After Tien articulates this much, he moves on to explicitly demonstrate how Plantinga and Wang share the proper function model for warrant.62 He argues for this by first asserting that, given that liangzhi is utilized, one has a properly functioning faculty.63 Moreover, since the mind is the conscious aspect of li (li is again the principle of how things should be), Tien thinks that liangzhi (the faculty of the mind) is aimed toward producing true beliefs.64 Given that qi is suppressed, it should become obvious that there does appear to be a favourable epistemic environment that also emerges. Tien takes all of this as good reason to affirm that core Neo-Confucian belief could be warranted the same way that core
Christian belief can be warranted. This being said, I think Tien is mistaken for one very important reason. Though he does a great job at comparing and showing the similarities between Wang’s epistemology and Plantinga’s, he seems to miss Plantinga’s point about there being a need for a conscious, intentional, and intelligent designer in order to account for the proper function of faculties. Though we have a way for how liangzhi should function (it should function in accordance with li), we don’t have an answer from Tien as to what ultimately makes it the case that liangzhi should function in a particular way. For the Christian theist, she can say that her faculties should function in a particular way and that way is determined by the design plan of her faculties. However, in order to make sense of having a design plan, she would need to ultimately invoke God. The question that Tien fails to answer then, is what makes li intelligible? What gives the design plan associated with li, its telos65 or design? It doesn’t seem that an impersonal principle could be invoked
62 Ibid., 35.
63 Ibid., 35-36.
64 Ibid.
65 Perhaps one might accuse me of using telos in such a way that reflects Western understanding, when really
I should understand the term in an Eastern context. Maybe within an Eastern context the Neo-Confucian claim about li being a normative principle might become more plausible. This might be so, but given that Tien has in mind Plantinga’s conception of a design plan (which presupposes a Western understanding of telos), for the sake of his interpretation of Wang, a Western understanding should be accepted.
to explain a design plan; nor does it seem that one could merely appeal to the nature of things to explain it.66 Perhaps being idealists, the followers of Wang would insist on
grounding li (and those things entailed by it) in one’s own mind or a collective mind. In fact, according to Tien, for humans, in some since li just is the mind.67 This of course
wouldn’t answer the question though as you can’t explain the design plan of your mind by appealing to li which just is your mind. In summary, it isn’t enough to point out that some faculty has a way in which it should function or that we can know how a faculty should function, but one must ask what ultimately made it the case that the faculty ought to operate in the appropriate manner.
The argument that has been developed throughout this project, is that something that dictates (that is a design plan) how things should operate (proper function), seems to need a conscious, intentional, and intelligent designer.68 And though I have left room for the possibility of additional non-naturalistic religious doctrines aiding a non-personal theistic tradition in accounting for proper function, given the bare facts of Neo-
Confucianism that have been given, an intelligible Neo-Confucianism account of proper function seems unlikely.
If the Neo-Confucian is willing to acknowledge Plantinga’s argument that a design plan requires a conscious and intentional agent, but he refuses to acknowledge this in reference to what ultimately gives liangzhi its design plan, the Neo-Confucian needs to be wary of committing the taxi-cab fallacy in this context. This is the informal fallacy that is committed whenever one wants to advocate for a certain principle that is binding on all relevant things, except for an area of one’s arbitrary choice. It is likened to an individual who rides a taxi, but gets out whenever it is convenient. The Neo-Confucian can’t advocate for a principle that there always needs to be a conscious, intentional, and intelligent
designer in the context of accounting for proper function, except when it comes to accounting for liangzhi’s design plan.
66 I engage with an Aristotelian or Thomistic approach of using natures to ground proper function in
Appendix two. My argument there could be used here to support my claim.
67 David W. Tien, ‘Warranted Neo-Confucian Belief: Religious Pluralism and the Affections in the
Epistemologies of Wang Yangming (1472-1529) and Alvin Plantinga,’ International Journal for
Philosophy of Religion 55, no. 4 (2004): 32.
68 For a discussion on additional preconditions to Plantinga’s epistemology, see Appendix two of this thesis.
There I argue that in addition to needing a personal God to account for the proper function of cognitive faculties, the character of that God needs to be compatible with Plantinga’s truth-aimed condition.
Perhaps the Neo-Confucian might accuse the Christian of committing the same fallacy regarding God’s faculties, and if the Christian can do it then the Neo-Confucian can also do it. This would then still put the Neo-Confucian in the same epistemic position as the Christian. There is a problem however, with advocating this response. A person who articulates this response doesn’t understand classical Christian theism. For classical Christian theists, God doesn’t possess faculties, rather faculties are just something analogous or approximate to what God has (presumably, something that doesn’t have to have an intellect behind it). So though it may be said that God has something like faculties in order for humans to have a better understanding of what God is like, the Christian can still deny that God’s faculties need to be functioning properly as God doesn’t actually have such faculties. But given Wang’s take that liangzhi is a faculty, the Neo-Confucian can’t say the same. In this case, there is a genuine faculty and there is a genuine design plan, but as stated earlier, the problem arises when one asks how it is the case that there is a design plan. If this is the case, and given that there don’t seem to be any additional doctrines within this tradition that might help this tradition in accounting for this, I fail to see how, without a conscious, intentional, and intelligent designer, one could make sense of
liangzhi’s design plan. It seems that Tien, though having made some interesting points, has merely moved the debate from discussing accounts of proper function to making sense of li. For this reason, I think one is only left with the option of seeing Tien’s Neo-Confucian account as missing the mark.
5.11 Conclusion
I began this chapter by arguing that Nagarjuna’s Middle Way tradition couldn’t account for the relevant preconditions that make Plantinga’s proper functionalism intelligible. I argued this by reiterating and applying my critiques that pertained to the Advaita Vedanta tradition to the Middle Way tradition. In addition to this, I argued that an attempt to use Plantinga’s epistemology to warrant the Middle Way tradition isn’t likely to even get off the ground as it doesn’t seem likely that one could get away from needing to endorse a non-realist
approach to epistemology. After engaging with this Buddhist tradition, I interacted with Wang’s Neo-Confucianism. In particular, I interacted with Tien’s claim that Wang’s Neo- Confucianism can both be glossed in proper functionalist terms and can use Plantinga’s
epistemology to be warranted. I argued that Tien has failed to recognize the problem with Neo-Confucianism in accounting for Plantinga’s design plan requirements.