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Nelson Goodman
Nelson Goodman
Nelson Goodman
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Henry Nelson Goodman (7 August 1906 – 25 November 1998) was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics.

Key Information

Life and career

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Goodman was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, the son of Sarah Elizabeth (née Woodbury) and Henry Lewis Goodman.[2] He was of Jewish origins.[3] He graduated from Harvard University, AB, magna cum laude (1928). During the 1930s, he ran an art gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, while studying for a Harvard PhD in philosophy, which he completed in 1941.[4] His experience as an art dealer helps explain his later turn towards aesthetics, where he became better known than in logic and analytic philosophy. During World War II, he served as a psychologist in the US Army.[5]

He taught at the University of Pennsylvania, 1946–1964, where his students included Noam Chomsky, Sidney Morgenbesser, Stephen Stich, and Hilary Putnam. He was a research fellow at the Harvard Center for Cognitive Studies from 1962 to 1963 and was a professor at Brandeis University from 1964 to 1967, before being appointed Professor of Philosophy at Harvard in 1968.[6]

In 1967, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he was the founding director of Harvard Project Zero, a basic research project in artistic cognition and artistic education. He remained the director for four years and served as an informal adviser for many years thereafter.[7]

Goodman died in Needham, Massachusetts.

Philosophical work

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Induction and "grue"

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In his book Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, Goodman introduced the "new riddle of induction", so-called by analogy with Hume's classical problem of induction. He accepted Hume's observation that inductive reasoning (i.e. inferring from past experience about events in the future) was based solely on human habit and regularities to which our day-to-day existence has accustomed us. Goodman argued, however, that Hume overlooked the fact that some regularities establish habits (a given piece of copper conducting electricity increases the credibility of statements asserting that other pieces of copper conduct electricity) while some do not (the fact that a given man in a room is a third son does not increase the credibility of statements asserting that other men in this room are third sons).

Hempel's confirmation theory argued that the solution is to differentiate between hypotheses, which apply to all things of a certain class, and evidence statements, which apply to only one thing. Goodman's famous counterargument was to introduce the predicate grue, which applies to all things examined before a certain time t just in case they are green, but also to other things just in case they are blue and not examined before time t. If we examine emeralds before time t and find that emerald a is green, emerald b is green, and so forth, each will confirm the hypothesis that all emeralds are green. However, emeralds a, b, c,..etc. also confirm the hypothesis that all emeralds are grue. Thus, before time t, the apparently law-like statements "All emeralds are green" and "All emeralds are grue" are equally well confirmed by observation, but obviously "All emeralds are grue" is not a law-like statement.[clarification needed]

Goodman's example showed that the difficulty in determining what constitutes law-like statements is far greater than previously thought, and that once again we find ourselves facing the initial dilemma that "anything can confirm anything".

Nominalism and mereology

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Goodman, along with Stanislaw Lesniewski, is the founder of the contemporary variant of nominalism, which argues that philosophy, logic, and mathematics should dispense with set theory. Goodman's nominalism was driven purely by ontological considerations. After a long and difficult 1947 paper coauthored with W. V. O. Quine, Goodman ceased to trouble himself with finding a way to reconstruct mathematics while dispensing with set theory – discredited as sole foundations of mathematics as of 1913 (Russell and Whitehead, in Principia Mathematica).

The program of David Hilbert to reconstruct it from logical axioms was proven futile in 1931 by Gödel. Because of this and other failures of seemingly fruitful lines of research, Quine soon came to believe that such a reconstruction was impossible, but Goodman's Penn colleague Richard Milton Martin argued otherwise, writing a number of papers suggesting ways forward.

According to Thomas Tymoczko's afterword in New directions in the philosophy of mathematics, Quine had "urged that we abandon ad hoc devices distinguishing mathematics from science and just accept the resulting assimilation", putting the "key burden on the theories (networks of sentences) that we accept, not on the individual sentences whose significance can change dramatically depending on their theoretical context." In so doing, Tymoczko claimed, philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science were merged into quasi-empiricism: the emphasis of mathematical practice as effectively part of the scientific method, an emphasis on method over result.

The Goodman–Leonard (1940) calculus of individuals is the starting point for the American variant of mereology. While the exposition in Goodman and Leonard invoked a bit of naive set theory, the variant of the calculus of individuals that grounds Goodman's 1951 The Structure of Appearance, a revision and extension of his PhD thesis, makes no mention of the notion of set (while his PhD thesis still did).[8] Simons (1987) and Casati and Varzi (1999) show that the calculus of individuals can be grounded in either a bit of set theory, or monadic predicates, schematically employed. Mereology is accordingly "ontologically neutral" and retains some of Quine's pragmatism (which Tymoczko in 1998 carefully qualified as American Pragmatism).

