The Ravens Paradox and Negative Existential Judgments about Evidence

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (2):237-247 (2022)
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Abstract

In this paper, I provide a new argument in support of a concessive response to the Ravens Paradox. The argument I offer stems from Mark Schroeder's Gricean explanation for why existential judgments about normative reasons for action are unreliable. In short, I argue that Schroeder's work suggests that, in the case of the Ravens Paradox, people are running together the issue of what's assertible about evidence with what's true about evidence. Once these issues are pulled apart, we have reason to think that the negative existential judgment about evidence that drives the Ravens Paradox is mistaken, and thus that there is in fact no paradox here at all.

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David Plunkett
Dartmouth College

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References found in this work

Slaves of the passions.Mark Andrew Schroeder - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1955 - Philosophy 31 (118):268-269.
Stakes, withholding, and pragmatic encroachment on knowledge.Mark Schroeder - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 160 (2):265 - 285.
Logic and Conversation.H. Paul Grice - 1989 - In Studies in the Way of Words. Harvard University Press. pp. 22-40.
Bayesianism II: Applications and Criticisms.Kenny Easwaran - 2011 - Philosophy Compass 6 (5):321-332.

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