tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post112314414326018903..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: The Raven ParadoxRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1155523527790414552006-08-13T22:45:00.000-04:002006-08-13T22:45:00.000-04:00I don't know if my logic is flawed but...The parad...I don't know if my logic is flawed but...<BR/><BR/>The paradox works because intuitively it seems that a black raven is evidence of the claim "all ravens are black," when it is not. There are only two types of evidence for such a statement. All ravens are black, or all non-black things are non-ravens. No other evidence supports the claim because any number of ravens that are black but do not constitute the whole is not evidence. <BR/><BR/>eggnogdog@gmail.comAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1125455614734152332005-08-30T22:33:00.000-04:002005-08-30T22:33:00.000-04:00Not quite. Observing O(2) doesn't provide us with ...Not quite. Observing O(2) doesn't provide us with any positive information about other objects. It rather suggests that all other types of objects are less likely to exist. I explain this further <A HREF="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/08/all-of-none.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>.<BR/><BR/>As for Popper, he thought you could never confirm statements as true, or even likely to be true. By contrast, I hold that adopting his falsificationist methodology <I>can</I> provide confirming evidence for hypotheses (if the attempts to falsify them fail).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1125455034687630752005-08-30T22:23:00.000-04:002005-08-30T22:23:00.000-04:00This reminds me of Popper's theory of falsificatio...This reminds me of Popper's theory of falsification as a necessary for proving a theory true. Since of course, we can never empirically verify that all ravens are black.<BR/><BR/>You've givingan interesting idea of weak proof, so for any object O(1) with the property A(x), we find that any O(2) without the property A(x), it proves weakly that O(1) has the property A(x)?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1123374840159951022005-08-06T20:34:00.000-04:002005-08-06T20:34:00.000-04:00Yeah, that's a clear and helpful summary of the co...Yeah, that's a clear and helpful summary of the core idea behind by argument. Thanks :)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1123314303516036242005-08-06T03:45:00.000-04:002005-08-06T03:45:00.000-04:00Very lucid, Richard. I had satisfied myself that ...Very lucid, Richard. I had satisfied myself that the raven paradox wasn't really a paradox by supposing that you saw something red up in a tree and wondered if it was a raven. Once you look closer and see that it's a parrot, or a herring in a tree, or some other non-raven, then that provides some evidence for S. <BR/><BR/>More theoretically, we can say that the way to confirm S is to try as hard as you can to falsify S. If you fail to find a colored raven despite your efforts, then that provides evidence in favor of S. Since searching for colored ravens among the set of ravens is more efficient than searching for them among the set of colored objects, the former kind of evidence should be given more weight.Blarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654557196171228300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1123192635115674082005-08-04T17:57:00.000-04:002005-08-04T17:57:00.000-04:00I wouldn't be surprised if the arguments have been...I wouldn't be surprised if the arguments have been made before; but in philosophy, of course, that doesn't mean that the dispute has effectively been ended. And it's also possible that they haven't been made. I don't keep up with this sort of issue much, but I do browse a lot of phil. sci. articles. Your solution is to reject what's usually called Nicod's condition (which was the name eventually given to the principle in Hempel that you give) and to reject the claim that non-black things being non-ravens does not confirm that all ravens are black. There have been solutions before that have rejected Nicod's condition, but the most recent article I know of to discuss the matter, by Patrick Maher in <I>Philosophy of Science</I> (in 1999 or so), still claims that we have no good reason to reject Nicod's condition. And although I haven't looked closely at the debates at all, it seems to me that most of those who reject Nicod's condition try to do so by arguing that, given certain background evidence, it fails. But the original raven's paradox was formulated on the assumption that we have no such background evidence to make the probabilities go strange. And they all tend to assume that finding a non-black non-raven <I>doesn't</I> confirm (S1). Now, you do introduce background information (the random sampling of particular populations), but you go on to argue for a conclusion in which there is no background information (the random sampling of the whole world); and you allow non-black non-ravens to confirm (S1). So while there might be similar arguments, your solution is fairly distinctive. Given that it's not something I look at often, I could just be missing out on a large section of the discussion; but it seems to me to be fairly new. (And while it comes under similar qualifications, your general approach to the problem seems to me to be more promising than most approaches, which try either to accept Nicod's condition, or to deny that the observation of non-black non-ravens would confirm (S1).) Maher's paper gives a good brief overview of the major solutions proposed for the Raven Paradox, so if you're interested in that, you might look it up.<BR/><BR/>You probably won't have difficulty finding a writing sample to submit when you get around to applying to grad school; but this sort of topic is ideal for such a sample, because it would give you an opportunity to show that you can work out a distinctive position, argue it analytically, do historical research to compare it to previous positions, etc. If you like how the paper turns out for your philosophical logic class, you might consider developing it even further.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1123185317480953822005-08-04T15:55:00.000-04:002005-08-04T15:55:00.000-04:00Is he suggesting you search only for "non ravnens"...Is he suggesting you search only for "non ravnens"? he cant be suggesting you search only for black things because he suggests the proof is finding a red herring...<BR/>Anyway if everything was a red herring I guess there would be miniscule proof there but as long as the method of search has the potential to find disconfirming 9finding a coloured raven OR running out of things to find) or nessercary evidence (by nessercary I mean finding one black raven) it is ok I guess.Geniushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11624496692217466430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1123152641897099612005-08-04T06:50:00.000-04:002005-08-04T06:50:00.000-04:00Thanks! I might look into it for my philosophical ...Thanks! I might look into it for my philosophical logic paper. I imagine someone else will have made similar arguments before, though...Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1123152217655910372005-08-04T06:43:00.000-04:002005-08-04T06:43:00.000-04:00I think this is a good argument, Richard; Hempel's...I think this is a good argument, Richard; Hempel's claim, taken straightforwardly, can't distinguish evidentially between 'Some ravens are black' and 'All ravens are black, and obviously a theory of confirmation has to be able to do so. This would be a good post to work up more rigorously into a paper.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.com