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    Premise 1: "All Ravens Are Black" Is Logically Equivalent To

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    Leah Towery
    The document summarizes the ravens paradox, which arises from three premises: 1) "All ravens are black" is logically equivalent to "All non-black things are non-ravens", 2) Nicod's criterion that a positive instance confirms a hypothesis, and 3) the equivalence condition that if two hypotheses are logically equivalent, anything confirming one confirms the other. This leads to the paradoxical conclusion that a white shoe, as a positive instance of "All non-black things are non-ravens", confirms the hypothesis "All ravens are black". Two responses are discussed: embracing the paradox and considering confirmation in degrees, or rejecting Nicod's criterion.

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    Premise 1: "All Ravens Are Black" Is Logically Equivalent To

    Uploaded by

    Leah Towery
    17 views2 pages
    The document summarizes the ravens paradox, which arises from three premises: 1) "All ravens are black" is logically equivalent to "All non-black things are non-ravens", 2) Nicod's criterion that a positive instance confirms a hypothesis, and 3) the equivalence condition that if two hypotheses are logically equivalent, anything confirming one confirms the other. This leads to the paradoxical conclusion that a white shoe, as a positive instance of "All non-black things are non-ravens", confirms the hypothesis "All ravens are black". Two responses are discussed: embracing the paradox and considering confirmation in degrees, or rejecting Nicod's criterion.

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    PHIL 8 paper 2.docx

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    The document summarizes the ravens paradox, which arises from three premises: 1) "All ravens are black" is logically equivalent to "All non-black things are non-ravens", 2) Nicod's criterion that a positive instance confirms a hypothesis, and 3) the equivalence condition that if two hypotheses are logically equivalent, anything confirming one confirms the other. This leads to the paradoxical conclusion that a white shoe, as a positive instance of "All non-black things are non-ravens", confirms the hypothesis "All ravens are black". Two responses are discussed: embracing the paradox and considering confirmation in degrees, or rejecting Nicod's criterion.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    17 views2 pages

    Premise 1: "All Ravens Are Black" Is Logically Equivalent To

    Uploaded by

    Leah Towery
    The document summarizes the ravens paradox, which arises from three premises: 1) "All ravens are black" is logically equivalent to "All non-black things are non-ravens", 2) Nicod's criterion that a positive instance confirms a hypothesis, and 3) the equivalence condition that if two hypotheses are logically equivalent, anything confirming one confirms the other. This leads to the paradoxical conclusion that a white shoe, as a positive instance of "All non-black things are non-ravens", confirms the hypothesis "All ravens are black". Two responses are discussed: embracing the paradox and considering confirmation in degrees, or rejecting Nicod's criterion.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Philosophy 8 – 1K

    November 7, 2017

    The Ravens Problem

    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 ravens problem is composed of three premises:

    Premise 1: “All ravens are black” is logically equivalent to

    “Alll non-black things are non-ravens.”

    Premise 2: Nicod’s Criterion

    Premise 3: The Equivalence Condition

    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

    black), then a raven that is black (an F that is a G) is a positive instance.

    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

    non-ravens,” and the two hypotheses are logically equivalent.

    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

    attempting to look for ravens.

    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

    evidence to increase the degree of confidence in a hypothesis so long as it is a positive instance.

    This remains paradoxical, however, as we must intuitively discern to what degree a white shoe or

    a black raven confirms the hypotheses.

    Another possible response is to reject Nicod’s criterion (Premise 2) completely. For

    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.

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