NOUS 27:1 (1993) 66-82

WhyWeNeed ProperFunction
ALVINPLANTINGA

Universityof Notre Dame

First, I wish to express my gratitudeto Professors Sosa and Feldman: I have learnedmuch from their searchingand carefully craftedpapers.I shall begin by respondingto the criticisms they make of my books; then I shall turnto broader considerations. I. Feldman Feldman'scriticismscome in two sorts and display a nice symmetricalstructure. First, there is criticismof the criticismI make of others in Warrant:the Current Debate; then there is criticism of my account of knowledge in Warrantand ProperFunction.The criticismof my criticismof othersitself comes in two parts. I use to try to show thatthe First,Feldmancriticizessome of the counterexamples views of others are wanting; then second he claims that when my counterexas he thinksthey can be, they don't reallydamagethe views I amplesarerepaired, mean to criticize, because they don't show anything not already conceded by those who put forththe views underattack. A. Feldman and my Counterexamples I proposed to use the term 'warrant'for that property or quantity, whatever precisely it is, enough of which distinguishesknowledge from mere true belief. I then argued by counterexamplethat certain popular accounts of warrantare mistaken. According to Feldman, however, some or many of these counterexamples are defective. How so? Many of them tend towardsthe unduly outre;but that isn't the problem.The problemis ratherthat they are not given in sufficient detail; the fact is they can be filled out in such a way that they are compatible with the views they are directed against, so that they aren't really counterexamples at all.

?1993 Basil Blackwell, Inc., 238 Main Street, Cambridge,MA 02142, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, OxfordOX4 IJF, UK. 66

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This isn't a large point, since (as Feldman concedes) they can also be filled out so that they are counterexamples. But by way of brief self-exculpation:there are two kinds of counterexamples.Someone claims that A entails B; in the first kind of counterexample,you presenta state of affairs C that is clearly possible, and thatentails or includes both A and -B. In the second kind, you presenta state of affairsC thatclearly entails A and is clearly compatiblewith -B, thus showing that A and -B is possible and hence that A does not entail B. (So a counterexample of the second kind is successful if it can be filled out to a counterexample of the first kind.) A counterexample of the first kind fails if C is compatiblewith B; but thatisn't a cogent criticismof a counterexample of the second kind. All C has to be, in a counterexampleof the second kind, is clearly possible, sufficient for A, and clearly compatiblewith -B. I am encouragedto think my counterexamples of this kind were successful, since Feldman had no troublefilling them out to counterexamples of the first kind. So suppose we turn to the second and central criticism here: that when my counterexamplesare properlyfilled out, they don't really damage the views I mean to criticize. This, says Feldman,is because they turninto Gettierexamples when filled out; and thus they fail to show anything not already conceded by those who advancethe views against which they are directed.Exactly how does this go? In Warrant:the CurrentDebate, I criticize internalistandjustificationist views. Among them is evidentialism,an importantview with a long and distinguished history,and a view endorsedby Feldmanhimself. 1 On this view, a belief is justified for S if and only if (in Feldman'sversion) it fits S's evidence. Now to evaluate evidentialism, it is crucially importantto decide what is to count as evidence. First,thereis propositionalevidence: I have propositional evidence for one of my beliefs if it is evidentially supportedby one or more other beliefs I hold.2 Second, there is phenomenalevidence. One kind of phenomenalevidence is sensuous evidence, for example, sensuous imagery of the sort involved in visual (and other sorts of) perception.What we have in these cases is 'the evidence of the senses'-the phenomenological sensuous evidence furnished by way of being appearedto in those characteristic ways involved in perception. Now if we construe'evidence' in such a way thatit is limited to propositional and sensuousevidence, thenfitting the evidence isn't even necessaryfor warrant. For in large and importantareas of our cognitive establishment,there is very little by way of sensuous imagery, and what there is is not connected with warrant. Consider memory. You remembermeeting Paul in Californialast month; but there need be little by way of sensuous imagery. For some people, apparently, there isn't any sensuous imagery; and for the rest of us, the sensuous imagery there is doesn't play an evidentialrole.3 (You don't rememberthat it is California where you saw Paul by virtue of the sensuous imagery that accompanies the memory; the same sensuous imagery might accompanythe memory that you saw him in Arizona.) But then one of your beliefs might fail to fit your evidence (restrictedas above) even though it has warrant.Perhaps,for example,

