Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'A Puzzle about Belief', 'Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th ed)' and 'Space, Time and Deity (2 vols)'

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7 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / C. Ontology of Logic / 4. Logic by Convention

12394	If the result is bad, we change the rule; if we like the rule, we reject the result [Goodman]
	Full Idea: A rule is amended if it yields an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend.
	From: Nelson Goodman (Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th ed) [1954], p.64)
	A reaction: This is clearly in tune with Quine's assertion that logic is potentially revisable, and the idea is pragmatist in spirit. It is hard to deny that intuitions about what makes a good argument control our logic. I say the world controls our intuitions.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions

14292	Dispositions seem more ethereal than behaviour; a non-occult account of them would be nice [Goodman]
	Full Idea: Dispositions of a thing are as important to us as overt behaviour, but they strike us by comparison as rather ethereal. So we are moved to enquire whether we can bring them down to earth, and explain disposition terms without reference to occult powers.
	From: Nelson Goodman (Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th ed) [1954], II.3)
	A reaction: Mumford quotes this at the start of his book on dispositions, as his agenda. I suspect that the 'occult' aspect crept in because dispositions were based on powers, and the dominant view was that these were the immediate work of God.

14. Science / C. Induction / 5. Paradoxes of Induction / a. Grue problem

18749	Goodman argued that the confirmation relation can never be formalised [Goodman, by Horsten/Pettigrew]
	Full Idea: Goodman constructed arguments that purported to show that a satisfactory syntactic analysis of the confirmation relation can never be found. In response, philosophers of science tried to model it in probabilistic terms.
	From: report of Nelson Goodman (Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th ed) [1954]) by Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R - Mathematical Methods in Philosophy 4
	A reaction: I take this idea to say that Bayesianism was developed in response to the grue problem. This is an interesting light on 'grue', which never bothered me much. The point is it scuppered formal attempts to model induction.

17646	Goodman showed that every sound inductive argument has an unsound one of the same form [Goodman, by Putnam]
	Full Idea: Goodman has shown that no purely formal criterion can distinguish arguments that are intuitively sound inductive arguments for unsound ones: for every sound one there is an unsound one of the same form. The predicates in the argument make the difference.
	From: report of Nelson Goodman (Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th ed) [1954]) by Hilary Putnam - Why there isn't a ready-made world 'Causation'
	A reaction: This is to swallow grue whole. I think a bit more chewing is called for. By this date Putnam strikes me as a crazy relativist who has lost his grip on the world. Note the word 'formal' - but Putnam seems to think the argument is important.

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 6. Epiphenomenalism

14494	Epiphenomenalism is like a pointless nobleman, kept for show, but soon to be abolished [Alexander,S]
	Full Idea: Epiphenomenalism supposes something to exist in nature which has nothing to do, no purpose to serve, a species of noblesse which depends on the work of its inferiors, but is kept for show and might as well, and undoubtedly would in time be abolished.
	From: Samuel Alexander (Space, Time and Deity (2 vols) [1927], 2:8), quoted by Jaegwon Kim - Nonreductivist troubles with ment.causation IV
	A reaction: Wonderful! Kim quotes this, and labels the implicit slogan (to be real is to have causal powers) 'Alexander's Dictum'. All the examples given of epiphenomena are only causally inert within a defined system, but they act causally outside the system.

18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 5. Mental Files

16383	Puzzled Pierre has two mental files about the same object [Recanati on Kripke]
	Full Idea: In Kripke's puzzle about belief, the subject has two distinct mental files about one and the same object.
	From: comment on Saul A. Kripke (A Puzzle about Belief [1979]) by François Recanati - Mental Files 17.1
	A reaction: [Pierre distinguishes 'London' from 'Londres'] The Kripkean puzzle is presented as very deep, but I have always felt there was a simple explanation, and I suspect that this is it (though I will leave the reader to think it through, as I'm very busy…).

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 3. Laws and Generalities

4794	We don't use laws to make predictions, we call things laws if we make predictions with them [Goodman]
	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.
	From: Nelson Goodman (Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th ed) [1954], p.21), quoted by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §5.4
	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.