Nelson Goodman (1906–1998) is one of the leading American philosophers of the twentieth century. His well-known book Languages of Art is considered a major contribution to analytical aesthetics. While his views on particular issues have often been criticized, on the whole, he is considered to be a leading figure in twentieth-century aesthetics. Contrary to such a stance, I intend to argue that Goodman’s overall contribution to aesthetics is not as outstanding and valuable as is often maintained. Rather, (...) I will try to show that his aesthetic views are grounded on a distorted representation of the earlier aesthetic tradition, without which they lose the novelty and originality ascribed to them. Once that representation is corrected, some of Goodman’s proposals turn out to be derivative and redundant. Additionally, where they do actually diverge from the earlier tradition and might stake a claim to originality, they turn out to be simply erroneous and misconceived, and sometimes even logically flawed. To conclude, Goodman’s lofty reputation as an aesthetician certainly requires major revision. (shrink)

This short paper grew out of an observation—made in the course of a larger research project—of a surprising convergence between, on the one hand, certain themes in the work of Mary Hesse and Nelson Goodman in the 1950/60s and, on the other hand, recent work on the representational resources of science, in particular regarding model-based representation. The convergence between these more recent accounts of representation in science and the earlier proposals by Hesse and Goodman consists in the (...) recognition that, in order to secure successful representation in science, collective representational resources must be available. Such resources may take the form of (amongst others) mathematical formalisms, diagrammatic methods, notational rules, or—in the case of material models—conventions regarding the use and manipulation of the constituent parts. More often than not, an abstract characterization of such resources tells only half the story, as they are constituted equally by the pattern of (practical and theoretical) activities—such as instances of manipulation or inference—of the researchers who deploy them. In other words, representational resources need to be sustained by a social practice; this is what renders them collective representational resources in the first place. (shrink)

Nelson Goodman’s theory of symbol systems expounded in his Languages of Art has been frequently criticized on many counts (cf. list of secondary literature in the entry “Goodman’s Aesthetics” of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Sect. 3 below). Yet it exerts a strong influence and is treated as one of the major twentieth-century theories on the subject. While many of Goodman’s controversial theses are criticized, the technical notions he used to formulate them seem to have been (...) treated as neutral tools. One such technical notion is that of the density of symbol systems. This serves to distinguish linguistic symbols from pictorial representations (after Goodman entirely rejected resemblance in that role) and is a crucial part of Goodman’s explanation of what constitutes aesthetic experience (and so indirectly what is art). Thus its significance for Goodman’s theory is fundamental. The aim of this paper is a detailed, logical analysis of this notion. It turns out that Goodman’s definition is highly problematic and cannot be applied to symbol systems in the way Goodman envisaged. To conclude, Goodman’s theory is problematic not just because of its controversial theses but also because of logical problems with the technical notions used at its very core. Hence the controversial claims are not simply contestable, but inaccurately expressed. (shrink)

This paper updates (2017) a previously-presented* model of models, which can be used to clarify discussion and analysis in a variety of disputes and debates, since many such discussions hinge on displaying or implying models about how things are related. Knowing about models does not itself supply any new information about our world, but it might help us to recognize when and how information is being conveyed on these matters, or where possibly it is being obscured. If a claim P (...) is expressed in the context of a certain model, a disagreement about P may actually not be about whether the underlying model is accurate; it could reflect misunderstandings about the model’s assumptions or conventions. Also, in practice, constructed models are rarely fully elaborated for every detail, so misunderstandings can arise from apparent “gaps” in the model. In that case, developing and considering complementary versions of models can sometimes clarify ambiguities. Following the main analysis are several extended Case examples to illustrate the wide applicability of the models approach, for clarifying, if not necessarily “resolving”, numerous debates and issues. For example, a famous “counter example” by Nelson Goodman to a logical model proposed by Carnap is shown to be not as deal-breaking as presumed historically, if only plausible complementary models had been explored. And models sometimes presented as competing in Artificial Intelligence research— “Declarative” versus “Procedural”—can instead be viewed as good examples of “complementary” models. Also reconsidered in this light are some well-known, competing positions, by Russell, Strawson, and Kripke, in the literature regarding names, pointing, definite descriptions and “using” sentences, and so on. All these concepts are locatable within the presently proposed models analysis. Questions such as where “truth” resides (whether in sentences or in uses of sentences) are not settled in this paper; yet, practical questions about how testable claims about the world can be expressed by models are clarified. _* Original version presented at a University of Waterloo Philosophy Colloquium 1984. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest porównanie koncepcji poznania Ernsta Cassirera i Nelsona Goodmana, których łączy odrzucenie idei poznania jako odbicia rzeczywistości i przyjęcie koncepcji przekształcania. Owo przekształcanie nie jest całkowitym przeciwieństwem odbicia, lecz jego poszerzeniem w taki sposób, że poznanie oznacza zarówno twórcze wytwarzanie, jak i odtwórcze odbicie. Tym samym zniesiona zostaje tradycyjna epistemologiczna dychotomia: konstruowanie – odkrywanie. Wspólną dla obu filozofów przesłankę stanowi odrzucenie prymatu faktów i danych zmysłowych, a konsekwencją poszerzonej koncepcji poznania jest zaś dla nich irrealistyczna koncepcja reprezentacji symbolicznej. (...) W artykule omówiono najważniejsze podobieństwa i różnice w poglądach tych dwóch myślicieli. (shrink)

