{"id":8185,"date":"2014-01-21T04:48:18","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T04:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/01\/21\/sudduth-on-survival\/"},"modified":"2014-01-21T04:48:18","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T04:48:18","slug":"sudduth-on-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/01\/21\/sudduth-on-survival\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudduth on Survival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jime Sayaka interviews<\/a> philosopher of religion Michael Sudduth on the topic of postmortem survival.  (HT: Dave Lull)  Excerpt:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

My central thesis is that traditional empirical arguments for survival based on the data of psychical research\u2014what I call classical empirical arguments\u2014do not succeed in showing that personal survival is more probable than not, much less that it is highly probable, especially where the survival hypothesis is treated as a scientific or quasi-scientific hypothesis.  So my objection is first and foremost a criticism of what I take to be unjustified claims regarding the posterior probability<\/em> of the hypothesis of personal survival, that is, it\u2019s net plausibility given the relevant empirical data and standard background knowledge.  Consequently, the classical arguments, at least as traditionally formulated, do not provide a sufficiently robust epistemic justification for belief in personal survival.  That\u2019s my thesis.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Our friend Sudduth a couple of years ago made the journey to the East<\/a> (to allude to a Hermann Hesse title).  Thus he states elsewhere in the interview, "<\/span>I am a Vedantin philosopher, so I certainly accept the idea of survival, at least broadly understood as the postmortem persistence of consciousness."   I would have appreciated some clarification and elaboration on this point.  I would guess that Michael now no longer believes in the survival of an individuated, personal consciousness, but believes instead in the survival of a pre-personal or impersonal consciousness common to all of us.  But I am only guessing. I am aware, though, that one can be a Vedantin without being an Advaitin.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/span><\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Michael Sudduth Converts to Vaishnava Vedanta!<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Sudduth Surge Continues<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Sudduth, Simplicity, and the Plotinian One<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Relevance of Conscious Robots for the Philosophy of Mind<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Pragmatic and the Evidential: Is It Ever Rational to Believe Beyond the Evidence?<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Is Heaven Real? A Neurosurgeon's Near-Death Experience<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jime Sayaka interviews philosopher of religion Michael Sudduth on the topic of postmortem survival.  (HT: Dave Lull)  Excerpt: My central thesis is that traditional empirical arguments for survival based on the data of psychical research\u2014what I call classical empirical arguments\u2014do not succeed in showing that personal survival is more probable than not, much less that … Continue reading “Sudduth on Survival”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[184,94,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-death-and-immortality","category-paranormal","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}