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Full Idea
Rather than a sentence being used for prediction because it is a law, it is called a law because it is used for prediction.
Gist of Idea
We don't use laws to make predictions, we call things laws if we make predictions with them
Source
Nelson Goodman (Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th ed) [1954], p.21), quoted by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §5.4
Book Ref
Psillos,Stathis: 'Causation and Explanation' [Acumen 2002], p.142
A Reaction
This smacks of dodgy pragmatism, and sounds deeply wrong. The perception of a law has to be prior to making the prediction. Why do we make the prediction, if we haven't spotted a law. Goodman is mesmerised by language instead of reality.
| 18749 | Goodman argued that the confirmation relation can never be formalised [Goodman, by Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| 17646 | Goodman showed that every sound inductive argument has an unsound one of the same form [Goodman, by Putnam] |
| 14292 | Dispositions seem more ethereal than behaviour; a non-occult account of them would be nice [Goodman] |
| 4794 | We don't use laws to make predictions, we call things laws if we make predictions with them [Goodman] |
| 12394 | If the result is bad, we change the rule; if we like the rule, we reject the result [Goodman] |