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    Arguments are valid only relative to the premises they as... — Carmelics
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    Supports→Pascal's equiprobability argument does not speak to those in his audience who do not assign probability 1/2 to God's existence.

    Arguments are valid only relative to the premises they assume; an argument assuming equiprobability is formally inapplicable to agents holding asymmetric priors.

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    1 reason for
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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Validity is a logical relation between premises and conclusions; changing premises changes what follows, so arguments are indeed premise-dependent.
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    • 2.An agent with asymmetric priors uses different background knowledge than the equiprobability assumption encodes, making direct application logically incoherent.
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    • 3.Soundness requires both validity and true premises; an argument valid under false premises is unsound, so relative applicability protects rational agency.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.Formal validity (syntactic structure) is independent of premise content; an invalid argument remains invalid regardless of what priors agents hold.
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    • 2.Asymmetric priors agents can still evaluate arguments by translating conclusions to their own probability space—applicability doesn't require shared assumptions.
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    • 3.The claim conflates applicability with persuasiveness; an argument is valid even if it fails to move someone with different priors, not inapplicable to them.
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    Natural Theology1 linked

    Related

    An agent with asymmetric priors uses different background knowledge than the equ...Asymmetric priors agents can still evaluate arguments by translating conclusions...Formal validity (syntactic structure) is independent of premise content; an inva...Pascal's equiprobability argument does not speak to those in his audience who do...
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    Soundness requires both validity and true premises; an argument valid under fals...The claim conflates applicability with persuasiveness; an argument is valid even...Validity is a logical relation between premises and conclusions; changing premis...

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    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)