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you have propositionalevidence for the propositionthat you were in New York City last Thursday(you are nearly always there on Thursdaysand you learn that Paul says he saw you there then); if you rememberspending the entire day at home in Los Angeles, then the belief that you weren't in New York last Thursdaymay have warrantfor you, even though it doesn't fit your evidence (again, evidence construed in the narrow way). For there isn't any relevant sensuous evidence, and the relevant propositionalevidence you have supports your having been there then; yet you may know that you weren't there. So if evidence is limited to propositional and sensuous evidence, then fitting your evidence is not necessaryfor warrant. But perhapsthere is still anotherkind of phenomenalevidence. The sensuous imageryI mentionedisn't the only kind of phenomenologythat can plausiblybe thought of as evidence. Consider memory again: in addition to the sensuous imagery there is also somethinglike a certainfelt attractivenessof the memory belief; it feels right, somehow, and other beliefs you might consider in its place feel wrong. You rememberthat it was California where you met Paul, not New York; and that it was Paul you met, not Sam. You remember:that was Paul I met there in California. That propositionhas about it a sense of rightness, or fittingness, or appropriateness-as opposed, say, to the propositionthat it was Sam you met on that occasion. Perhapsthe thing to say is that there is a sort of felt inclination, or impulse, to accept the one proposition, as opposed to the other;so call this sort of evidence "impulsionalevidence".)Perhapsimpulsional evidence is no more than the phenomenal reflection of the fact that you do indeed believe the propositionin question; in any event, there is this kind of phenomenologyinvolved in memory belief. Accordingly,in the case of memory beliefs there are really two quite different sorts of experience: the fleeting, indistinct,unstable,sometimes randomsensuous imagery, on the one hand, and, on the other, the felt inclination or impulse to believe that proposition, as opposed to others that might suggest themselves. Many other kinds of beliefs display both these kinds of phenomenalevidence, and, as far as I can see, all beliefs involve impulsionalevidence. Construe'evidence' broadly,therefore,in such a way that it includes impulsional evidence as well as propositionalevidence and sensuous imagery:then it is indeed plausible to say that you have warrantfor a belief only if you have evidence for it and only if the belief fits the evidence, whatever exactly this fitting relationis. But in criticizingevidentialismI addedthatyour belief's fitting your evidence (in this broadsense) isn't nearlysufficientfor warrant. The reason is that a person could be such that one of his beliefs fits his evidence, even though,because of cognitive malfunction,thatbelief has no or almost no warrant for him at all. Here we can obviously appealto brainin vat and Cartesiandemon examples;but if the fancifulnessof such examples displeases you, there are also plenty of real life examples. My father has been a victim of manic depressive psychosis (bipolardisorder)for many years; he often winds up spendingtime in Pine Rest ChristianPsychiatricHospital in GrandRapids. The last time he was

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there, he met a man who complained that he wasn't getting the credit he deserved for inventing a new form of human reproduction,"rotationalreprodoesn't involve sex. Instead, duction"as he called it. This kind of reproduction you suspenda woman from the ceiling with a rope and get her rotatingat a high rate of speed; the result is a large numberof children,enough to populatea city the size of Chicago. As a matter of fact, he claimed, this is precisely how Chicago was populated. He realized, he said, that there is something churlish about insisting on getting all the credit due one, but he did think he really hadn't got enough recognition for this importantdiscovery. After all, where would Chicagobe withoutit? Clearlythis set of beliefs could fit his evidence (construedthus broadly);they may fit perfectly.Perhapsit seems to him both that he remembersreadingabout populatedthe whole city of Chicago, how the method of rotationalreproduction and also that he invented it, though he didn't get credit for it. Even if these beliefs do fit his evidence, however, it is clear that they have little or no warrant; they don't have the propertyor quantityenough of which is sufficient, together with true belief, for warrant.The problemis not with a failure of fit between his beliefs and what is internallyavailable to him: the problem is that his faculties are not functioningproperly;he is insane. Now Feldmanis inclinedto agree with all this, and here we come to his second He claims that when my examples are properly criticismof my counterexamples. filled out, what they show is nothingthat should disturban evidentialist;they are really Gettierexamples.True:they show thatfitting the evidence (orjustification) isn't sufficient for warrant;but we have known that ever since Gettier's 1963 paper.The evidentialistdoesn't claim that evidentialfit is sufficientfor warrant; conditionis necessary: she admitsthata fourth(andperhapsexternalist)
Thus, my second point about Plantinga's criticism of rival theories is that several of his examples, as he describes them, fail to show any defect in these theories. Contraryto what Plantinga says, they are examples in which the believer is not following his evidence or is not believing dutifully. So, the examples as presented don't show that these propertiesare insufficient for epistemic warrant.There may be variations on the examples which do show that evidence and epistemic duty fulfillment are insufficient for epistemic warrant(In Plantinga's sense). However these examples are simply variations on Gettier style cases, to be dealt with however such examples are generallydealt with (p. 39).

So we don't have here a criticism that should disturban evidentialist:filling out of the first type only of the second type to counterexamples my counterexamples yields Gettier cases, and we already knew that a fourth condition is needed to deal with Gettiercases. By way of reply: first the examples I gave aren't strictly speaking Gettier case) the beliefs in question examples, because (as in the rotationalreproduction weren't stipulatedto be true; but that's only a quibble. Second, examples of this kind-examples involving insanity, or brains in vats, or people deceived by

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Cartesiansevil demons-don't seem much like Gettier's originalexample of the person who lies to you about having a Ford, thus inducing in you the justified belief that he has a Ford, which belief turnsout, unbeknownstto him, to be true, so that your belief is bothjustified and true. In those cases there is a sort of local hitch or glitch in the epistemic environment:the deceiver is himself deceived in an unexpected way. Here we have a bit of retail lack of fit between epistemic environmentand your cognitive faculties; but in the brain in vat, insanity and evil demon examples we have wholesale epistemic failure. If these latter are Gettierexamples, then I suppose any example that shows evidentialfit or justification insufficient for warrant will be a Gettier example. If so, then my examples, I guess, are Gettierexamples;I don't want to argueabout what constitutes a Gettier example, or try to give necessary and sufficient conditions for them. (If I did, Gettierwould probablyfind a counterexample!) The real point lies in a differentdirection.I had thought thatjustificationists thinkjustificationnecessary and (with true belief) nearly sufficient, so to speak, for warrant;the basic idea or basic picture is that knowledge is justified true belief. True:this turnsout not to be exactly right;a codicil must be addedto take care of annoying little counterexamplesof the type Gettier proposed; but the main structure of knowledge is given by justified truebelief. Now the examples I proposed were meant to show that this picture is deeply mistaken. It isn't that justification is nearly sufficient for warrant,and needs only the addition of a comparativelyminor if hardto state fourthcondition;these examples show that justification(construedevidentially)isn't anywherenearly sufficientfor warrant. Consideragain the man in Pine Rest who thought he had discovered rotational reproduction:he might very well be both deontologically and evidentially justified;but his beliefs don't come anywherenearhaving warrant. But suppose the evidentialist retorts that there are no near misses in logic: either a proposedanalysans is corrector it isn't; there is no such thing as getting it nearly right; all this talk about a basic picture is just picture thinking;we've known for the last 30 years that we need a fourth condition; and fourth conditionscan't be said to vary in size or significance. Then it seems to me that the evidentialistfaces a dilemma.If we take the notion of evidence narrowly,so that it includes propositional evidence together with sensuous phenomenal evidence, but does not include nonsensuousphenomenalevidence (impulsional evidence), then evidentialism doesn't give us even a necessary condition of warrant:for in many cases of warranted belief-many cases of memory and a priori belief, for example-there really isn't any significant sensuous phenomenal evidence. On the otherhand,if you take evidence broadly,so thatit includes nonsensuous phenomenal evidence, then fitting your evidence is arguably necessary for knowledge; but it adds nothing significant to the belief condition. You have impulsionalevidence for p just by virtue of believing p. It isn't even clearly possible that you believe p but lack impulsionalevidence for it: could it be thatyou believe p althoughit doesn't seem to you to be true?