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See also

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Notes

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References

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Nelson Goodman

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Henry Nelson Goodman (August 7, 1906 – November 25, 1998) was an influential American philosopher whose work spanned , , , and , challenging traditional notions of representation, induction, and world through rigorous analytic methods. Born in , Goodman integrated logic and symbolism to argue that multiple "worlds" are constructed via diverse symbol systems, treating art as a cognitive tool on par with . His ideas, often constructivist and anti-absolutist, profoundly shaped 20th-century by rejecting sharp dualisms like analytic/synthetic and emphasizing the role of human practices in shaping reality. Goodman earned his A.B. in 1928 and Ph.D. in philosophy in 1941 from , where his dissertation, A Study of Qualities, laid early groundwork for his nominalist approach to phenomena. During his graduate years, he co-directed the Walker-Goodman Art Gallery in from 1929 to 1941, fostering his lifelong engagement with . His academic career included teaching positions at Tufts College (1945–1946), the (1946–1964), (1964–1967), and Harvard (1968–1977), where he retired as Professor Emeritus. He served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945 and founded Harvard's in 1967, a pioneering initiative exploring artistic and education. Married to Katharine Sturgis Goodman for over 50 years until her death in 1996, he passed away in , following a . Goodman's seminal contributions include the "" via the grue paradox in Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (1955), which critiques Humean induction by highlighting how predicates like "grue" (green until a certain time, then blue) undermine projectibility. In The Structure of Appearance (1951), he developed a nominalist as an alternative to , constructing a logical framework for qualities without abstract sets. His revolutionized the field in Languages of Art (1968; second edition 1976), proposing that artworks function through symbol systems involving , , and expression, thus equating artistic understanding with scientific . Later, Ways of Worldmaking (1978) advanced his irrealism, asserting that worlds are "made" rather than discovered, through version-making via , , and —a view co-developed with collaborators like W.V. Quine and Morton White. These works, alongside Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences (1988, with Catherine Z. Elgin), underscore his legacy as a bridge between logic, , and .

Life and Education

Early Years

Henry Nelson Goodman was born on August 7, 1906, in Somerville, Massachusetts, into a middle-class Jewish family that was not particularly religious. His parents were Sarah Elizabeth (née Woodbury) Goodman, a homemaker, and Henry Lewis Goodman, a clothing manufacturer; he was their only child. Raised in the Boston area, Goodman attended local public schools, where his intellectual curiosity began to emerge amid the cultural and academic environment of early 20th-century New England. From an early age, Goodman displayed a keen interest in and logic, fostered through self-directed study and familial encouragement. By the time he reached high school in the early 1920s, he was already delving into advanced texts on these subjects, honing skills that would later define his philosophical approach. These formative experiences in quantitative reasoning and logical provided a foundation for his analytical mindset, distinct from more traditional humanistic pursuits. The era (1914–1918), which spanned Goodman's childhood years, exposed him to broader societal upheavals, including discussions of ethics, international conflict, and human reasoning that permeated American intellectual life. Although too young for direct involvement, this period likely contributed to his developing , emphasizing rigorous thought amid ; however, he later served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945 in a role as a . His initial forays into occurred through independent reading of foundational works and engagement with Boston's vibrant local intellectual circles, where ideas in logic and circulated among educated communities. These early influences culminated in Goodman's decision to pursue formal education, entering in 1924 to study and related fields.

Academic Training

Goodman enrolled at in 1924 as an undergraduate student. During his time there, he engaged deeply with , particularly under the guidance of , whose and emphasis on constructive systems profoundly influenced Goodman's emerging ideas about building conceptual frameworks from basic elements. This exposure to Whitehead's logical and scientific approaches helped shape Goodman's lifelong interest in how systems of description and organization underpin and . Goodman graduated from Harvard in 1928 with a degree, magna cum laude. Following graduation, he began graduate studies in while supporting himself through work co-directing the Walker-Goodman in , which allowed him to continue exploring philosophical questions amid practical engagements with . A key influence during this period was , whose pragmatic emphasized the role of conceptual schemes in experience and provided Goodman with foundational tools for analyzing and perceptual structures. Goodman's early dissertation work, supervised by Lewis, focused on the structure of appearance, examining how qualities and phenomena can be systematically constructed within nominalistic frameworks without relying on abstract entities. This research culminated in his 1941 doctoral dissertation, A Study of Qualities, which he later revised and expanded into his first book, The Structure of Appearance, published in 1951 by . The work laid the groundwork for Goodman's constructivist approach, integrating insights from his undergraduate formation into a rigorous of sensory data and symbolic systems.

