Department of Philosophy
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA
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Abstract
According to the survivalist interpretation
of mediumship, the existence of discarnate persons provides the best
explanation for the data associated with physical and mental mediumship.
Others—advocates of what is often called the “super-psi
hypothesis”—maintain that the data of mediumship may be
at least equally explained in terms of living agent psi (ESP and psychokinesis).
Many defenders of the survivalist interpretation of mediumship attempt
to defl ate the alleged explanatory virtues of the super-psi hypothesis
by arguing that the hypothesis is unfalsifi able and lacks independent
evidential support. My central contention in this paper is that these
frequently encountered survivalist criticisms of the super-psi hypothesis
are ultimately self-defeating to the case for survival from mediumship.
To show this I first argue in some detail that the survivalist interpretation
of mediumship is committed to a kind or degree of psi that is indistinguishable
from what is required by the super-psi hypothesis. From this vantage
point it can be shown that any attempt to impugn the explanatory virtues
of the super-psi hypothesis on account of the kind or degree of psi
it requires undercuts the argument for survival itself.
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