be some form of long-term neuronal event. However, on this view P(R, N&E) would be low because the semantic content of beliefs would be invisible to natural selection, and it is semantic content that determines
truth-value In logic and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth, which in classical logic has only two possible values (''true'' or '' false''). Computing In some progra ...
. #Beliefs are causally efficacious with respect to behaviour, but ''maladaptive'', in which case P(R, N&E) would be low, as R would be selected against. #Beliefs are causally efficacious with respect to behaviour and also adaptive, but they may still be false. Since behaviour is caused by both belief and desire, and desire can lead to false belief, natural selection would have no reason for selecting true but non-adaptive beliefs over false but adaptive beliefs. Thus P(R, N&E) in this case would also be low. Plantinga pointed out that innumerable belief-desire pairs could account for a given behaviour; for example, that of a prehistoric hominid fleeing a tiger:
Perhaps Paul very much ''likes'' the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief. ... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it. ... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour.
Thus, Plantinga argued, the probability that our minds are reliable under a conjunction of
philosophical naturalism In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe. According to philosopher Steven Lockwood, naturalism can be separated into an ontological sense and a me ...
and
naturalistic evolution Naturalism may refer to: * Realism (arts), naturalism in the arts * Naturalism (literature), a literary movement beginning in the late 19th century * Naturalism (theatre), a movement in European drama and theatre * Naturalism (philosophy), the ...
is low or inscrutable. Therefore, to assert that naturalistic evolution is true also asserts that one has a low or unknown probability of being right. This, Plantinga argued, epistemically defeats the belief that naturalistic evolution is true and that ascribing truth to naturalism and evolution is internally dubious or inconsistent.


Responses


Fitelson and Sober's response

In a 1998 paper
Branden Fitelson Branden Fitelson (; born August 17, 1969) is an American philosopher and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University. He is known for his expertise on formal epistemology and philosophy of science. Bibliography * Edward ...
of the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
and
Elliott Sober Elliott R. Sober (born 6 June 1948) is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general phil ...
of the
University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...
set out to show that the arguments presented by Plantinga contain serious errors. Plantinga construed evolutionary naturalism as the conjunction of the idea that human cognitive faculties arose through evolutionary mechanisms, and naturalism which he equated to atheism. Plantinga tried to throw doubt on this conjunction with a preliminary argument that the conjunction is probably false, and a main argument that it is self-defeating; if you believe it you should stop believing it. First, they criticised Plantinga's use of a
Bayesian Thomas Bayes (/beɪz/; c. 1701 – 1761) was an English statistician, philosopher, and Presbyterian minister. Bayesian () refers either to a range of concepts and approaches that relate to statistical methods based on Bayes' theorem, or a followe ...
framework in which he arbitrarily assigned initial probabilities without
empirical evidence Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...
, predetermining the outcome in favor of traditional theism, and described this as a recipe for replacing any non-deterministic theory in the natural sciences, so that for example a probable outcome predicted by
quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...
would be seen as the outcome of God's will. Plantinga's use of R to mean that "the great bulk" of our beliefs are true fails to deal with the cumulative effect of adding beliefs which have variable reliability about different subjects. Plantinga asserted that the traditional theist believes being made in God's image includes a reflection of divine powers as a knower, but cognitive science finds human reasoning subject to biases and systematic error. Traditional theology is not shown to predict this varying reliability as well as science, and there is the theological problem of the omnipotent Creator producing such imperfection. They described how Plantinga set out various scenarios of belief affecting evolutionary success, but undercut the low probability he previously required when he suggested an "inscrutable" probability, and by ignoring availability of variants he fails to show that false beliefs will be equally adaptive as his claim of low probability assumes. Even if his claims of improbability were correct, that need not affect belief in evolution, and they considered it would be more sensible to accept that evolutionary processes sometimes have improbable outcomes. They assessed Plantinga's main argument—which asserts that since the reliability of evolutionary naturalism is low or of inscrutable value, those believing it should withhold assent from its reliability, and thus withhold assent from anything else they believe including evolutionary naturalism, which is therefore self-defeating—and found it unconvincing, having already disputed his argument that the reliability is low. Even if ''E&N'' defeated the claim that 'at least 90% of our beliefs are true,' they considered that Plantinga must show that it also defeats the more modest claim that 'at least a non-negligible minority of our beliefs are true'. They considered his sentiment that high probability is required for rational belief to be repudiated by philosophical lessons such as the
lottery paradox The lottery paradoxKyburg, H. E. (1961). ''Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief'', Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, p. 197. arises from Henry E. Kyburg Jr. considering a fair 1,000-ticket lottery that has exactly one winning ti ...
, and that each step in his argument requires principles different from those he had described. They concluded that Plantinga has drawn attention to unreliability of cognitive processes that is already taken into account by evolutionary scientists who accept that science is a fallible exercise, and appreciate the need to be as scrupulous as possible with the fallible cognitive processes available. His
hyperbolic doubt Cartesian doubt is a form of methodological skepticism associated with the writings and methodology of René Descartes (March 31, 1596Feb 11, 1650). Scruton, R.''Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey''(London: Penguin Books, 1994). Leiber, ...
as a defeater for evolutionary naturalism is equally a defeater for theists who rely on their belief that their mind was designed by a non-deceiving God, and neither "can construct a non-question-begging argument that refutes global skepticism."


