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A Philosophical Critique of Empirical Arguments for Postmortem SurvivalBayesian Explanatory Arguments

A Philosophical Critique of Empirical Arguments for Postmortem Survival: Bayesian Explanatory... [The exploration in Chapter 6 focused on the explanatory nature of classical empirical arguments for survival. While I was mainly interested in outlining the structure of such arguments, and suggesting how they might be formalized as likelihood arguments, I concluded that explanatory arguments pose something of a challenge to the widespread survivalist interest in drawing conclusions about the plausibility or probability of the survival hypothesis. If the empirical case for survival is based solely on the explanatory power of the survival hypothesis and if the only determinant of explanatory power is how well the survival hypothesis leads us to expect the relevant data in contrast to alternative hypotheses, then at best we are in a position to conclude only that our evidence confirms or favors the survival hypothesis over some competing hypothesis. However, this does not justify conclusions about the net plausibility of the survival hypothesis, nor therefore does it sufficiently inform us whether we should accept the survival hypothesis. So the “modest explanatory argument” (MEA), and its formalization as a likelihood argument, justifies only a rather modest conclusion concerning the evidence for survival.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Philosophical Critique of Empirical Arguments for Postmortem SurvivalBayesian Explanatory Arguments

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
ISBN
978-1-349-55255-9
Pages
160 –187
DOI
10.1057/9781137440945_7
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[The exploration in Chapter 6 focused on the explanatory nature of classical empirical arguments for survival. While I was mainly interested in outlining the structure of such arguments, and suggesting how they might be formalized as likelihood arguments, I concluded that explanatory arguments pose something of a challenge to the widespread survivalist interest in drawing conclusions about the plausibility or probability of the survival hypothesis. If the empirical case for survival is based solely on the explanatory power of the survival hypothesis and if the only determinant of explanatory power is how well the survival hypothesis leads us to expect the relevant data in contrast to alternative hypotheses, then at best we are in a position to conclude only that our evidence confirms or favors the survival hypothesis over some competing hypothesis. However, this does not justify conclusions about the net plausibility of the survival hypothesis, nor therefore does it sufficiently inform us whether we should accept the survival hypothesis. So the “modest explanatory argument” (MEA), and its formalization as a likelihood argument, justifies only a rather modest conclusion concerning the evidence for survival.]

Published: Dec 21, 2015

Keywords: Posterior Probability; Explanatory Power; Prior Probability; Survival Hypothesis; Total Evidence

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