Hempel's paradox

English

Etymology

Proposed by the logician Carl Gustav Hempel in the 1940s to illustrate a contradiction between inductive logic and intuition.

Proper noun

Hempel's paradox

1. A paradox arising from the question of what constitutes evidence for a statement. Observing objects that are neither black nor ravens may formally increase the likelihood that all ravens are black, even though, intuitively, these observations are unrelated.

   Synonym: raven paradox

   • 2020, Ferenc Csatári, Measurement and Meaning, Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 83:

     Thus Hempel's paradox, later indeed popularized by Hempel, is a nice example of Stigler's law: nothing is named after its inventor.

See also

• nonraven
• ravenness