Summary Of Plantinga's Evolution And True Belief

Throughout Plantinga's Evolution and True Belief, Plantinga analyzes why many assume that the purpose of cognitive abilities is to provide us with true beliefs. He asserts that among many fields of cognitive efforts there is mass disagreement surrounding the principles of philosophy as well as, religion. Specifically, he argues that naturalistic evolution is presumably self defeating due to the reliability of our cognitive abilities. In this paper, I shall present Plantinga’s argument for this conclusion and critically evaluate it. The argument appears to be valid, however, upon further examination of a premise, it fails to prove its point. Furthermore, the argument explains the doubt behind belief in both evolutionary theory and naturalism
Premise (1) is true, according to atheism in which can be identified as metaphysical naturalism, that nature is all that exists, therefore, the supernatural does not exist. Likewise, Dawkins view of atheism solidifies the idea in which evolution is the only source of belief formation mechanisms (Plantinga 265). Plantinga argues in defense of premise (3) that the probability in which unguided evolution would have produced reliable cognitive abilities is doubtful, consequently, to believe naturalistic evolution is true is to affirm a low probability of being right. Specifically, he refers to “Darwin’s Doubt,” in which Darwin questions the value of convictions of man’s mind as it has developed from the mind of animals. Significantly, Darwin states, “Would anyone trust the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind,” (Plantinga 266). Plantinga utilizes this consideration in which the majority would not trust the convictions of a monkey’s mind to drive the doubt behind the reliability of belief-forming mechanisms in naturalistic
He offers two considerations in defense of this characterization of evolution. First, in regards to Churchland, the purpose of evolution is to promote survival through adaptive behaviors, in turn does not guarantee the production of true beliefs. Second, in light of Darwin’s Doubt, there is doubt in the conviction of a man’s mind as there is no trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind (Plantinga 266). Therefore, he argues that Darwin’s and Churchland’s considerations assume naturalistic evolution gives reason to doubt that human cognitive abilities produce true beliefs. However, Plantinga introduces a counterexample in his argument, derivative of Quine and Popper’s arguments. The counterexample gives reason to believe that cognitive abilities do produce true beliefs. It does so by explaining because we have evolved and survived, consequently, our beliefs are mostly true. A key statement is, “Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic but praiseworthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind,” (Plantinga 266). To demonstrate, an animal in which believes the berries on a bush are poisonous will not eat the berries, thus the animal will survive and reproduce. Whereas, an animal in which does not believe the berries on a bush are poisonous and eats the berries, will die, therefore, exemplifying Quine’s assumption