Professional Career

Teaching and Mentorship

Goodman's academic teaching career began shortly after his military service in , when he served as an instructor in philosophy at Tufts College from 1945 to 1946. He then joined the in 1946 as an associate professor, advancing to full professor in 1951 and remaining there until 1964, where his courses emphasized logic and metaphysics, including topics like and formal systems. He then served as the Harry Austryn Wolfson Professor of Philosophy at from 1964 to 1967. During this period, Goodman cultivated a reputation for rigorous instruction that integrated analytical precision with broader philosophical inquiry, influencing a generation of students through his focus on foundational problems in reasoning and . In 1968, Goodman returned to as a professor of , where he taught until his retirement in 1977, offering courses in , , and the . His Harvard seminars explored the intersections of , symbolic representation, and , often drawing on his own evolving ideas to challenge conventional boundaries between disciplines. At Harvard, Goodman's mentorship was particularly notable with students like Catherine Z. Elgin, who earned her PhD in 1977 and became a lifelong collaborator, co-authoring works that extended his theories into and understanding. He also guided earlier figures such as , whose interactions with Goodman at and later shaped Putnam's approaches to realism and induction, promoting an interdisciplinary ethos that bridged with science and . Goodman's pedagogical style centered on problem-solving and , encouraging students to engage as an active process of questioning assumptions rather than accepting dogmatic positions. In his seminars on induction and art, he fostered —balancing intuitive judgments with logical analysis—to develop , often using real-world examples from science and to illustrate conceptual challenges without prescribing solutions. This approach not only demystified complex ideas but also inspired students to pursue innovative, cross-disciplinary work, leaving a lasting impact on philosophical education.

Institutional Roles and Projects

Goodman joined the faculty as Professor of in 1968, serving until his retirement in 1977 and contributing to the department's emphasis on and interdisciplinary approaches that bridged with the arts and sciences. In 1967, Goodman founded and directed at the , an interdisciplinary research program dedicated to investigating artistic cognition and improving arts education by focusing on through aesthetic experiences; he led the initiative until 1972. Upon retiring, Goodman was appointed Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Harvard, a status he held until his death in 1998, during which he maintained active scholarly engagement through collaborations on multimedia performance projects and the preservation of his extensive papers in the Harvard University Archives, ensuring ongoing access to his work for researchers.

Philosophical Contributions

Epistemology and the New Riddle of Induction

In his influential book Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (1955), Nelson Goodman critiqued traditional accounts of inductive logic, particularly those stemming from David Hume's , by demonstrating that the confirmation of scientific hypotheses relies not solely on observational data but crucially on the predicates employed in describing those observations. Goodman argued that inductive inference assumes a uniformity in nature, yet this assumption fails to explain why certain generalizations are deemed reliable for prediction while others, equally supported by evidence, are not. This critique, central to his , shifts the focus from empirical patterns alone to the linguistic and conceptual frameworks that structure scientific reasoning. Goodman articulated his challenge through the "," exemplified by the predicate grue, defined as follows: an object is grue if and only if it has been observed before time tt and is , or has not been observed before time tt and is . Consider emeralds observed to be prior to tt; these observations confirm both the "all emeralds are " and "all emeralds are grue." However, while the former is intuitively projectible—warranting the that future emeralds will also be —the latter implies that unobserved emeralds after tt will be , a we reject despite equivalent evidential support. This illustrates that projectibility, the capacity of a predicate to license inductive generalizations beyond observed instances, cannot be determined by mere conformity to past data, as countless contrived predicates like "grue" could fit any finite set of observations. To resolve this riddle, Goodman rejected solutions based on "natural kinds," the notion that projectible predicates correspond to inherent categories in the world discoverable through . Instead, he proposed that projectibility arises from the entrenchment of predicates, a historical and conventional process wherein a predicate becomes entrenched through its repeated successful use in past inductive projections that have proven reliable. For instance, "" is highly entrenched in everyday and scientific language due to centuries of consistent application, whereas "grue" lacks such history and thus remains unprojectible. This entrenchment is not absolute but relative to linguistic communities and practices, emphasizing that inductive justification is pragmatic and context-dependent rather than grounded in universal principles. The implications of Goodman's framework extend deeply into scientific methodology, challenging the ideal of induction as a mechanical application of uniform rules. By highlighting the role of entrenched predicates, Goodman showed that scientific confirmation involves intertwined empirical, linguistic, and conventional factors, where the choice of descriptive terms influences what counts as justified prediction. This view underscores the provisional nature of scientific laws, urging researchers to reflect on the historical underpinnings of their conceptual tools to avoid paradoxes like the grue case, thereby enriching the with a nuanced account of how knowledge is constructed and extended.