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If so, however, what the evidentialistreally needs is not a fourth condition, but a third. For evidentialjustification (construedthus broadly)guaranteesonly belief and a necessary accompanimentof belief: the nonsensuous phenomenal counterpart of the belief, the sense that the propositionbelieved is indeed true. So the propositionthat S's belief that p fits S's evidence can be satisfied by S's merely believing p. Take evidence the narrowway, therefore:then evidentialism makes a contributionto the question of warrantby focusing our attention on areas of the whole complex epistemic establishmentwhere indeed warrantand properlyfunctioning faculties do involve evidence of this type; taken this way, however, evidentialismgives us neithera necessarynor a sufficient condition of warrant.On the other hand, take evidence the broaderway: then evidentialism states a conditionthat is necessaryfor knowledge, all right, but only because this conditionis alreadyguaranteed by belief itself. The evidentialistcondition,taken this way, adds nothing significantto truthand belief. So it isn't that the evidentialist is on the right track, giving us a third condition for knowledge, and conceding that he still needs a fourth;he doesn't give us a thirdcondition, since what he gives us guaranteesno more than is guaranteedby truthand belief (the first two conditions)alone. Similar remarksapply to Feldman's defense of deontologism: the idea that and togetherwith truebelief, epistemic duty fulfillmentis necessaryfor warrant, nearly sufficient for it. Cases of massive malfunction-cases of madness, brain in vat cases, Cartesiandemon cases, and the like, show that duty fulfillmentisn't it isn't even in anywherenearly sufficient (togetherwith true belief) for warrant; the right neighborhood.These cases show, I think, that justification taken thus deontologically has little to do with warrant.You can be as justified as you please, but still hold beliefs that come nowhere near having warrant.Indeed, in this case things are even worse; it looks as if deontological justification isn't even necessary for warrant,as I argue in chapter II of Warrant:the Current Debate. What I take my examples to show isn't merely that deontological justification isn't quite sufficient for warrant: what they show is that deontologicaljustification really doesn't help us understandwarrantat all. The lesson they teach is that warrantand deontological justification are radically differentproperties.4 B. Feldman and Proper Functionalism I turnnow to Feldman's discussion of 'properfunctionalism',my own proposal (I don't like the name, but can't think of a better one.) His first criticism has to do with my criticism of Goldman'searly reliabilism,accordingto which a belief B is justified (has warrant)if it is produced by a reliable belief producing mechanism (the latter taken as type, not token); and B has a degree of justification proportionalto the reliability of the mechanism. But of course any concrete belief producingmechanismis a token of many types: which is the one the reliabilityof which determinesthe degree of justificationenjoyed by the belief in

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question?Following Feldman'slead,5I said the reliabilistcan't find a type of the right generalityhere. Obviously the type in question must be so narrowthat all beliefs producedby it have the same degree of justification(otherwisethe degree of justification won't depend solely on the reliability of that type). But if you take the relevant type that narrowly, you have such problems as that of the lesion.6 epistemicallyserendipitous Here Feldmansuggests that I am too hasty: there may well be types thatwill yield the right result. By way of trivial example, he points out that the relevant type could be, for example,process producinga belief that has warrant.Clearly, all and only beliefs producedby processes that are tokens of this type will have This seems right,but how does it help the reliabilist?You might as well warrant. in which the analysans is warrantedbelief. proposean analysis of warrant Secondly, he suggests that one can state a version of reliabilism which is "almostequivalent"to properfunctionalismby appropriately choosing the types involved: "One can say that the relevanttype of a process token includes all and only processes governedby the same modules in the truth-seeking portionof the design plan for the cognitive system." The idea, I gather, is this: the relevant types (call them 'Feldmantypes') will have as tokens certainconcrete processes (not process types): all those that are governed by a given truthseeking module of the design plan (or are partof a given truthseeking faculty or subfacultyof the whole cognitive establishment);and a belief B has warrant,on this form of reliabilism,if and only if it is producedby a mechanismfalling undera reliable Feldmantype. Says Feldman:"You thus get a specificationof reliabilismalmost equivalentto properfunctionalism.They swim, or as I see it, sink together." But this seems to me mistaken;the resultingversion of reliabilismisn't anywhere nearly equivalent to proper functionalism, and is (dare I say "consequently"?) subject to devastating counterexample.First, it isn't equivalent to proper functionalism: on this account but not on proper functionalism it is necessary that (a) all the beliefs that are outputs of processes falling under a Feldman type have the same degree of warrant,and (b) all the beliefs in the outputof processes falling under a reliable Feldmantype have warrant.Neither of these is a consequence of my view, and neither is in fact necessary. On my view beliefs producedby the same module may have varyingdegrees of warrant, if they are held with varyingdegrees of and will have varyingdegrees of warrant strength.As for (b), note that a Feldmantype is a type all of whose tokens are governed by a given module of the design plan. Now suppose, for concreteness, that vision is such a module. Suppose furthermore vision is a reliable type: most of the processes it governs (in fact, and perhaps also in appropriatelynearby possible worlds) producetrue beliefs. Then the conditions for warrantspecified by Feldman'sversion of reliabilismare met: this version entails that if vision is a reliable Feldman type, then (necessarily) every belief produced by vision has warrant.But this is not a consequence of proper functionalism and is false besides. Due to an excess of vodka, my vision malfunctions:the malfunction causes me to believe I see pink rats crawling over my bed. Surely this belief has

