TWENTY FIVE YEARS OF FURTHER AND GREATER EFFORTS HAVE LEFT PARAPSYCHOLOGY WHERE IT WAS BEFORE: ALTHOUGH WE SURELY HAVE TOO MUCH EVIDENCE TO IGNORE; STILL THERE IS NOT ONE TRULY REPEATABLE EXPERIMENT, AND HENCE NO SORT OF PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON WHICH IS CONCLUSIVELY ESTABLISHED. THE PAPER PROCEEDS TO SHOW HOW THE CONCEPT OF A LAW OF NATURE IS LOGICALLY LINKED WITH THAT OF REPEATABILITY; AND HOW WITHOUT REPEATABILITY WE CANNOT ESTABLISH THE GENUINENESS OF ANY PHENOMENON PRECLUDED BY WHAT WE HAVE EXCELLENT (...) REASON TO BELIEVE TO BE TRUE LAWS OF NATURE. (shrink)

This paper evaluates a number of closure principles (for both knowledge and justification) that have appeared in the literature. Counterexamples are presented to all but one of these principles, which is conceded to be true but trivially so. It is argued that a consequence of the failure of these closure principles is that certain projects of doxastic logic are doomed, and that doxastic logic is of dubious merit for epistemologists interested in actual knowers in the actual world.

May I first say, Mr Chairman, that I regard it as a great honour to have been invited to take part in this Conference? I speak to you as a philosopher who happens to be interested both in religion and in psychical research. But I am afraid I am going to discuss some questions which it is ‘not done’ to talk about.

An argument against the bias towards the near; how a defence of temporal neutrality is not a defence of S; an appeal to inconsistency; why we should reject S and accept CP.