Proper Functionalism and the Metalevel: A Friendly Reply to Timothy and Lydia McGrew

Abstract

Over the years, Alvin Plantinga has developed an epistemological system that allows beliefs to be warranted1 without requiring the subject to have internal access to those properties conferring warrant. Plantinga’s epistemology, known as proper functionalism, allows a subject’s belief to be warranted, insofar as the right conditions relating to cognitive proper function are in place.2 Plantinga’s theory of warrant can be summarized as follows: