WARRANT AND EPISTEMIC VIRTUES: TOWARD AN AGENT-RELIABILIST ACCOUNT OF PLANTINGA’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

project was born out of a desire to reconcile Alvin Plantinga’s theory of knowledge with what I perceived to be the better elements of virtue epistemology. After wading through the somewhat disorienting field of literature on the latter topic, I quickly came to realize the irreconcilable differences between externalist models and pure virtue models. I was pleased to find, however, that the recent work of writers such as W. Jay Wood, Robert C. Roberts, John Greco, and others had begun to pave the way for such a union, although the result has found virtue epistemology more significantly altered than its externalist counterpart. Nonetheless, I decided to capitalize on this progress and explore how Plantinga’s proper function might incorporate a more developed account of the intellectual virtues, and this essay is the result of my research. I suspect that it will primarily be of interest to those already somewhat familiar with Plantinga’s epistemology, but also for those interested in the emerging field of virtue epistemology. There are many areas in this study that I have left untouched or underdeveloped for the sake of focus. For example, I have not mentioned Plantinga’s now famous evolutionary argument against naturalism, nor have I gone into the merits of Plantinga’