Premise 1: "All Ravens Are Black" Is Logically Equivalent To
Premise 1: "All Ravens Are Black" Is Logically Equivalent To
Premise 1: "All Ravens Are Black" Is Logically Equivalent To
November 7, 2017
In this paper, I will explain the three premises of the Ravens problem, the paradoxical
conclusion they lead to, and I will introduce and explain two responses to this problem.
The first, is that the hypothesis “All ravens are black” is logically equivalent to “All non-
black things are non-ravens.” Logical equivalence is an instance in which two phrases are true or
false under the same conditions. For example, the phrases “Sarah has blond hair” and “Sarah
does not have not-blond hair” are logically equivalent as they are both true under the same
circumstances.
The second premise, Nicod’s criterion, states that the hypothesis “All F’s are Gs” is
confirmed by a positive instance. With this hypothesis, a positive instance would be an F that is a
G. For example, when “F” is a raven and “G” is black (for the hypothesis that all ravens are
The third premise is the equivalence condition which states that if H and K are logically
equivalent then anything that confirms H confirms K. In the case of the ravens problem, H
represents the phrase “All ravens are black” and K represents the phrase “All non-black things
are non-ravens.” According to the equivalence condition, anything that confirms one hypothesis,
confirms the other. This introduces the paradoxical conclusion that with this logic, the existence
of a white shoe (a non-black and non-raven object) confirms the hypothesis H that “all ravens are
black” because a white shoe is a positive instance of the hypothesis K: “All non-black things are
By nature, this seems illogical as a white shoe seems to have little importance in an
argument concerning black ravens. It’s difficult to imagine the link between the two, which is the
paradox under discussion: it implies that it is possible to gain information about ravens from a
shoe. It therefore seems possible to confirm the hypothesis “All ravens are black” without ever
One possible response to this paradox is to simply embrace this paradoxical conclusion
and its limitations and consider that confirmation comes in degrees. For example, a white shoe
may confirm hypothesis H but a black raven confirms it to a larger degree. This allows all
This remains paradoxical, however, as we must intuitively discern to what degree a white shoe or
instance, if we have the hypothesis “All humans are under 9 feet tall” and someone finds an 8 ft
11 in human named Jenny. Jenny is a positive instance of the hypothesis “All humans are under
9 feet tall” yet her existence does not increase the amount of confidence we have in that
hypothesis. Intuitively, because she is so close to 9 feet, it is easy to presume that the existence
of a 9 ft tall human is possible. Therefore in this counter example, Jenny’s existence decreases
the confidence that “All humans are under 9 feet tall” even though she is a positive instance.
With this understanding, rejecting Nicod’s criterion seems logical in resolving the paradox.