Logical positivists felt it possible to establish a set of rules that could identify the

conditions under which a hypothesis is confirmed. These rules came packaged with a

commitment to logical equivalence. Two statements are logically equivalent when it is

impossible for one to be true and the other false or one to be false and the other true. For

example, consider the statements it is raining and it is not not raining. There simply is no

possible state of affairs in which these statements differ in truth value. Second, Nicods criterion

states that any statement of the form all fs are g is confirmed by observation of one of its

positive instances i.e. an f that is a g. By this criterion, any observation of a black raven

incrementally confirms the hypothesis/statement all ravens are black. On the Equivalence

condition, if two hypotheses are logically equivalent, then anything that confirms one also

confirms the other. Notice the intuitive plausibility of the EC. It would seem strange if, upon

falsifying the claim that it is raining outside, one were to then try to determine if it was in fact

not not raining.

Though intutitively plausible, the above seems to lead to absurd results. Consider the

hypothesis all ravens are black. This is logically equivalent to all non-black things are non-

ravens. By Nicods criterion, all non-black things are non-ravens is incrementally confirmed by

its positive instances. Let our non-black non-raven be a white shoe. By the equivalence

condition, since they are logically equivalent, anything that confirms all non-black things are

non ravens confirms all ravens are black. We are therefore led to the seemingly absurd

conclusion that all ravens are black is confirmed by a white shoe.

The strangeness here cannot be overstated. For example, suppose you were to ask me to

confirm your hypothesis that all ravens are black. If I were to respond by pointing to a purple

wig or my grandmothers ugly yellow shag carpet, you would come to believe I was conceptually
confused or radically misunderstood what you had said. If a theory of how scientific

confirmation works commits us to something like this procedure counting as legitimate science

then that theory seems for that very reason to be false. However, it is just this that the logical

positivist seems committed to.