Paradox of Confirmation; An Examination of Solutions Based on the Rejection of Equivalence Condition and Some Other Solutions

Document Type : The Quarterly Jornal

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Abstract

The Paradox of Confirmation is a result of two principles: first, Nicod's principle or criterion; second, the equivalence principle or condition. Thus solutions proposed for the paradox are of two types: first, the ones based on rejecting Nicod's principle, and second, the ones based on the rejection of equivalence condition. In the present paper, I will review the Paradox of Confirmation and four solutions to it, two of which are based on the rejection of the equivalence condition. The third (Lipton's) is, in my view, based on the rejection of Nicod's principle, and the fourth is somehow derived from issues in modern logic and is focused on the existential content of the subject-matter of two theorems of the principle and its contraposition. Finally I propose my own assessment in which the logical aspect of the problem is distinguished from the psychological one, and within the logical aspect, positive and negative aspects are separated.

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References

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