Randall's 1921 Case for Scientific Survival Evidence
John Herman Randall's His verdict on this inheritance is blunt. No one of these arguments, nor all of them together, furnishes "conclusive or final proof" of life after death; they make continued existence seem reasonable or probable, with influence varying by individual temperament. The book's purpose is therefore to appraise what researchers have actually accomplished, written not as a technical expert but as a general student addressing readers still in doubt about what psychic research means and how much has been done.
Older Arguments Immortality Ethnographic Psychological Metaphysical Moral
Randall's survey Its weakness is structural: a belief can be universal and still be a projection of human wish, so the argument establishes the prevalence of the belief rather than the reality of its object. The psychological argument reasons from aspiration to fulfillment. " This is an argument from the intolerability of the alternative, and Randall presents it as such.
The metaphysical argument takes many forms, the most…