Nelson Goodman and the Raven Paradox?

Question

I've just been reading Goodman's "The New Riddle of Induction". In it
he mentions, in passing, the Raven Paradox which he seems to imply has
been solved : "But....this does not settle the matter [of the new
riddle of induction] as it settles the matter of ravens".

Unfortunately he doesn't expeand on the raven discussion. Does anyone
know where he does discuss the Raven Paradox per se?

(The Raven Paradox is that just as seeing a black raven is consistent with the proposition "all ravens are black" and so supports it the sight of a non-black non-raven, like a banana, also supports the proposition. This is because "all non-black things are non-ravens" is logically identical to "all ravens are black". You can have fun with this. "All non-idiots are non-philosophy teachers" is the same as "all philosophy teachers are idiots". Now find a few non-idiots and prove your philosophy teacher is an idiot!)

Answer 1

Goodman addresses Hempel's Paradox (or, as you refer to it, the Raven Paradox) in his book "Fact, Fiction, and Forecast" published in 1955.

He observes what many other people essentially have: that the propositions "all ravens are black" and "all non-ravens are non-black" are not actually equivalent because of their implication.

The way he puts it is that if, as in Hempel's example, we find a white handkerchief, it DOES support the proposition that "all non-ravens are non-black", but it also supports any number of OTHER propositions, such as "all non-ravens are non-blue" and even "ravens do not exist". Since it supports all of these equally even though they are non-equivalent propositions, it suggests instead that your white handkerchief is not really providing you any information about ravens at all.

Hope that helps!