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little or no warrant, even thoughit is producedby a faculty or mechanismfalling undera reliable Feldmantype. So this version of reliabilismis not equivalentto it is wholly inadequate just because it fails to properfunctionalism;furthermore include the conditionrequiringproperfunction. accordingto Feldman,thereis something One final point in this neighborhood: like a generality problem for proper functionalism, as well as for classical I reliabilism.I'm sorryto say I don't really see what the problemis. (In particular don't know why Feldmanasks (p. 43), "Whatcounts as the same circumstances anyway?")Part of the alleged problemseems to be thatit isn't clear how to apply properfunctionalismin a specific case-the case, say, of Feldman'sbelief, thathe sees a large numberof people. But what, exactly, is the problem?This belief of his has warrant, so I say, if and only if it is producedin him by cognitive faculties environmentaccording to a design plan functioningproperly in an appropriate successfully aimed at truth. So are the cognitive faculties involved in the productionof Feldman'sbelief functioningproperlyand aimed at truth?I should for his kind of cognitive systhink so. Is the cognitive environmentappropriate that a belief tems? It certainlyseems so. And is there a high objectiveprobability producedby these faculties (the ones involved in the productionof Feldman's cognitive environmentwill be true? belief) functioningproperlyin an appropriate I see no reason to doubt it. So I don't think I see the problemhere. Is it perhaps that in many cases we don't really know what the modules involved are? This is certainlytrue;but my claim is only that our concept of warrantis such that if a the module or modulesproducingit is (are)reliable.In orderto belief has warrant, evaluate this claim, we do not need to know just what modules our cognitive establishmentdoes indeed contain, or which are operative in a given circumstance. In the same way, we often can't tell whethersomeone's belief is justified (deontologically,let's say) or whetherit fits his evidence; this isn't much of an in termsof justificationorfitting the evidence. objectionto analysesof warrant I turnfinally to what Feldmancalls his 'basic and centralobjection': this too has two parts. According to the first part, as I understandit, proper function doesn't do any work:we can do just as well with reliabilityalone, leaving proper functionout altogether:
The discussion of the currentsection has been designed to supportthe idea that it and would have been better(or just as good) to add only the reliabilityrequirement forget about the proper function requirement. As far as I can tell, there are no examples that demonstrate the need to add this requirement to the reliability requirement(p. 47).

If what Feldman says here is true, then my view really reduces to a form of reliabilism-a ratherbaroqueand unlovely form with an extraneousand wholly But is what he pointless curlicue in the form of the properfunctionrequirement. says true? I think not. Reliability isn't anywhere nearly enough to guarantee warrant,and the deficiency, so far as I can see, is made up by adding the proper

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functionrequirement. Suppose once more thatvision-the whole complex power whereby one comes to have visual beliefs-is a cognitive faculty and a module of the design plan. Suppose furthermore, my vision is reliable:in this and appropriatelynearbypossible worlds, the beliefs it producesare for the most parttrue. Does it follow thatall the beliefs producedby my vision have warrant? Of course not; perhapsoccasionally this faculty malfunctions.Perhaps I get drunk again (above, p. 72) and see more pink rats. The belief that I see pink rats will then be producedby a reliable faculty; this belief may still be wholly without warrant, because on this occasion of its operation,my vision is malfunctioning. Of course there will be a thousandsimilarexamples. I ordinarilyknow what city I am in; if I get the measles and a really high fever, however, the faculty or process that produces such beliefs may malfunction and produce an absurdly false belief-a belief with no warrant;that will be because the faculty that producesit, while reliable, on this occasion malfunctions.A friend of mine was recently hit hardby a bear;he ordinarilyrememberswhat blood pressuremedication he takes, but on this occasion, when the medic asked him, he gave the wrong answer. His belief on this occasion was produced by a reliable belief producingfaculty or power or mechanism(his memory);due to the stress of the occasion, however, his memorywasn't functioningproperlyon this occasion and the belief producedhad little by way of warrant. Don't we see in these and other examples the need for the addition of the proper function requirementto the reliabilityrequirement?7 Now consider the other part of Feldman's central objection, the claim that proper function isn't necessary for warrant:you can have warrantand knowledge, he says, even where you don't have properfunction. There are really two quite differentkinds of cases here, but since I am runningout of time I shall deal with only one. Considerthe remarkable twins Feldman(following Oliver Sacks) speaks of: althoughthey were retardedand cognitively damagedin some ways, they could also performmarvellousfeats of cognition. Not only could they 'just see' that there were 111 matches on the floor withoutcounting them; they could also just see, so it seems, whethera given 6 and even 8 digit numberis a prime. That is no mean feat. (Perhapswe could call them the marvellousprime twins.) And Feldman's claim is this: the twins' cognitive faculties are clearly malfunctioning, in producingthe belief, e.g., that 111 matchesfell out of the box, but that belief nonetheless has warrantfor them: "It seems clear that they know how many matches there are, but they aren't designed to know that. It's a departure from the design plan thatenables them to know"(p. 49). This is an extremely interestingexample, and there is much to say about it; I don't have the time to say nearly all that should be said. But let me say just this much. First, it isn't clear that they do know the propositions in question. Considertheirbeing able to tell (so it seems) that n is a prime, for some large n. Accordi-c to Sacks, the twins don't seem to have the concept of multiplication; it is thereforenot at all clear thatthey can form the belief n is prime, for some six