This paper takes up the challenge which Carnap poses in his Aufbau: to make of it a basis for continued epistemological research. I try to close some gaps in Carnap’s original presentation and to make at least the first few steps of his constructional outline more accessible to the modern reader. Particularly emphasized is Carnap’s implicit recognition that, to be effective, “structural” models of epistemology (using logical symbols) must be complemented with “procedural” models (his “fictitious operations”). The paper shows how (...) a procedural model, a computer program,can “bypass” Nelson Goodman’s counter example to Carnap’s logical construction of “similarity circles”. (shrink)

The contribution examines Goodman’s conception of philosophy, in particular his remark that his project can be understood as a «critique of worldmaking». It is argued that, despite dealing with epistemological questions, the general theory of symbols and worldmaking does not answer them. Rather, it can be conceived as a practical conception comparable to Kant’s critique of reason or to Wittgenstein’s critique of language games, i. e. , as a philosophy of world orientation. It is claimed that Goodman himself (...) could not articulate this dimension of his position appropriately as he kept using the language of epistemology. Yet many aspects of his thinking become much clearer if they are interpreted within a non-epistemological frame. (shrink)

Article presenting basic methodological tenets in Goodman's philosophical development with their mutual connections, like the new riddle of indutcion, counterfactual conditionals and his use of reflective equilibrium as a methodological basis.

In Fact, Fiction and Forecast, Nelson Goodman claims that the problem of justifying induction is not something over and above the problem of describing valid induction. Such claim, besides suggesting his commitment to the collapse of the distinction between the context of description and the context of justification, seems to open the possibility that the new riddle of induction could be addressed empirically. Discoveries about psychological preferences for projecting certain classes of objects could function as a criterion for (...) determining which predicates are after all projectible. In this paper, I argue that Goodman's claim must be construed within his project for constructional definitions, which is methodologically oriented by reflective equilibrium. The description of inductive practice is committed to the articulation of the extension of the class selected by the predicate ‘valid induction’. The mutual adjustment between theoretical considerations and inductive practice involved in the proposal of a definition of ‘valid induction’ must preserve that practice as much as possible, there is no way to get rid of entrenchment. Empirical discoveries about the psychological mechanism that underlies projections may help that adjustment but they cannot substitute the role played by the entrenchment of predicates. (shrink)

This paper advocates a new reading of Nelson Goodman’s new riddle of induction. According to Ian Hacking, this famous problem conveys a “pure nominalism”, as it grounds Goodman’s denial regarding the existence of natural kinds. While this interpretation is somewhat convincing, it suffers the major flaw of not corresponding to what Goodman himself understood by “nominalism”. Nominalism, in a goodmanian sense, is indeed primarily a technical demand, which stems from the so-called “calculus of individuals”. I argue (...) that this mereological definition of nominalism allows to understand the new riddle of induction afresh. As a result, Goodman’s riddle is “hyper-nominalist”, i.e., nominalist in a distinct and stronger sense than what Hacking suggested. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to advocate the ideas of Wilhelm Worringer, John Dewey, and Nelson Goodman on the roles of perception, empathy, emotion, and enjoyment in aesthetic experience. I will attempt to do this by offering a novel interpretation of some of these thinkers’ insights from a biological perspective. To this end, I will consider the following questions. What is an aesthetic experience? Does such a thing exist at all? If yes, is there a correlation between (...) the concept of the aesthetic and perception? Is it possible, then, to find a biological basis for aesthetic experience? My argument is that a fresh analysis of the aesthetics of Worringer, Dewey, and Goodman, in light of some of the discoveries and theories of the cognitive neurosciences – such as the biological correlations of emotions, the “as-if-body-loop” theory, the discovery of mirror neurons, and the phenomenon of embodied simulation – may provide a contribution to longstanding philosophical problems relating to the nature of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Nelson Goodman observed that we use only certain ‘good’ (viz. projectible) predicates during reasoning, with no obvious demarcation criterion in sight to distinguish them from the bad and gruesome ones. This apparent arbitrariness undermines the justifiability of our reasoning practices. Inspired by Quine’s 1969 paper on Natural Kinds, Peter Gärdenfors proposes a cognitive criterion based on his theory of Conceptual Spaces (CS). He argues the good predicates are those referring to natural concepts, and that we can capture naturalness (...) in terms of similarity. In contrast to Quine, he does not primarily rely on logic, but geometry. He frames his account as a descriptive project, however, and it is not obvious how it addresses the normative dimension of Goodman’s Riddle. This paper develops a charitable reconstruction of his argument, based on the idea that the instrumental success of our projectible concepts is grounded in their cognitive-pragmatic naturalness. It then explores three lines of reasoning against the argument: Evolutionarily motivated skepticism, the miracles argument, and the relation between instrumental and pragmatic success. I conclude that in its current form, the CS account fails to provide any justification of reasoning beyond appealing to its instrumental success, and that a metaphysically robust notion of naturalness helps to achieve the desired goal. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Nelson Goodman’s pluriworldism, understood as the claim that there exists a plurality of actual worlds. This proposal has generally been quickly dismissed in the philosophical literature. I argue that we ought to take it more seriously. As I show, many of the prima facie objections to pluriworldism may receive straightforward answers. I also examine in detail Goodman’s argument for the conclusion that there are many worlds and attempt to show how it might (...) be supported. Eventually, I discuss some underexplored challenges to pluriworldism. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the relationship between dance and the work of Nelson Goodman, which is found primarily in his early book, Languages of Art. Drawing upon the book’s first main thread, I examine Goodman’s example of a dance gesture as a symbol that exemplifies itself. I argue that self-exemplifying dance gestures are unique in that they are often independent and internally motivated, or “meta-self-exemplifying.” Drawing upon the book’s second main thread, I retrace Goodman’s analysis (...) of dance’s relationship to both notation in general and also Labanotation in particular. My argument is that dance gives the false impression of being notational, or is “meta-notational.”. (shrink)

