Volume 14, Issue 1, 2012
Alvin Plantinga's New Argument Against Materialism
Esther L. Meek
Pages 57-77
Michael Polanyi and Alvin Plantinga
Help from Beyond the Walls
This essay introduces Michael Polanyi’s work through contrasting his innovative epistemology of subsidiary-focal integration with key distinctives of Christian analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga. Polanyi’s contrasting proposals helpfully bring to light shaping assumptions of the analytic tradition, contributing creatively to a larger common agenda. Polanyi disputes the unexamined assumption that the simplest epistemic experience is a focally apprehended “find-myself-believing” that is explicitly and propositionally expressed. I also contrast the two regarding infallibilism, foundationalism, externalism, justification, epistemic duty, creative antirealism, and ways of tapping Calvin’s notion of the sensus divinitatis