Robbins' response

Indiana University South Bend Indiana University South Bend (IU South Bend) is a public university in South Bend, Indiana. It is the third largest and northernmost campus of Indiana University. History Indiana University began offering classes in South Bend in 1922 as an ...
Professor of Philosophy J. Wesley Robbins contended that Plantinga's argument applied only to Cartesian philosophies of mind but not to pragmatist philosophies of mind. Robbins' argument, stated roughly, was that while in a Cartesian mind beliefs can be identified with no reference to the environmental factors that caused them, in a pragmatic mind they are identifiable ''only'' with reference to those factors. That is to say, in a pragmatic mind beliefs would not even exist if their holder had not come in contact with external belief-producing phenomena in the first place.


''Naturalism Defeated?''

A collection of essays entitled ''Naturalism Defeated?'' (2002) contains responses by 11 philosophers to EAAN. According to James K. Beilby, editor of the volume, Plantinga's proposition "raises issues of interest to epistemologists, philosophers of mind, evolutionary biologists, and philosophers of religion". The responsive essays include the following: * William Ramsey argued that Plantinga "overlooks the most sensible way . . . to get clear on how truth can be a property of beliefs that bestows an advantage on cognitive systems". He also argued that ''some'' of our cognitive faculties ''are'' slightly unreliable, and ''E&N'' seems better suited than theism to explain this imperfection. *
Jerry Fodor Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modu ...
argued that there is a plausible historical scenario according to which our minds were selected because their cognitive mechanisms produced, by and large, adaptive true beliefs. * Evan Fales argued that Plantinga had not demonstrated that the reliability of our cognitive faculties is improbable, given Neo-Darwinism, and emphasizes that "if Plantinga's argument fails here, then he will not have shown that &Eis probabilistically incoherent." Also, given how expensive (in biological terms) our brain is, and considering we are rather unremarkable creatures apart from our brains, it would be quite improbable that our rational faculties be selected if unreliable. "Most of our eggs are in that basket," said Fales. Fales argued along the same as Robbins: take a
mental representation A mental representation (or cognitive representation), in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality, or else a mental process that ma ...
, of heat, for example. Only so long as it is really caused by heat can we call it a mental representation of heat; otherwise, it is not at all a mental representation, of heat or of anything else: "so long as representations emanticsare causally linked to the world via the syntactic structures in the brain to which they correspond yntax this will guarantee that syntax maps onto semantics in a generally truth-preserving way.", cited in ''Naturalism Defeated?'' as being an earlier version of Fales' response. This is a direct response to one of Plantinga's scenarios where, according to Plantinga, false-belief generating mechanisms may have been naturally selected. * Michael Bergmann suggested that
Thomas Reid Thomas Reid (; 7 May ( O.S. 26 April) 1710 – 7 October 1796) was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher. He was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1783 he wa ...