Historically, Nelson Goodman’s paradox involving the predicates ‘grue’ and ‘bleen’ has been taken to furnish a serious blow to Carl Hempel’s theory of confirmation in particular and to purely formal theories of confirmation in general. In this paper, I argue that Goodman’s paradox is no more serious of a threat to Hempel’s theory of confirmation than is Hempel’s own paradox of the ravens. I proceed by developing a suggestion from R. D. Rosenkrantz into an argument for the (...) conclusion that these paradoxes are, in fact, equivalent. My argument, if successful, is of both historical and philosophical interest. Goodman himself maintained that Hempel’s theory of confirmation was capable of handling the paradox of the ravens. And Hempel eventually conceded that Goodman’s paradox showed that there could be no adequate, purely syntactical theory of confirmation. The conclusion of my argument entails, by contrast, that Hempel’s theory of confirmation is incapable of handling Goodman’s paradox if and only if it is incapable of handling the paradox of the ravens. It also entails that for any adequate solution to one of these paradoxes, there is a corresponding and equally adequate solution to the other. (shrink)

On page 14 of "Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences" (section 4 of chapter 1) by Nelson Goodman and Catherine Z. Elgin is written: “Since ‘blue’ and ‘green’ are interdefinable with ‘grue’ and ‘bleen’, the question of which pair is basic and which pair derived is entirely a question of which pair we start with”. This paper points out that an example of interdefinability is also that one about the predicate “grueb”, which is a predicate that (...) applies to an object if the object either is green and examined before time b, or is non-green and not examined before time b. The three predicates “green”, “grueb”, “examined before time b” are interdefinable. According to Goodman, since the predicates “blue” and “green” are interdefinable with the predicates “grue” and “bleen”, “if we can tell which objects are blue and which objects are green, we can tell which ones are grue and which ones are bleen” [pages 12-13 of “Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences”]. But , even though the predicates “green” and “examined before time b” are interdefinable, being able to tell if an object is green does not imply being able to tell if an object is examined before time b. The interdefinability among three elements is a type of interdefinability present, for example, also among the logical connectives. Another example of interdefinability is that one about a decidable predicate PD, which is interdefinable with an undecidable predicate PU: therefore even though we can tell whether an object is PD and whether an object is non-PD, we cannot tell whether an object is PU (since PU is an undecidable predicate) and whether an object is non-PU. Although the predicates PD and PU are interdefinable, the possibility to determine whether an object is PD does not imply the possibility to determine whether an object is PU (since PU is an undecidable predicate). Similarly, although the predicates “green” and “grue” are interdefinable, the possibility to determine whether an object is “green” even in absence of temporal information does not imply the possibility to determine whether an object is “grue” even in absence of temporal information. These and other examples about “grue” and “bleen” point out that even in case two predicates are interdefinable, the possibility to apply a predicate P does not imply the possibility to apply a predicate interdefinable with P. And that the possibility to apply the predicate “green” without having temporal information does not imply the possibility to apply the predicate “grue” without having temporal information. According to Goodman, if it is possible to determine if an object is green without needing temporal information, then it is also possible to determine if an object is grue without needing temporal information. But, knowing that an object is both green and grue implies temporal information: in fact, we know by definition that a grue object can only be: 1) either green (in case the object is examined before time t); 2) or blue (in case the object is not examined before time t). Thus, knowing that an object is both grue and green, we know that we are faced with case 1, the case of a grue object that is green and examined before time t. Then the paper points out why the Goodman-Kripke paradox is a paradox about meaning that cannot have repercussions on induction. Finally the paper points out why Hume’s problem is a problem different from Goodman’s paradox and requires a specific treatment. (shrink)

In Languages of Art, Nelson Goodman presents a general theory of symbolic notation. However, I show that his theory could not adequately explain possible cases of natural language notational uses, and argue that this outcome undermines, not only Goodman's own theory, but any broadly type versus token based account of notational structure.Given this failure, an alternative representational theory is proposed, in which different visual or perceptual aspects of a given physical inscription each represent a different letter, word, (...) or other notational item. Such a view is strongly supported by the completely conventional relation between inscriptions and notation, as shown by encryption techniques etc. (shrink)