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digit n, or indeed for any n at all. Due in part to the serious damage to their cognitive faculties, one doesn't know enough about what they actually believe, what beliefs they can and cannot form, to be sure precisely what beliefs they do and do not have. There is less uncertaintyin the case of their being able to tell that 111 matches fell out of the box; even here, however, there is some residual uncertainty:do they really know what it is for there to be 111 of something if they don't have the concept of multiplication? It isn't quite clear, therefore,that these twins have the relevantbeliefs; but it is much more doubtful, I think, that their faculties really are malfunctioningin producingthese beliefs. Their faculties obviously seem to malfunctionin some ways; but how do we know that they are malfunctioningin producingthe belief that thereare 111 matcheson the floor? Mozart(and perhapsa few others)could hear in his mind's ear a complex piece of music in complete detail and then just write it down; the rest of us can't; must we conclude that Mozart's cognitive from his design plan) faculties were malfunctioning(that there was a departure when he did this? There is no need to draw that churlish conclusion; another perfectly possible view is that he had cognitive powers most of the rest of us lack, and hence a slightly (or more than slightly) differentdesign plan. Perhaps these twins and a few others can perform marvellous feats of calculation and cognition:must we conclude that their faculties are malfunctioningin producing these beliefs? Again: there is no need to draw this conclusion. Their faculties certainlymalfunctionin some ways; but why insist that they are malfunctioning in producingthese specific beliefs? Indeed,suppose you knew these twins, spoke with them often, triedto understand them and how theircognitive faculties work, just see that thereare witnessed a hundredtimes the fact thatthey can apparently n matches on the floor for large n, without counting them as you and I would have to do. Would you take it for grantedthattheirfaculties were malfunctioning in producingthese beliefs? I doubt it. I certainly wouldn't. Suppose that one of them contractsa serious disease; his temperature goes up to 107 degrees; upon the fever can see how many matchesthere are, he thinkshe still recoveringfrom the time comes a but most of up with totally wrong answer. (Sometimes, when thereare 111 matchesthere,he says thereare 15, but othertimes he gets it right.) Then you would be inclined to think this mysterious power of his has been damaged;some faculty or power he has now malfunctionspart of the time. At least thatwould be my inclination. How could it be that the twins' faculties (and Mozart's)are workingproperly when they are working so differentlyfrom our own? Well, we aren'tjust given thatall humanbeings have exactly the same design plan. We aren'tjust given that the twins don't have a design plan slightly differentfrom ours: perhapsGod has given them a design plan a bit differentfrom the one we have. We also aren'tjust given this if we think there is no God; new design plans obviously arise in some way or other(perhapsby virtueof some of the mechanismsappealedto in current evolutionary theory),and we can accountfor this case as we do for those.8

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II. Sosa I turnnow to Ernest Sosa's typically interestingand gracious paper.First, he is quite rightwhen he points out on page 52 thatthe reasonthe serendipitous tumor (or lesion) example does not afflict my view is that a person who suffers from the tumoris such thather cognitive faculties are not functioningproperly,i.e., in accordwith her design plan. She is subjectto malfunction,disease, dysfunction. A. Sosa's Counterexamples Suppose we consider Sosa's Swampman and Swampbabyexamples, the adult version of which he borrows from Donald Davidson. According to this example, Davidson is standing in a swamp; lightning strikes a dead tree near him; his body is vaporized. By the merest chance or coincidence, the tree is turned into a molecule by molecule physical replica of Davidson; the replica swims back to Davidson's house and takes up work on an article on radical interpretation where Davidson left off. (And Feldman thinks my examples are weird!) Sosa proposes that this replica would have beliefs, and would indeed have knowledge; its beliefs would have warrant. If so, however, proper functionalism must be false: since he has no design plan, the Swampman's faculties would not function either properlyor improperly. Sosa suggests that I would reply to this counterexampleas I replied to a similarexample suggestedby James Taylor:it isn't at all clearly possible, in the broadlylogical sense, I said, that a being capable of belief should suddenlypop into existence just by chance or coincidence.9Sosa then points out that this isn't clearly impossibleeither,and makes a very interestingproposal.Suppose A is an analysis of some concept or propertyP: A, of course, is successful only if it states (broadlylogically) necessary and sufficient conditions of P. According to Sosa, there can be two kinds of counterexamplesto A. First, there are refuting counterexamples;such a counterexamplepresents a state of affairs S meeting two conditions: (a) S is clearly possible, and (b) the analysans holds and the analysandumdoesn't hold (or vice versa) in S, so that analysans and analysandum are not equivalent in the broadly logical sense. But second, there are also opposing counterexamples.An opposing counterexamplepresents a state of affairsS which isn't clearly possible but also isn't clearly impossible, and is such that if it is possible, then clearly the analysans and the analysandumdo not both hold in it. And then Sosa claims that Whilea refuting a particularly constitutes defeatfor a counterexample resounding philosophicalthesis, a merely opposingcounterexample also does epistemic to the degreeto which it damage,the extentof the damagebeing proportional seemsplausible thattheexample is reallypossible(p. 55). Now somethinglike what Sosa says seems to me to be true;as it stands,however, I am inclined to doubt that what he says is true. (Perhapsit is a sort of first This is because it suggests that every opposing counterexample approximation.)

