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Would Survival Have to be Survival of an Astral Body? A Reply to Professor Flew

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Roger Smook
Roger Smook*
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
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Extract

One of the conclusions reached by Antony Flew in his interesting paper “Is There a Case for Disembodied Survival?” is that “if there is to be a case for individual and personal survival, what survives must be some sort of astral body.” In the present paper I shall investigate whether he is really justified, on the basis of the arguments he presents, in drawing this conclusion.

Type
Reply
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , March 1975 , pp. 481 - 494
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1975

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References

1 The journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, LXVII, No.2 (April 1972), 129-143. Subsequent references to this paper will be bracketed in the body of the present paper. Flew has kindly informed me that his paper is to be reprinted in two forthcoming collections: (1) Over, R. van (ed.), Philosophical Essays in ESP (New York: Harper)Google Scholar; and (2) Edge, Hoyt and Wheatley, James (eds.), Philosophical Dimensions of Parapsychology (Springfield, III.: Charles Thomas).Google Scholar

2 What I here call The Main Argument is also set forth and defended in the introduction to the readily accessible anthology: Flew, Antony (ed.), Body, Mind and Death (New York: Macmillan, 1964)Google Scholar. I have preferred to deal with the journal paper because it is the more lucid piece of philosophical writing; what especially concerns me, Flew's reasons for believing Premise 3 emerge more clearly.

3 In the pages immediately following “Is There a Case for Disembodied Survival?” loc. cit., is to be found “Discussion of Professor Flew's Paper” which includes Antony Flew, “A Rejoinder.” The quotation is from p. 165 of “A Rejoinder.”

4 Quine, W. V. O. From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), p. 85.Google Scholar