Dictionary

probabilify en · VERB

Etymology

From probable + -ify.

Meanings

1. To render probable; to support or give confidence as to the likelihood of a conclusion.
   • Given some plausible assumptions, the question of how testimony to the occurrence of an event that constitutes a miracle in the sense of Hume's first definition — say, a resurrection — can serve to probabilify a theological doctrine can be divided into two sub-questions: First, how can the testimony probabilify the naturalistically characterized miracle event? And second, how can such a miracle probabilify the doctrine? 2000, John Earman, Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles, →ISBN, page 65:
   • For this reason Owen queries the statement of W. R. Matthews that the theistic proofs make theism “highly probable” on the ground that since “the theistic postulate is wholly unique we cannot probabilify it by empirical evidence (as we can probabilify a scientific hypothesis). 2011, Alan P.F. Sell, Convinced, Concise, and Christian, →ISBN:
   • Thus if we would not be justified in saying that memories probabilify the remembered events in a world in which memories were known to be regularly false, we would not be justified in saying that memories probabilify the remembered events in a world in which we had no idea whether they were or not. 2002, Evan Fales, Causation and Universals, →ISBN:
   • It might be objected that such premisses probabilify such a conclusion only in the absence of other evidence, that C's being B may be made more or less likely if we have other relevant information as well. 1973, John Leslie Mackie, Truth, Probability and Paradox: Studies in Philosophical Logic, →ISBN:

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