In “How Art Teaches: A Lesson from Goodman”, Markus Lammenranta inquires if and how artworks can convey propositional knowledge about the world. Lammenranta argues that the cognitive role of art can be explained by revising Nelson Goodman’s theory of symbols. According to Lammenranta, the problem of Goodman’s theory is that, despite providing an account of art’s symbolic function, it denies art the possibility of mediating propositional knowledge. Lammenranta claims that Goodman’s theory can be augmented by (...) enlarging it with an account of direct reference developed by Bertrand Russell and contemporary philosophy of language. On this basis, an expanded version of Goodman’s theory can explain how artworks can express propositions even without being linguistic, representational, or non-fictive. Lammenranta explicates his theory by explaining how abstract paintings and literary fictions can mediate propositional claims about the actual, everyday world. (shrink)

Goodman sustentou que o ajuste mútuo entre inferências indutivas particulares e princípios indutivos constitui a única justificação necessária para ambos. Porém, a sua caracterização desse ajuste, posteriormente denominado de “equilíbrio reflexivo”, foi superficial. Isso levantou dúvida sobre a sua adequação. Neste artigo, argumento que o equilíbrio reflexivo, corretamente caracterizado, fornece a única justificação necessária e a melhor que podemos dar para a prática indutiva.

What is a fake artwork? This is seldom asked in aesthetics even though judging an artwork as excellent or original implicitly posits criteria for fraudulent or dubious artworks as well. This article presents Nelson Goodman’s proposal of how we are to understand fakes. It will criticize his predominantly cognitive approach for failure of incorporating a sense of aesthetic value, thereby leaving the possibility of artworks which are fakes but nevertheless originals unexplained. Instead Stanley Cavell’s writings on aesthetic judgment (...) are explored establishing a better frame for understanding these artworks. (shrink)

A review of the Czech translation of Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art. I emphasize Goodman's move away from the issue of the definition of art, and the fruitfulness of the autographic/allographic distinction.

(For English, scroll down) „Kreativität“ ist ein sehr junger Begriff und ein sehr altes Phänomen. Sie gilt als unaufklärbares Rätsel, als eine Art „Black Box“ des Denkens. Dem kollektiven Bewußtsein zufolge ist sie etwas Rares, Flüchtiges, strapaziös zu erzielen und nur wenige Glückliche begünstigend. Das vorliegende Buch präsentiert eine logische Grundidee zur Entstehung von schöpferisch Neuem – Elemente aus Logik, Symbotheorie, Informations-, Kommunikations- und Medientheorie verbindend. Diese „Formel“ wird an philosophischen Stationen von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart erprobt und weiterentwickelt, (...) darunter Theorien von Platon, Aristoteles, Leibniz, Baumgarten, Kant, Wittgenstein, Nelson Goodman und Gregory Bateson. Kreativität zeigt sich als ein Transformationsphänomen, welches das Denken auf eine andere logische Ebene führt, kategoriale Grenzen transformiert und Anschlußformen öffnet. Im Ergebnis ist sie nichts per Definition Abwesendes, erreichbar nur über den Umweg von unverfügbarer Gunst, weltabgewandter Passion oder verborgenen Tricks. Kreativität ist vielmehr omnipräsent, schöpferische Energien sind nur mit großem Aufwand zu unterdrücken, und die Frage, wie man sie erreicht, wird zur Frage, wie man ihr eine optimale Basis bereitet, ohne sie wesentlich zu behindern. Creativity" is a young term and an old phenomenon. It is considered an unexplainable enigma, a kind of "black box" of thought. According to the default view, it is something rare, fleeting, hard to achieve and favoring only a lucky few. The present book presents a logical formula for the emergence of creative newness - combining elements from logic, theories of symbolization, information-theory, communication- and media theories. This structural idea is tested and further developed by confronting it with select philosophical theories regarding the production of ‘newness’ from antiquity to the present, including theories by Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Baumgarten, Kant, Wittgenstein, Nelson Goodman and Gregory Bateson. As a result, creativity shows up as a transformation phenomenon, including different logical levels, thereby transforming categorical boundaries. As a result, it is not something mostly absent, attainable only through of luck, manic passion, or hidden tricks. Creativity is rather omnipresent, creative energies can only be suppressed with great effort, and the question of how to achieve it becomes the question of how to prepare an optimal basis without significantly hindering it. (shrink)

I argue that Goodman’s philosophy should not be characterised in opposition to the philosophy of the logical empiricists, but is more fruitfully interpreted as a continuation of their philosophical programme. In particular, understanding Goodman’s philosophy as a continuation of the ideal language tradition makes explicable how a radical ontological relativist could be such a staunch nominalist at the same time.

An extensive literature about pictorial representation discusses what is involved when a two-dimensional image represents some specific object or type of object. A smaller literature addresses parallel issues in sculptural representation. But little has been said about the role played by the sculptural material itself in determining the meanings of the sculptural work. Appealing to Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin’s discussions of literal and metaphorical exemplification, I argue that the material of which a sculpture is constituted plays key (...) roles in what is represented and how it is represented, in part because we have bodily and emotional responses to the real possibilities the sculptural material creates for us. I discuss examples of contemporary artworks by Melvin Edwards, Kara Walker, Willie Cole, Marc Quinn, Ai Weiwei, Janine Antoni, El Anatsui, Zoe Leonard, and others. (shrink)

By defining both depictive and linguistic representation as kinds of symbol system, Nelson Goodman attempts to undermine the platitude that, whereas linguistic representation is mediated by convention, depiction is mediated by resemblance. I argue that Goodman is right to draw a strong analogy between the two kinds of representation, but wrong to draw the counterintuitive conclusion that depiction is not mediated by resemblance.