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(the kind where it isn't clear thatthe example is impossible) does some epistemic damage to the proposed philosophical thesis. This seems to me mistaken. It might be that the example isn't clearly impossible, but only because it is very complicated:one knows thateven if the example were impossible, it wouldn'tbe clearly impossible, just because it is too close to the limit of our capacities for detecting the impossible. (Here it is importantto distinguishbetween failing to see that S is impossible and seeing that S is possible.) In other cases we have the same pattern,but not due to complication.A theist believes that it is impossible that any substance other than God continue to exist without God's supporting and conservingactivity;she shouldn'tbe impressedby the suggestionthat it isn't clearly impossible thattherebe a substancethat continuesto exist apartfrom the supportingactivity of God. Here the problemisn't complication,butjust the fact that this state of affairs' not seeming clearly impossible to us isn't much by way of evidence for the claim that it is indeed possible. A certain sort of materialist thinks painjust is a kind of neuralevent; should he be impressedby the suggestion that it doesn't seem clearly impossible that there be pain in the absence of that kind of neuralevent? I don't think so, and for the same reason:here too the fact that the envisaged state of affairs is not clearly impossible is not a good reasonfor thinkingit possible. And of course the same goes for counterexamples to analyses. You presentan analysis;I outline a a state of affairs which is neitherclearly possible nor clearly impossible, but is such that if it is possible, then it is clearly a counterexample. This doesn't necessarily damage your analysis: everything depends upon the nature of my example. We have a damaging counterexampleonly if we have reason or it seems plausible to suppose that we do see, even if only in an indistinct sort of way, that S is possible, ratherthan merely failing to see that S is impossible. My truthfullyreporting"I can't see why that couldn't be" doesn't show much. I can't see why there couldn't be gold with an atomic weight of 14; nothing much follows. In some cases our failing to see that something couldn't be true is a good reasonfor thinkingthatit could be true (cases where, if the state of affairs were impossible, we would be able to see that it is), but in others it isn't. To make Sosa's principlework, we must distinguishthese cases. Accordingly, suppose we return to Swampman. What we have here is a molecule by molecule replicaof Davidson:furthermore this thing behavesjust as we should expect Davidson (or his body) to behave. Many would take it for grantedthat it is necessary that a dopplegdngerof Davidson or his body would have beliefs if and only if Davidson did. But is this really obvious? No. It could be, so far as obviousness goes, that Cartesiandualism is true; perhapswhat we have here is a duplicate of Davidson's body, but no correspondingmind; so perhapsno beliefs of any sortat all are associatedwith this duplicate.Does thatdo epistemicdamageto the above assumption? Not as it stands.All depends,here,on whetherwhat we have is a case of seeing, perhapsdimly, that it is possible that Davidson and his dopplegangerdiffer with respect to belief, or merely a case of failing to see thatthis is impossible.(Endof methodologicaldigression.)

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Now Sosa reportsthat he is "stronglyinclined to believe that Swampmanis logically and metaphysicallypossible". He is also inclined to think, apparently, that if there were such a thing as Swampman, it would have beliefs some of which could have warrantfor it. But is this incompatible with proper functionalism?Not obviously. The problemis supposedto be that Swampmanarises just by chance; perhapswe can imagine God permittinga junior angel of some sort to play an elaborategame of chance which somehow results in the new form taken by the matterfrom the destroyedtree. So this duplicateof Davidson isn't designed by anything-not by God, but also not by the junior angel or evolution. It just shows up by chance. As I say, I am inclinedto doubtthatthis is possible. But if it is possible, why isn't it equally possible that the being in question pop into existence by chance completewith a design plan? The notions of design plan and properfunction are correlative:a thing is workingproperly,in doing A in circumstancesC, if and only if its design plan calls for it to do A in C. If a being capable of having beliefs can just pop into existence by chance, couldn't the same be said for a being that is capableboth of belief and also of functioning properly or improperly? (Couldn't Swampman suffer a heart attack due to overexertion from all that swimming? If he didn't, might not his heart malfunction?)Sosa says (p. 57) that "If a 'design plan' might fall into place independentlyof any sort of conscious or unconscious design, then I lose my grip on the meaning of the locution 'design plan'." I'm not sure I see the problem.It is at best dubious that a being capable of belief could just pop into existence by chance; but if that is possible, couldn't the being function well or ill? Couldn't Swampmanget sick or drunk?When Swampbabygrows up, can't she get sick, or drunk,or injured?We would certainlythink(and say) so. B. Sosa's VirtueEpistemology I turnfinally to what Sosa sees as successful alternativesto properfunctionalism; and of course I don't have nearlyenough space to do justice to Sosa's thoughtful suggestions.The first is
(W) My belief B is warrantedonly if it is produced in me by a faculty F in a cognitive environmentsuch that F is working properlywith respect to the goal of truthacquisitionand erroravoidance in environmentE (p. 58).

Here 'working properly'with respect to a goal', says Sosa, means no more than workingin such a way as to promoteor producethat goal. This accountis therefore simpler and less elaboratethan my account, with its more robust sense of 'workingproperly':
Why move from simply requiringthat a belief must be caused by a reliable faculty if it is to have warrantto requiringmore elaboratelythat the belief must be caused by a faculty that is not only reliable but is functioningproperlyin some sense that involves design by conscious agent or impersonalprocess? (p. 58).

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I have two commentson (W). First,a commentthatappliesnot only to (W) but to all of Sosa's suggestions;this is my most important point here. Sosa proposes thata warranted belief must be producedby afaculty; his reasonis the following:
Against examples like that of the brainlesion, one can now argue that they involve belief-producingprocesses, but nothing that could properly be called a "faculty." And we can leave for later work the problem of how to define the concept of a faculty (p. 58).

