What was Cornelius Van Til?

I was reading some from C. Stephen Evans on Epistemology and the Ethics of Belief. He was speaking about the failure of Internalism. One of his comments was "internalism shares a failing with deontological conceptions of justification. Even if it should be the case that it is intuitively evident that a belief is justified, it does not follow logically that the belief is likely to be true." He goes on to say that "the appeal of internalism may lie in the confusion between being justified in holding a belief and being able to justify a belief, which we noted ..., must be clearly distinguished." (219). It is interesting though, that Evans does not show his assertion by any justification. Can he justify his belief? Not really.

If we appeal to externalism, such as Plantinga and Alston, then are we not just arguing over what constitutes a justified belief? How can we gain any real certainty from passing fads of what it takes to be justified? If we say a well functioning cognitive faculty as Evans quotes (from Plantinga I think), then will there not always be 'stupid' charges back and forth that the one who disagrees with the majority or the en vogue will certainly be not well functioning? Or is it to be obvious things, like they are well-behaved and have normal conversations which offers the warrant. And that they tend to be accurate over time? Is this not evidentialism just on steriods?

Hmm... Any thoughts....

Comments

David Keuss said…
Would Quine the philosopher just agree that it is an internal psychological, empirical affair?

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