Nelson Goodman's distinction between autographic and allographic arts is appealing, we suggest, because it promises to resolve several prima facie puzzles. We consider and rebut a recent argument that alleges that digital images explode the autographic/allographic distinction. Regardless, there is another familiar problem with the distinction, especially as Goodman formulates it: it seems to entirely ignore an important sense in which all artworks are historical. We note in reply that some artworks can be considered both as historical (...) products and as formal structures. Talk about such works is ambiguous between the two conceptions. This allows us to recover Goodman's distinction: art forms that are ambiguous in this way are allographic. With that formulation settled, we argue that digital images are allographic. We conclude by considering the objection that digital photographs, unlike other digital images, would count as autographic by our criterion; we reply that this points to the vexed nature of photography rather than any problem with the distinction. (shrink)

Many contemporary artworks include active matter along with rules for conservation that are designed to either facilitate or prevent that matter’s degradation or decay. I discuss the mechanisms through which actual or potential states of material decay contribute to the work’s expressive import. Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin introduce the concepts of literal and metaphorical exemplification, which are critical to expression: a work literally exemplifies a property when it both possesses and highlights that property, and it metaphorically exemplifies (...) a property when the properties it literally exemplifies bring that property powerfully to mind. I argue that the literal exemplification of actual or potential states of decay enhances a work’s expressive power by stimulating our bodily and emotional responses to the physical potential of the work’s active matter. Conservation practices, by affecting the properties the work literally and metaphorically exemplifies, are key to the expressive power of works that employ states of degradation and decay. The argument is illustrated through discussion of works by Zoe Leonard, Marc Quinn, and Kara Walker that literally exemplify actually or potentially decaying materials, as contrasted with works by Ai Weiwei and Sam Taylor-Johnson that represent rather than exemplify decaying materials. (shrink)

The limited aim here is to explain what John Dewey might say about the formulation of the grue example. Nelson Goodman’s problem of distinguishing good and bad inductive inferences is an important one, but the grue example misconstrues this complex problem for certain technical reasons, due to ambiguities that contemporary logical theory has not yet come to terms with. Goodman’s problem is a problem for the theory of induction and thus for logical theory in general. Behind the (...) whole discussion of these issues over the last several decades is a certain view of logic hammered out by Russell, Carnap, Tarski, Quine, and many others. Goodman’s nominalism hinges in essential ways on a certain view of formal logic with an extensional quantification theory at its core. This raises many issues, but the one issue most germane here is the conception of predicates ensconced in this view of logic. (shrink)

Nelson Goodman (1906-2007) approached the arts and other kinds of knowledge as forms of symbolism. His principal aim in philosophy was to advance understanding and remove confusions by verbal analysis and logical constructions. Goodman's philosophical theories encompass nominalism, constructivism and a version of radical relativism. In his Languages of Art, Goodman sets forth distinctions among the various art according to differences in the forms of symbols employed. He contributed as well to arts education and to philosophy (...) of the museum. His performance work, "Hockey Seen: A Nightmare in Three Periods and Sudden Death embodies his aesthetic theories. (shrink)

Nelson Goodman notoriously distinguished between autographic works, whose instances should be identified by taking history of production into account, and allographic works, whose instances can be identified independently of history of production. Scholars such as Jerrold Levinson, Flint Schier, and Gregory Currie have criticized Goodman’s autographic/allographic distinction arguing that all works are such that their instances should be identified by taking history of production into account. I will address this objection by exploiting David Davies’ distinction between e-instances (...) and p-instances of a work, thereby restating the autographic/allographic distinction. Then, I will show that this way of restating this distinction leads us to effective accounts of relevant related phenomena such as forgery, plagiarism, and digital technologies. Finally, I will show the theoretical advantages of my account of the autographic/allographic distinction in comparison with an alternative account recently proposed by Jason D’Cruz and P.D. Magnus. (shrink)

Israel 2004 claims that numerous philosophers have misinterpreted Goodman’s original ‘New Riddle of Induction’, and weakened it in the process, because they do not define ‘grue’ as referring to past observations. Both claims are false: Goodman clearly took the riddle to concern the maximally general problem of “projecting” any type of characteristic from a given realm of objects into another, and since this problem subsumes Israel’s, Goodman formulated a stronger philosophical challenge than the latter surmises.

This paper argues that many so-called digital technologies can be construed as notational technologies, explored through the example of Monegraph, an art and digital asset management platform built on top of the blockchain system originally developed for the cryptocurrency bitcoin. As the paper characterizes it, a notational technology is the performance of syntactic notation within a field of reference, a technologized version of what Nelson Goodman called a “notational system.” Notational technologies produce abstracted entities through positive and reliable, (...) or constitutive, tests of socially acceptable meaning. Accordingly, this account deviates from typical narratives of blockchains, instead demonstrating that blockchain technologies are effective at managing digital assets because they produce abstracted identities through the performance of notation. Since notational technologies rely on configurations of socially acceptable meaning, this paper also provides a philosophical account of how blockchain technologies are socially embedded. (shrink)

Some reflections on Nelson Goodman’s ontological pluralism (as emerging from his Ways of Worldmaking) and its influence on contemporary philosophy, taking the querelle with Quine in the columns of The New York Review of Books as a starting point.