offered the resources for a commonsense (Reidian) defense of naturalism against EAAN. *
Ernest Sosa Ernest Sosa (born June 17, 1940) is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. Since 2007 he has been Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, but he spent most of his career at Brown University. Educa ...
drew on features of Descartes' epistemology to argue that while " sues of circularity do arise as to how we can rationally and knowledgeably adopt n epistemically propitiousview about our own epistemic powers," nonetheless, "these problems are not exclusive to naturalism." * James Van Cleve suggested that even if the probability thesis is true, it need not deliver an undefeated defeater to R, and that even if one has a defeater for R, it doesn't follow that one has a defeater for everything. * Richard Otte thought that the argument "ignore other information we have that would make R likely." * William Talbott suggested that "Plantinga has misunderstood the role of undercutting defeaters in reasoning." *
Trenton Merricks Trenton Merricks () is Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia. His main fields are metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion.https://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/merricks/ Merricks's published articles includ ...
said that "in general, inferences from low or inscrutable conditional probability to defeat are unjustified." *
William Alston William Payne Alston (November 29, 1921 – September 13, 2009) was an American philosopher. He is widely considered to be one of the most important epistemologists and Philosophy of religion, philosophers of religion of the twentieth century, a ...
argued that the claim that P(R/N&E) is low is poorly supported; if, instead, it is inscrutable, this has no clear relevance to the claim that (1) is a defeater for N&E. ''Naturalism Defeated?'' also included Plantinga's replies to both the critical responses contained in the book and to some objections raised by others, including Fitelson & Sober: * Plantinga expounded the notion of ''Rationality Defeaters'' in terms of his theory of warrant and proper function and distinguishes between Humean Defeaters and Purely Alethic Defeaters, suggesting that although a naturalist will continue to assume R "but (if he reflects on the matter) he will also think, sadly enough, that what he can't help believing is unlikely to be true." * Plantinga argued that ''semantic epiphenomenalism'' is very likely on N&E because, if
materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...
is true, beliefs would have to be neurophysiological events whose ''propositional'' content cannot plausibly enter the causal chain. He also suggests that the ''reliability'' of a cognitive process requires the truth of a substantial proportion of the beliefs it produces, and that a process which delivered beliefs whose probability of truth was in the neighbourhood of 0.5 would have a vanishingly unlikely chance of producing (say) 1000 beliefs 75% of which were true. * In ''The conditionalisation problem,'' Plantinga discussed the possibility that N+ i.e. "Naturalism plus R," could be a basic belief thus staving off defeat of R, suggesting that this procedure cannot be right in general otherwise every defeater could automatically be defeated, introducing the term "''defeater-deflector'' " and initially exploring the conditions under which a defeater-deflector can be valid. * Plantinga concluded that the objections pose a challenge to EAAN, but that there are successful arguments against the objections.


Ruse's response

In a chapter titled 'The New Creationism: Its Philosophical Dimension', in ''The Cultures of Creationism'', philosopher of science
Michael Ruse Michael Ruse (born 21 June 1940) is a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and works on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcatio ...
discussed EAAN. He argued: *That the EAAN conflates methodological and metaphysical naturalism.Coleman(2004) p187 *That "we need to make a distinction that Plantinga fudges" between "the world as we can in some sense discover" and "the world in some absolute sense, metaphysical reality if you like." Then, "Once this distinction is made, Plantinga's refutation of naturalism no longer seems so threatening."Coleman(2004) p188 *That "It is certainly the case that organisms are sometimes deceived about the world of appearances and that this includes humans. Sometimes we are systematically deceived, as instructors in elementary psychology classes delight in demonstrating. Moreover, evolution can often give good reasons as to why we are deceived." We know there are misconceptions arising from selection as we can measure them against reliable touchstones, but in Plantinga's hypothesised deceptions we are deceived all the time which is "not how evolution's deceptions work". He comments that in Plantinga's thinking we have confusion between the world as we know it, and the world as it might be knowable in some ultimate way, but "If we are all in an illusion then it makes no sense to talk of illusion, for we have no touchstone of reality to make absolute judgements." Ruse concluded his discussion of the EAAN by stating:
To be honest, even if Plantinga's argument he EAANworked, I would still want to know where theism ends (and what form this theism must take) and where science can take over. Is it the case that evolution necessarily cannot function, or it is merely false and in another God-created world it might have held in some way — and if so, in what way? Plantinga has certainly not shown that the theist must be a creationist, even though his own form of theism is creationism.Coleman (2004) pp 189–190


Other responses

In 2020, a philosophy paper was published called "Does the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism Defeat God's Beliefs?", which argued that if the EAAN provides the naturalist with a defeater for all of her beliefs, then an extension of it appears to provide God with a defeater for all of his beliefs.


C. S. Lewis framing

Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.


Plantinga's 2008 formulation of the argument

In the 2008 publication ''Knowledge of God'' Plantinga presented a formulation of the argument that solely focused on semantic
epiphenomenalism Epiphenomenalism is a position on the mind–body problem which holds that physical and Biochemistry, biochemical events within the human body (Sensory nervous system, sense organs, Neurotransmission, neural impulses, and muscle contractions, for e ...
instead of the former four jointly exhaustive categories. Plantinga stated that from a materialist's point of view a belief will be a neuronal event. In this conception a belief will have two different sorts of properties: *''electro-chemical'' or ''neurophysiological'' properties (''NP'' properties for short) *and the property of having ''content'' (It will have to be the belief that ''p'', for some proposition ''p''). Plantinga thought that we have something of an idea as to the history of NP properties: structures with these properties have come to exist by small increments, each increment such that it has proved to be useful in the struggle for survival. But he then asked how the ''content'' property of a belief came about: "How does it he contentget to be associated in that way with a given proposition?" He said that materialists offer two theories for this question: According to the first, content '' supervenes upon'' NP properties; according to the second, content ''is reducible to'' NP properties. (He noted that if content properties are reducible to NP properties, then they also supervene upon them.) He explained the two theories as follows: *Reducibility: A belief is a disjunction of conjunctions of NP properties. *Strong Supervenience (S+): For any possible worlds ''W'' and ''W*'' and any structures ''S'' and ''S*'', if ''S'' has the same NP properties in ''W'' as ''S*'' has in ''W*'', then ''S'' has the same content in ''W'' as ''S*'' has in ''W*''. Supervenience can either be broadly logical supervenience or nomic supervenience. Plantinga argued that neural structures that constitute beliefs have ''content'', in the following way: "At a certain level of complexity, these neural structures start to display content. Perhaps this starts gradually and early on (possibly C. elegans small worm with a nervous system composed of only a few neuronsdisplays just the merest glimmer of consciousness and the merest glimmer of content), or perhaps later and more abruptly; that doesn't matter. What does matter is that at a certain level of complexity of neural structures, content appears. This is true whether content properties are reducible to NP properties or supervene on them."Plantinga/Tooley (2008)p 37 So given materialism some neural structures at a given level of complexity acquire content and become beliefs. The question then is according to Plantinga: "what is the likelihood, ''given materialism'', that the content that thus arises is in fact ''true''?" This way of proceeding replaced the first step of Plantinga's earlier versions of the argument.