So the idea is that a belief is warranted only if it is producedby a faculty, and a brainlesion isn't a faculty. This seems right;but the problemfor Sosa, I think, is that the notion of a faculty involves the notion of proper function. A faculty or power-perception, or memory, or reason in the narrowsense, or digestion, or one's ability to walk-is precisely the sort of thing that can functionproperlyor improperly.Indeed, this is just the difference between the brain lesion and a faculty: the concepts of proper and improperfunction don't apply to the brain lesion. It isn't functioningeitherproperlyor improperlyin producingthe belief it does: it isn't that sort of thing. And of course this notion of properfunctioncan't be explainedjust in terms of producingmainly truebeliefs: the brainlesion, after all, may do that. (Maybe it causes only one belief: that you have a brainlesion.) What is involved here is precisely thatmore robustnotion of properfunctionthat (W) is designed to avoid. So we don't really avoid that notion in (W); we smuggle it in in the very notion of a faculty. Second comment: If a belief is true, and is producedby a faculty, then isn't that faculty workingproperlywith respect to the goal of truthacquisition?If so, however, it looks as if every true belief producedby a faculty has warrant,even if the faculty is malfunctioningin the old sense, the ordinarysense, in producing that belief; and that seems wrong. You get drunk;some of your belief producing faculties malfunction;one of the beliefs producedby these temporarilydysfunctional faculties happens to be true: they misfire in such a way as to produce in you, at random,the truebelief thatthe Pope is at presentin Barcelona.Thatbelief, I would say, doesn't have warrantfor you, even if as a matterof fact the Pope does happento be in Barcelona.(W) as it stands,thereforewon't do thejob. We might try to mend mattersby denying that
Belief B is true

is sufficientfor
the faculty that produced B was functioning properly with respect to the goal of truthacquisitionin producingB;

we say insteadthat a faculty is working properlywith respect to that goal if and only if most of the beliefs it produces,or some sufficiently high percentage,are

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true. But no hope. For then a faculty could be working properlywith respect to truthacquisitioneven if in one smallish area of its operationit malfunctioned(in the old sense) and producedabsurdlyfalse beliefs. I get drunkand hallucinate again: if my perceptualfaculties produce truth in the vast majorityof cases (I hallucinate only twice in my whole life) then on this revised account my for me. But clearly it doesn't. So the first simple belief has warrant hallucinatory accountdoesn't seem to me to work. It isn't clear how serious Sosa is about (W); I believe, however that he is completely seriousabout
VI For any world w, a belief B is justified l in w if and only if B derives in w from the exercise of one or.more intellectualvirtues that in w virtuouslyproduce a high ratioof truebeliefs (p. 61).

but of justification;but accordingto Sosa it gives us "at VI speaksnot of warrant perhaps, least a partialaccountof 'justification'(or of somethingclose to warrant, functionalism..." to (p. 62). or of aptness),one which offers an alternative proper tell, can as I so say; far explicitly But what is an intellectualvirtue?Sosa doesn't a that produces faculty however,a virtueis a reliablebelief-producingfacultylla the has VI therefore environment. appropriate high ratio of true beliefs in the crucialproblemof (W); it presupposesthe notion of properfunctionin the robust to properfunctionalism. sense and thereforedoes not offer us an alternative (as Sosa recognizes) if a example VI. For There are furtherproblems with then the faculty that produces it must be belief is to be justified or warranted, working properly on the occasion of its production. Of course Sosa hopes to avoid appealto the notion of properfunction;he thereforesuggests that"hence it must be that in the circumstancesone would (most likely) believe P iff P were the case-i.e., one (at least probabilistically)tracks the truth... (p. 62). So this trackingrequirementis to do the work of the proper functioning requirement. I think,is too strong.Considermy belief that But the trackingrequirement, (1) I am not a brain in a vat on Alpha Centauri,serving as a subject in an experimentin which the experimentersgive me the very experiences and beliefs I do in fact have just now. it is not the case that probably, This doesn't satisfy Sosa's trackingrequirement: if it were false I would not believe it.1l (If it were false, I would believe it, since it is one of the beliefs I do in fact have just now.) But couldn't this belief have for me? Note also that while (1) doesn't meet the trackingrequirement, warrant (2) I am at home in Indiana and I am not a brain in a vat on Alpha Centauri,serving as a subject in an experimentin which the experimenters give me the very experiences and beliefs I do in fact have just now

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does. (If (2) were false, it would be because of the falsehood of its first conjunct, in which case I would not believe that conjunctor the whole proposition.)Can a view be rightif it implies thatI can know (2) but cannotknow (1)?12 On the other hand, the trackingrequirementis also too weak. Suppose we then any belief in a necessary accept the usual semantics for counterfactuals: proposition will automatically satisfy the tracking requirement.13Hence any belief of mine in what is in fact a necessarytruthwill meet this condition-even if I acquire the belief by virtue of getting drunk, so that my reason temporarily malfunctions.So any such belief (providedit meets the otherconditionsSosa sets for warrant) would have warrant for me. But thatcan't be right. Sosa adds a couple of furtherconditions:
If a faculty operates to give one a belief, and thereby a piece of direct knowledge, one must have some awareness of one's belief and its source, and of the virtue of that source both in general and in the specific instance... . And, finally, one must grasp that one's belief non-accidentallyreflects the truthof P throughthe exercise of such a virtue. This account therefore combines requirementsof tracking and nonaccidentality,of reliable virtues orfaculties, and of epistemicperspective.

