Meanings
- A paradox arising from the question of what constitutes evidence for a statement. Observing objects that are neither black nor ravens may formally increase the likelihood that all ravens are black, even though, intuitively, these observations are unrelated.
Thus Hempel's paradox, later indeed popularized by Hempel, is a nice example of Stigler's law: nothing is named after its inventor.
2020, Ferenc Csatári, Measurement and Meaning, Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 83Synonyms: raven paradox
Synonyms & antonyms
proper nounA paradox arising from the question of what constitutes evidence for a statement. Observing objects that are neither black nor ravens may formally increase the likelihood that all ravens are black, even though, intuitively, these observations are unrelated.
Origin
Proposed by the logician Carl Gustav Hempel in the 1940s to illustrate a contradiction between inductive logic and intuition.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Hempel's paradox. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hempel's%20paradox
“Hempel's paradox.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hempel's%20paradox. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Hempel's paradox,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hempel's%20paradox.
Source: Hempel's paradox on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.