Prominent philosophical accounts of artistic forgery have neglected a central aspect of the aesthetic harm it perpetrates. To be properly understood, forgery must be seen in the context of our ongoing attempts to augment our aesthetic understanding in conditions of uncertainty. The bootstrapping necessary under these conditions requires a highly refined comprehension of historical context. By creating artificial associations among aesthetically relevant qualities and misrepresenting historical relationships, undetected forgeries stunt or distort aesthetic understanding. The effect of this may be quite (...) pervasive, and removing known forgeries from museum walls will be insufficient to eradicate it. Continued attention to forgeries, once exposed, can in fact serve us by increasing our understanding of how aesthetic understanding is formed and by helping us to repair the damage they have inflicted. (shrink)

Extant literature on Goodman’s ‘New Riddle of Induction’ deals mainly with two versions. I consider both of them, starting from the (‘epistemic’) version of Goodman’s classic of 1954. It turns out that it belongs to the realm of applications of inductive logic, and that it can be resolved by admitting only significant evidence (as I call it) for confirmations of hypotheses. Sect. 1 prepares some ground for the argument. As much of it depends on the notion of evidential (...) significance, this concept is defined and its introduction motivated. Further, I introduce and explain the distinction between support and confirmation: put in a slogan, ‘confirmation is support by significant evidence’. The second section deals with the Riddle itself. I demonstrate that, given the provisions of the first section, not ‘anything confirms anything’: significant green-evidence confirms only green-hypotheses (and no grue-hypotheses), and significant grue-evidence confirms only grue-hypotheses (and no green-hypotheses), whichever terms we use for expressing these evidences or hypotheses. The third section rounds off my treatment. First I show that Frank Jackson’s use of his counterfactual condition is unsuccessful. Further, I argue that no unwanted consequences result, if one starts from the other, ‘objective’, definition of ‘grue’, as it constitutes no more than a mere fact of logic that cannot do any harm. Finally, I present a grue-case involving both kinds of definition, where the exclusive confirmation of either the green- or the grue-hypothesis is shown. (shrink)

In 1993, biologist Margie Profet captured the attention of the popular press with the publication of her radical thesis: menstruation has a function. Traditional theories, she claims, typically view menstruation as a functionless by-product of cyclic flux. The details of Profet's functional account are similarly radical: she argues that menstruation has been naturally selected to defend the female reproductive tract from sperm-borne pathogens. There are a number of weaknesses in Profet's evolutionary analysis. However, I focus on a set of pragmatic (...) problems that arise prior to any details of her evolutionary account. In arguing for the importance of pragmatic considerations, I draw from the linguistic analyses of Nelson Goodman. I conclude that critical investigation of the evolutionary details of Profet's pathogen defense account will be more feasible if and when biologists more frequently feature the female system of pathogen defense in their inductive generalisations. The system needs to be better entrenched before its functional components, such as menstruation, can be thoroughly investigated. (shrink)

I convenzionalisti sostengono che le verità fondamentali relative a un qualche ambito (come quelle dell’etica o della matematica) siano non il riflesso dell’esistenza di certi fatti relativi a quell’ambito, “che sono lì a prescindere”, bensì che siano fondate meramente in accordi espliciti o impliciti tra parlanti che parlano di quegli argomenti. Esse non sono verità relative al mondo intorno a noi, bensì verità generate da un sistema di convenzioni che noi stessi abbiamo stabilito. Di conseg...

"Understanding Scientific Progress constitutes a potentially enormous and revolutionary advancement in philosophy of science. It deserves to be read and studied by everyone with any interest in or connection with physics or the theory of science. Maxwell cites the work of Hume, Kant, J.S. Mill, Ludwig Bolzmann, Pierre Duhem, Einstein, Henri Poincaré, C.S. Peirce, Whitehead, Russell, Carnap, A.J. Ayer, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Nelson Goodman, Bas van Fraassen, and numerous others. He lauds Popper for (...) advancing beyond verificationism and Hume’s problem of induction, but faults both Kuhn and Popper for being unable to show that and how their work could lead nearer to the truth." —Dr. LLOYD EBY teaches philosophy at The George Washington University and The Catholic University of America, in Washington, DC "Maxwell's aim-oriented empiricism is in my opinion a very significant contribution to the philosophy of science. I hope that it will be widely discussed and debated." – ALAN SOKAL, Professor of Physics, New York University "Maxwell takes up the philosophical challenge of how natural science makes progress and provides a superb treatment of the problem in terms of the contrast between traditional conceptions and his own scientifically-informed theory—aim-oriented empiricism. This clear and rigorously-argued work deserves the attention of scientists and philosophers alike, especially those who believe that it is the accumulation of knowledge and technology that answers the question."—LEEMON McHENRY, California State University, Northridge "Maxwell has distilled the finest essence of the scientific enterprise. Science is about making the world a better place. Sometimes science loses its way. The future depends on scientists doing the right things for the right reasons. Maxwell's Aim-Oriented Empiricism is a map to put science back on the right track."—TIMOTHY McGETTIGAN, Professor of Sociology, Colorado State University - Pueblo "Maxwell has a great deal to offer with these important ideas, and deserves to be much more widely recognised than he is. Readers with a background in philosophy of science will appreciate the rigour and thoroughness of his argument, while more general readers will find his aim-oriented rationality a promising way forward in terms of a future sustainable and wise social order."—David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer, 2017/2 "This is a book about the very core problems of the philosophy of science. The idea of replacing Standard Empiricism with Aim-Oriented Empiricism is understood by Maxwell as the key to the solution of these central problems. Maxwell handles his main tool masterfully, producing a fascinating and important reading to his colleagues in the field. However, Nicholas Maxwell is much more than just a philosopher of science. In the closing part of the book he lets the reader know about his deep concern and possible solutions of the biggest problems humanity is facing."—Professor PEETER MŰŰREPP, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia “For many years, Maxwell has been arguing that fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, especially the problem of induction, cannot be solved granted standard empiricism (SE), a doctrine which, he thinks, most scientists and philosophers of science take for granted. A key tenet of SE is that no permanent thesis about the world can be accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independent of evidence. For a number of reasons, Maxwell argues, we need to adopt a rather different conception of science which he calls aim-oriented empiricism (AOE). This holds that we need to construe physics as accepting, as a part of theoretical scientific knowledge, a hierarchy of metaphysical theses about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, which become increasingly insubstantial as we go up the hierarchy. In his book “Understanding Scientific Progress: Aim-Oriented Empiricism”, Maxwell gives a concise and excellent illustration of this view and the arguments supporting it… Maxwell’s book is a potentially important contribution to our understanding of scientific progress and philosophy of science more generally. Maybe it is the time for scientists and philosophers to acknowledge that science has to make metaphysical assumptions concerning the knowability and comprehensibility of the universe. Fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, which cannot be solved granted SE, may be solved granted AOE.” Professor SHAN GAO, Shanxi University, China . (shrink)

Quine taught us the difference between a theory’s ontology and its ideology. Ontology is the things a theory’s quantifiers must range over if it is true, Ideology is the primitive concepts that must be used to state the theory. This allows us to split the theoretical virtue of parsimony into two kinds: ontological parsimony and ideological parsimony. My goal is help illuminate the virtue of ideological parsimony by giving a criterion for ideological innocence—a rule for when additional ideology does not (...) count against parsimony. I propose the expressive power innocence criterion: if the ideology of theory one is expressively equivalent to that of theory two, then neither is ideologically simpler than the other. In its favor I offer the argument from accuracy, showing that any account of a theoretical virtue that is supposed to make theories that have it more likely to be true than theories that do not must respect it. Next I consider its ramifications, eliminating rival views and passing judgment on some arguments from parsimony that can be found in the literature. Finally, I consider two objections. First: I address an objection arising from the possibility of languages with a ‘primitive’ operator that allows us to list a theory’s primitives in the object-language. Second: I address an objection raised by Nelson Goodman against attempts to reckon simplicity by expressive power. Both objections fail. (shrink)

This book presents an original theory of the nature of pictorial representation. The most influential recent theory of depiction, put forward by Nelson Goodman, holds that the relation between depictions and what they represent is entirely conventional. Flint Schier argues to the contrary that depiction involves resemblance to the things depicted, providing a sophisticated defence of our basic intuitions on the subject. Canvassing an attractive theory of 'generativity' rather than resemblance, Dr Schier provides a detailed account of depiction, (...) showing how it illuminates and resolves many of the enigmas of pictorial representation while remaining true to our basic intuitions on the subject. Philosophers, psychologists and art theorists will find this a sophisticated and stimulating treatment of one of the central topics in aesthetics. (shrink)

Issues about the nature and ontology of works of art play a central part in contemporary aesthetics. But such issues are complicated by the fact that there seem to be two fundamentally different kinds of artworks. First, a visual artwork such as a picture or drawing seems to be closely identified with a particular physical object, in that even an exact copy of it does not count as being genuinely the same work of art. Nelson Goodman describes such (...) works as being “autographic.” Second, other artworks such as musical or literary works seem to be copyable without any such limitations: for example, two identical copies of a novel could each equally be a genuine instance of that novel; such works are “allographic,” in Goodman’s terminology. Nevertheless, it seems clear enough that a deeper understanding of both kinds of artworks requires the pursuit of analogies or similarities between them, in spite of their differences. Any such analogies that may be found will provide critical tests for more general theories about the nature of artworks. I show how to resolve such analogies for the orientational concept of inversion. (shrink)

This paper considers the medium of videogames from a goodmanian standpoint. After some preliminary clarifications and definitions, I examine the ontological status of videogames. Against several existing accounts, I hold that what grounds their identity qua work types is code. The rest of the paper is dedicated to the epistemology of videogaming. Drawing on Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin's works, I suggest that the best model to defend videogame cognitivism appeals to the notion of understanding.