Criticism by eliminative materialists

The EAAN claims that according to naturalism, evolution must operate on beliefs, desires, and other contentful mental states for a biological organism to have a reliable cognitive faculty such as the brain.
Eliminative materialism Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. It is the idea that majority of the mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coherent ...
maintains that propositional attitudes such as beliefs and desires, among other intentional mental states that have content, cannot be explained on naturalism and therefore concludes that such entities do not exist. It is not clear whether the EAAN would be successful against a conception of naturalism which accepts
eliminative materialism Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. It is the idea that majority of the mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coherent ...
to be the correct scientific account of human cognition.


EAAN, intelligent design and theistic evolution

In his discussion of EAAN,
Michael Ruse Michael Ruse (born 21 June 1940) is a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and works on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcatio ...
described Plantinga as believing in the truth of the attack on evolution presented by
intelligent design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for its bold attempt to ...
advocate Phillip E. Johnson, and as having endorsed Johnson's book '' Darwin on Trial''. Ruse said that Plantinga took the conflict between science and religion further than Johnson, seeing it as not just a clash between the philosophies of naturalism and theism, but as an attack on the true philosophy of theism by what he considers the incoherent and inconsistent philosophy of naturalism. Plantinga has stated that EAAN is not directed against "the theory of evolution, or the claim that human beings have evolved from simian ancestors, or anything in that neighborhood". He also claimed that the problems raised by EAAN do not apply to the conjunction of
theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with ''deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred to ...
and contemporary evolutionary science. In his essay ''Evolution and Design'' Plantinga outlines different ways in which
theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with ''deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred to ...
and
evolutionary theory Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
can be combined.For Faith and Clarity, Philosophical Contributions to Christian Theology, Ed. James Beilby (2006) p 201 In the foreword to the anthology ''Naturalism Defeated?'' James Beilby wrote: "Plantinga's argument should ''not'' be mistaken for an argument against evolutionary theory in general or, more specifically, against the claim that humans might have evolved from more primitive life forms. Rather, the purpose of his argument is to show that the denial of the existence of a creative deity is problematic."


See also

*
Epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...
*
Evolution of human intelligence The evolution of human intelligence is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain and to the origin of language. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately seven million years, from the separation of the genus '' Pan'' until the em ...
*
Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
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Evolutionary epistemology Evolutionary epistemology refers to three distinct topics: (1) the biological evolution of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans, (2) a theory that knowledge itself evolves by natural selection, and (3) the study of the historical discovery ...
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Hyperbolic doubt Cartesian doubt is a form of methodological skepticism associated with the writings and methodology of René Descartes (March 31, 1596Feb 11, 1650). Scruton, R.''Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey''(London: Penguin Books, 1994). Leiber, ...
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Naturalism (philosophy) In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only Physical law, natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe. According to philosopher Steven Lockwood, naturalism can be separated into an ontological ...
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Philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...
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Problem of mental causation The problem of mental causation is a conceptual issue in the philosophy of mind. That problem, in short, is how to account for the common-sense idea that intentional thoughts or intentional mental states are causes of intentional actions. The prob ...
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Skepticism Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...
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Theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with ''deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred to ...


Notes


References

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External links


Plantinga's paper: "Naturalism Defeated" (pdf)
*Audio recording of Plantinga's presentation of the Evolutionary Argument Against Evil, Biola University: liste
online
o
download
(11.2 MB. Requires RealPlayer). An extensiv

is available on the website of philosopher Michael Sudduth.
''Naturalism Defeated?'' reviewed
by John F. Post at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Evil and Evolution (The Great Debate)
a debate between philosopher Paul Draper, who was one of the first to argue that the cruelty and suffering in evolution is not compatible with theism, and
Alvin Plantinga Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification), and logic. From 1963 to 1982, ...
, who responds that evolution is rather in conflict with naturalism based on the argument in this article.
Does the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism Defeat God's Beliefs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism Philosophical arguments Epistemology of religion Philosophy of religion Naturalism (philosophy)