دراسات في منطق التأييد (Studies in the Logic of Confirmation)

مقدمة

Carl Gustav Hempel, who had studied with Hans Reichenbach in Berlin and emigrated in the 1930s, published this two-part paper in Mind in 1945. He asks what it means for an observation report to confirm a general hypothesis, and examines conditions such as Nicod’s criterion – an A that is B confirms “all A are B” – and the equivalence condition, according to which whatever confirms a hypothesis also confirms every logically equivalent one. Together they produce the paradox: “all ravens are black” is equivalent to “all non-black things are non-ravens”, so any non-black non-raven confirms it. Hempel accepts the conclusion and explains the sense of paradox by the background knowledge we tacitly bring in. The paradox is still discussed.

مزيد من أعمال كارل هيمبل

• 1948دراسات في منطق التفسير (Studies in the Logic of Explanation)