Michael Bergmann

Michael Bergmann is Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University, working primarily in epistemology and philosophy of religion within the analytic tradition. He completed his PhD at the University of Notre Dame under Alvin Plantinga, whose proper functionalist epistemology he has extended and refined. His monograph Justification without Awareness (2006) develops an externalist account of epistemic justification, arguing against internalist requirements that justification must be cognitively accessible to the subject. The book is widely cited in contemporary debates over epistemic internalism and externalism. Bergmann is a prominent defender of skeptical theism, a response to evidential arguments from evil (notably William Rowe's) which holds that human cognitive limitations preclude us from inferring from inscrutable evils that no justifying divine reason exists. Critics, including Stephen Wykstra (an ally), Michael Almeida, Graham Oppy, and Erik Wielenberg, have debated whether skeptical theism generates problematic global skepticism or undermines ordinary moral reasoning. Bergmann has co-edited several volumes bringing together philosophers across religious and secular perspectives, including Divine Evil? (with Michael Murray and Michael Rea) on Old Testament ethical difficulties, and Reason, Metaphysics, and Mind. He also contributes to debates on religious disagreement and the epistemology of religious belief, defending the rationality of religious commitment under conditions of peer disagreement.