These furtherconditions,however, also seem too strong,if takenas conditionsof of warrant generally.This is anotherindicationof the complexity and articulation our design plan; the conditions Sosa mentions may well be requiredfor certain kinds of knowledge-perhaps for wholly matureand self-consciousknowledgebut they don't seem to be generally necessary. A 10-year-oldboy, for example, may know what his name is, even though he does not have awareness of the virtue of the source of this belief, both in general and in the specific instancein question. A person could know a proposition,I should think, even if she didn't have any idea at all as to the source of the belief: perhapsall she can say is that it just popped into her head. And one can certainly know a propositionwithout reflectsthe truth grasping(believing ?) thatthe belief in questionnon-accidentally of thatproposition; many people, I shouldthink,know much withouteven having the conceptof non-accidentally reflectingthe truth. There are problems,therefore,for Sosa's virtue epistemology. I am gratified to see, however, that insofaras an epistemic virtueis an epistemicfaculty, Sosa's virtue epistemology is really a variety of properfunctionalism.So I suggest in conclusion: we need the notion of properfunction in orderto give an accountof there seems to be no way to do withoutit.14 warrant; Notes
Philosophical Studies 48, pp. 15 ff. IRichardFeldmanand Earl Conee, "Evidentialism", 2Perhapsother conditions should be added;I don't have the space here to go into the matter. 31 don't have the space to explain this in proper detail: see pp. 57ff. of Warrantand Proper Function.

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4See my "Justificationin the Twentieth Century",Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch, vol. L, Supplement,Fall, 1990. 5See his "Reliabilityand Justification",The Monist 68, pp. 159 ff. 6"Thereis a rarebut specific sort of brain lesion (we may suppose) which is always associated with a numberof cognitive processes of the relevant degree of specificity, most of which cause its victim to hold absurdlyfalse beliefs. One of the associated processes, however, causes the victim to believe that he has a brain lesion. Suppose, then, that S suffers from this sort of disorder and accordinglybelieves that he suffers from a brain lesion. Add that he has no evidence at all for this belief: no symptoms of which he is aware, no testimony on the part of doctors or other expert witnesses, nothing. (Add, if you like, that he has much evidence against it; but then add also that the malfunctioninduced by the lesion makes it impossible for him to take appropriate account of this evidence.) Then the relevanttype (while it may be hardto specify in detail) will certainly be highly reliable;but the resulting belief-that he has a brain lesion-will have little by way of warrantfor S." Warrant:the CurrentDebate, P. 199. 7We might suggest that what the reliability condition requiresis that the faculty in question be functioningreliablyon this very occasion. This raises a host of problems,however, problemsI don't have the space to investigateproperlyhere. But just to point to their general location: first, we must say that a faculty can be functioningreliably even when it producesfalse beliefs; else we shall have to hold that no false beliefs have warrant.But can a faculty be functioning reliably on an occasion when it producesa false belief? And secondly, to avoid supposingthat all true beliefs have warrant, we shall have to say that a faculty or power can be functioning unreliablyon an occasion when it producesa true belief. How will this go? Perhapswe shall say that a faculty is functioningreliably, on a given occasion, only if it producestrue beliefs in the appropriately nearbypossible worlds. But then we face once more the problemof the epistemically serendipitouslesion. 81n footnote 5, Feldman suggests that "if the abnormalityis the result of a lesion or radiation,it is difficult to understand the sense in which it is partof their design." But of course we aren't given that the unusualpowers of these twins are the result of lesion or radiation.He also suggests that if we think Mozartand the twins have a slightly differentdesign plan, then we must say the same for cases of cognitive defect: "Moreoverif these cognitive abnormalitieswhich are (in some respects) advantageousare held to be partof the design, then comparablycaused defects should also be held to be partof the design. In that case, many of the examples Plantingauses againstother theories will apply equally to his own." But I fail to feel the force of this consideration.Can't it be that some deviations from the usual are by way of powers most of us don't have, while others are by way of malfunction? There is much more to be said about examples of this kind. In some cases of this kind, a certain max plan gets adopted as a design plan (see "Warrantand Designing Agents: Reply to Taylor" Philosophical Studies 64 (1991) p. 209); In other cases what we have is an analogical extension of the centralnotion of properfunction and thus of the centralnotion of warrant(Warrantand Proper Function (Hasker)). and Designing Agents: Reply to Taylor"p. 206. 9See "Warrant '0See p. 61. If an intellectualvirtue were not a faculty but instead any belief producingprocess, then of course the epistemically serendipitouslesion would once more rearits ugly head. "ISeeRobertNozick, Philosophical Explanations(Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1981), p. 203. 12See my "Positive Epistemic Status and Proper Function in Philosophical Perspectives 2, Epistemology,1988, ed. James Tomberlin(Atascadero:Ridgeview PublishingCo., 1988). with true antecedentand consequentis true; '3Accordingto the usual semantics, a counterfactual hence if p is necessary and I believe it, the first half of the trackingrequirement is satisfied. Further, accordingto the usual semantics, if p is necessarily true, then (trivially) any counterfactualwith its is also satisfied. denial as antecedentis true;so the second half of the trackingrequirement 14Onefinal point: a belief has warrant,on my account, only if the module of the design plan governing its productionis aimed at truthand only if that design plan is a good design plan. I went on to explain the goodness of a design plan in terms of the objective probabilityof a beliefs being true, given that it was producedby faculties functioning according to that design plan in the right sort of environment and given that the modules of the design plan governing its production are aimed at truth. Some of the things Feldman and Sosa say suggest that this reliability condition is really only a first approximation; perhapsthere is more to goodness of design plan, in this context, thanreliability.Perhapsthey are right;if so, that would be a projectfor furtherwork.