Despre necesitatea şi utilitatea dezvoltării unei filosofii specifice tehnologiei blockchain, accentuând pe aspectele ontologice. După o Introducere în care evidenţiez principalele direcţii filosofice pentru această tehnologie emergentă, în Tehnologia blockchain explicitez modul de funcţionare al blockchain, punând în discuţie direcţiile ontologice de dezvoltare în Proiectarea şi Modelarea acestei tehnologii. Următoarea secţiune este dedicată principalei aplicaţii a tehnologiei blockchain, Bitcoin, cu implicaţiile sociale ale acestei criptovalute. Urmează o secţiune de Filosofie în care identific tehnologia blockchain cu conceptul de heterotopie dezvoltat de (...) Michel Foucault şi o interpretez în lumina tehnologiei notaţionale dezvoltată de Nelson Goodman ca sistem notaţional. În secţiunea Ontologii dezvolt două direcţii de dezvoltare considerate de mine ca importante: Ontologia narativă, bazată pe ideea de ordine şi structură a istoriei transmise prin naraţia istoriei a lui Paul Ricoeur, şi un sistem ontologic bazat pe Ontologiile de intreprindere, bazat pe conceptele şi modelele de intreprindere specifice webului semantic, şi pe care eu îl consider cel mai bine dezvoltat şi cel care va deveni, probabil, sistemul ontologic formal, cel puţin în ceea ce priveşte aspectele economice şi juridice ale tehnologiei blockchain. În Concluzii vorbesc despre direcţiile viitoare de dezvoltare a filosofiei tehnologiei blockchain în general ca o teorie explicativă şi robustă din punct de vedere fenomenologic, consistentă şi care să permită testabilitatea, şi a ontologiilor în special, argumentând pentru necesitatea unei adopţii globale a unui sistem ontologic pentru a dezvolta soluţii transversale şi a rentabiliza tehnologia. -/- Cuvinte cheie: filosofie, blockchain, ontologie, bitcoin, proiectare, modele -/- CUPRINS -/- Abstract Introducere Tehnologia blockchain - - - Proiectare - - - Modele Bitcoin Filosofia Ontologii - - - Ontologii narative - - - Ontologii de intreprindere Concluzii Note Bibliografie -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.25492.35204. (shrink)

The artefacts produced by artists during their creation of works of art are very various: paintings, writings, musical scores, and so on. I have a general thesis to offer about the relations of artefacts and artworks, but within the confines of this article I shall mainly discuss cases drawn from the art of painting, central specimens of which seem to be autographic in Nelson Goodman's sense, namely such that even the most exact duplication of them does not count (...) as producing the same work of art. My view will be that an artwork (such as a painting) and its associated artefact are not identical, and nor is the artefact in any sense part of the painting in question,2 but that nevertheless it is still possible to maintain the view that paintings are autographic (which view I shall call l the autographic thesis). I shall proceed initially through presentation of some counter-examples to common assumptions as to the relations of artefacts and artworks, and then present an alternative 'representational' theory of their relations. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to provide a solution to Nelson Goodman’s Imperfect Community difficulty as it arises for Resemblance Nominalism, the view that properties are classes of resembling particulars. The Imperfect Community difficulty consists in that every two members of a class resembling each other is not sufficient for it to be a class such that there is some property common to all their members, even if ‘x resembles y’ is understood as ‘x and y share (...) some property’. In the paper I explain and criticise several solutions to the difficulty. Then I develop my own solution, which is not subject to the objections I make to the other solutions, and which accords completely with the basic tenets of Resemblance Nominalism. (shrink)

Maps and mapping raise questions about models and modeling and in science. This chapter archives map discourse in the founding generation of philosophers of science (e.g., Rudolf Carnap, Nelson Goodman, Thomas Kuhn, and Stephen Toulmin) and in the subsequent generation (e.g., Philip Kitcher, Helen Longino, and Bas van Fraassen). In focusing on these two original framing generations of philosophy of science, I intend to remove us from the heat of contemporary discussions of abstraction, representation, and practice of science (...) and thereby see in a more distant and neutral light the many productive ways in which maps can stand in analytically for scientific theories and models. The chapter concludes by complementing the map analogy – i.e., a scientific theory is a map of the world – with a model analogy, viz., a scientific model is a vehicle for understanding. (shrink)

This paper argues against definitions of depiction in terms of the syntactic and semantic properties of symbol systems. In particular, it is argued that John Kulvicki's definition of depictive symbol systems in terms of relative repleteness, semantic richness, syntactic sensitivity and transparency is susceptible to similar counterexamples as Nelson Goodman's in terms of syntactic density, semantic density and relative repleteness. The general moral drawn is that defining depiction requires attention not merely to descriptive questions about syntax and semantics, (...) but also to foundational questions about what makes it the case that depictions have the syntactic and semantic properties they do. (shrink)

It is a common intuition in scientific practice that positive instances confirm. This confirmation, at least based purely on syntactic considerations, is what Nelson Goodman’s ‘Grue Problem’, and more generally the ‘New Riddle’ of Induction, attempt to defeat. One treatment of the Grue Problem has been made along Bayesian lines, wherein the riddle reduces to a question of probability assignments. In this paper, I consider this so-called Bayesian Grue Problem and evaluate how one might proffer a solution to (...) this problem utilizing what I call a phenomenological approach. I argue that this approach to the problem can be successful on the Bayesian framework. (shrink)