Knowledge and Reality

Knowledge and Reality Synopsis

This volume was conceived as a Festschrift to surprise Alvin Plantinga on his 70th birthday. That original plan was not entirely successful. For one thing, the day came and went well before the work was complete. For another, the project wasn't quite a surprise: Plantinga caught wind of it (though not of its details) before the unveiling. The occasion was marked, however, by a presentation of a projected table of contents and an early draft of the cover painting by Keith Lehrer. Plantinga then saw the details, and was quite taken aback that the editors and a few contributors had come to South Bend from as far Virginia, Florida, and California to celebrate. Now we are pleased to offer the essays themselves. The collection ranges widely over metaphysics and epistemology. Its wingspan testifies to the breadth both of Plantinga's own work and of the audience that has valued it. Some of the essays deal with ontology, examining actualism, presentism, antirealism, properties, and artifacts. Several essays in epistemology raise skeptical questions, work through the implications of naturalism or int- nalism, and engage Plantinga's own Reidian account of warrant. Other contributions consider the bearing of philosophical ideas on the Christian faith-of split brain cases on the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, and of materialism on the afterlife. The contributors are friends, colleagues, and former students of Plantinga. The editors thank all of them for their eager participation in this project.

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