Quiggin, John (2025) Ravens, Shoes and the Structure of Confirmation. UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

Hempel’s raven paradox arises only under assumptions that abstract away from
the structure of finite domains of inquiry. Once that structure is restored, the paradox dissolves. Observing a non-raven confirms a universal generalisation only if theprior distribution embeds a substantive empirical relationship between ravens and nonravens.
Without such a relationship, no confirmation occurs. The finite-case models
developed here make this requirement transparent and connect with earlier insightsdue to Hosiasson-Lindenbaum, Good, and Vranas. The broader lesson, reinforced by examples from natural science and econometrics, is that confirmation is always modelrelative

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Item Type:	Other
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Quiggin, John 0000-0003-0398-8280
Keywords:	General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Decision Theory Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics General Issues > Theory Change
Depositing User:	John Quiggin
Date Deposited:	09 Dec 2025 13:34
Last Modified:	09 Dec 2025 13:34
Item ID:	27411
Date:	December 2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/27411

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