The Raven Paradox

The Raven Paradox is a problem for Nicod's Criterion. The statement (1) "All non-black things are non-ravens" is logically equivalent to (2) "All ravens are black", so anything that confirms one should confirm the other.

According to Nicod's Criterion, a black raven is irrelevant to (1) and confirms (2), while a piece of white chalk is irrelevant to (2) and confirms (1).

Literature

The main source is Hempel 1945. The issues are taken up in Lipton 1993, Chapter 6.
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Copyright David Chart 1997