Solving the Contact Paradox: Rational Belief in the Teeth of the Evidence

Evidentialism is the doctrine that rational belief should be proportioned to one’s evidence. By “one’s evidence,” I mean evidence that we possess and know that we possess. I specifically exclude from “evidence” the following: information of which we are unaware that our brain might rely on in constr...

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Autor principal:	Thomas Vinci
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Alfredo Mac Laughlin 2020
Materias:	Philosophy (General) B1-5802 Literature (General) PN1-6790
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/6c3dfd9c7e2a4877865e1118d5c2cef3
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:6c3dfd9c7e2a4877865e1118d5c2cef32021-11-15T19:17:41ZSolving the Contact Paradox: Rational Belief in the Teeth of the Evidence2573-881Xhttps://doaj.org/article/6c3dfd9c7e2a4877865e1118d5c2cef32020-09-01T00:00:00Zhttps://jsfphil.org/vol-3/vinci-solving-the-contact-paradox/https://doaj.org/toc/2573-881XEvidentialism is the doctrine that rational belief should be proportioned to one’s evidence. By “one’s evidence,” I mean evidence that we possess and know that we possess. I specifically exclude from “evidence” the following: information of which we are unaware that our brain might rely on in constructing experience or in the formation of beliefs. My initial interest is with the doctrine of Evidentialism as it applies to a quandary that arises in the Sci-Fi movie Contact, the “Contact Paradox” as I will call it. In this movie one of the main characters, Ellie, is a cosmologist working in a radio-telescope research facility searching for signals from intelligent life in the cosmos. The entity whose epistemological status is at issue in her quandary is her deceased father but there is an obvious parallel between the quandary of a rational believer in God and Ellie’s quandary, a parallel extensively explored in the movie itself. My first thesis is that in Ellie’s case Evidentialism is false: in certain cases, it is rational to believe in the existence of an entity in spite of the fact that the empirical evidence overall is contrary, and the Contact Paradox is one such case. Later in the paper I turn attention to the issue of Evidentialism regarding beliefs in the existence of God. My second thesis is that Evidentialism is false there as well.Thomas VinciAlfredo Mac LaughlinarticlePhilosophy (General)B1-5802Literature (General)PN1-6790ENJournal of Science Fiction and Philosophy, Vol 3, Pp 1-21 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Philosophy (General) B1-5802 Literature (General) PN1-6790
spellingShingle	Philosophy (General) B1-5802 Literature (General) PN1-6790 Thomas Vinci Solving the Contact Paradox: Rational Belief in the Teeth of the Evidence
description	Evidentialism is the doctrine that rational belief should be proportioned to one’s evidence. By “one’s evidence,” I mean evidence that we possess and know that we possess. I specifically exclude from “evidence” the following: information of which we are unaware that our brain might rely on in constructing experience or in the formation of beliefs. My initial interest is with the doctrine of Evidentialism as it applies to a quandary that arises in the Sci-Fi movie Contact, the “Contact Paradox” as I will call it. In this movie one of the main characters, Ellie, is a cosmologist working in a radio-telescope research facility searching for signals from intelligent life in the cosmos. The entity whose epistemological status is at issue in her quandary is her deceased father but there is an obvious parallel between the quandary of a rational believer in God and Ellie’s quandary, a parallel extensively explored in the movie itself. My first thesis is that in Ellie’s case Evidentialism is false: in certain cases, it is rational to believe in the existence of an entity in spite of the fact that the empirical evidence overall is contrary, and the Contact Paradox is one such case. Later in the paper I turn attention to the issue of Evidentialism regarding beliefs in the existence of God. My second thesis is that Evidentialism is false there as well.
format	article
author	Thomas Vinci
author_facet	Thomas Vinci
author_sort	Thomas Vinci
title	Solving the Contact Paradox: Rational Belief in the Teeth of the Evidence
title_short	Solving the Contact Paradox: Rational Belief in the Teeth of the Evidence
title_full	Solving the Contact Paradox: Rational Belief in the Teeth of the Evidence
title_fullStr	Solving the Contact Paradox: Rational Belief in the Teeth of the Evidence
title_full_unstemmed	Solving the Contact Paradox: Rational Belief in the Teeth of the Evidence
title_sort	solving the contact paradox: rational belief in the teeth of the evidence
publisher	Alfredo Mac Laughlin
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/6c3dfd9c7e2a4877865e1118d5c2cef3
work_keys_str_mv	AT thomasvinci solvingthecontactparadoxrationalbeliefintheteethoftheevidence
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Solving the Contact Paradox: Rational Belief in the Teeth of the Evidence

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