Metaphysics: Nominalism and Mereology

Goodman's metaphysical framework is characterized by a staunch , which he developed prominently in The Structure of Appearance (completed in 1941 as his doctoral dissertation and revised in 1951), where he rejects abstract entities such as classes and universals in favor of constructing reality solely from concrete individuals. This approach posits that all entities must be built from particulars without recourse to platonic forms or set-theoretic abstractions, emphasizing a parsimonious grounded in observable, spatiotemporal objects. By denying classes, Goodman avoids the to empty or infinite collections, arguing that such constructs introduce unnecessary and unverifiable entities into philosophical systems. Central to this nominalism is Goodman's adoption of , the theory of parts and wholes originally formulated by Stanisław Leśniewski, which he adapted in collaboration with to create systems free from . In their seminal 1940 paper, "The Calculus of Individuals and Its Uses," Goodman and Leonard present as a formal alternative where individuals serve as the basic units, and wholes are defined as mereological sums—compositions of overlapping parts without invoking classes. This calculus allows for the construction of complex structures through relations of parthood, overlap, and fusion, enabling a nominalistic reconstruction of logical and mathematical concepts that platonists would attribute to abstract sets. Goodman's critique of extends to and logic, where he contends that platonic commitments to eternal, abstract objects undermine empirical rigor and lead to obscurities in identity criteria. Instead, the calculi of individuals provide a mereological basis for composition, treating mathematical entities as sums of rather than ideal forms, thus aligning with scientific practice. This framework critiques traditional logic's reliance on classes as a form of "platonistic" excess, advocating mereological alternatives that preserve expressive power without ontological inflation. Goodman extends this nominalistic to the realm of , rejecting the notion of sense data as unconstructed "givens" in favor of phenomenal individuals as the foundational elements from which appearances are built. In The Structure of Appearance, are treated as abstract, repeatable phenomenal individuals that can be mereologically combined to form experiential wholes, such as visual fields or auditory events. This constructionist view denies any privileged, immediate givenness to sensory content, instead deriving it through systematic composition, thereby integrating metaphysics with phenomenology in a nominalist manner.

Philosophy of Language: Counterfactuals

Goodman's analysis of counterfactual conditionals forms a cornerstone of his , emphasizing their role in expressing subjunctive reasoning about hypothetical scenarios. In Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (1955), which reprints and expands upon his earlier essay "The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals" (1947), he defines a counterfactual statement of the form "If A were the case, then C would be the case" as true C follows deductively from A conjoined with a suitable set of cotenable statements—particular facts and general laws that are compatible with A and relevant to the inference. This approach frames counterfactuals as reliant on selective background assumptions rather than a vague notion of overall similarity between possible scenarios. Central to Goodman's account is the rejection of strict similarity as a criterion for determining the truth of counterfactuals, which he argues leads to intractable problems in specifying what counts as "closest" without circularity or arbitrariness. Instead, he proposes a criterion of cotenability, where the auxiliary statements (S) must be such that they, together with the laws of nature, entail C when combined with A, while remaining consistent with the antecedent and excluding irrelevant or incompatible facts. For example, the counterfactual "If that had been struck, it would have lit" holds because striking the match, conjoined with cotenable facts like its dryness and the laws of , entails ignition, without needing to preserve every actual detail of the world. This selective entailment from established laws and facts avoids the pitfalls of holistic similarity metrics, providing a more rigorous, law-governed evaluation. Goodman further connects counterfactuals to inductive practices, viewing them as unactualized projections grounded in the same entrenched s that support predictive generalizations. Just as induction relies on projectible predicates to extend past observations into future expectations, counterfactuals depend on these well-confirmed s to project what would occur under altered conditions, treating them as extensions of factual reasoning into the subjunctive realm. This linkage underscores the interdependence of , , and hypothesis formation, where the validity of counterfactual assertions mirrors the entrenchment of inductive hypotheses. Goodman's framework exerted significant influence on subsequent developments in possible worlds semantics for counterfactuals, notably prefiguring David Lewis's 1973 analysis in Counterfactuals by invoking a notion of "minimal alteration" akin to closest-world selection, yet without committing to the existence of concrete possible worlds or . Lewis adopted and refined the closest-world idea using similarity relations, but Goodman's entailment-based approach offered an alternative premise semantics that prioritizes logical derivation over ontological multiplicity, influencing non-realist interpretations in .

Aesthetics: Symbols and Representation

In his seminal work Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (1968), Nelson Goodman developed a comprehensive treating as diverse systems of symbols that function through , much like languages in science and everyday communication. He argued that artistic symbols operate via syntactic and semantic structures, where pictorial representation, for instance, relies on dense and syntactically replete systems—characterized by continuous variation in which even minor alterations can signify entirely different referents, as seen in paintings where patterns of color and shape denote objects or scenes without requiring literal resemblance. This approach emphasized the conventional and arbitrary nature of representation, rejecting intuitive notions of natural similarity in favor of learned symbolic conventions. Central to Goodman's aesthetics is the distinction between representation and expression, where the former involves straightforward —a referring to a class of objects it labels—while the latter entails , in which a sample possesses and highlights certain properties it instantiates, as in a fabric denoting its texture or a exemplifying stylistic features like brushwork. In artistic contexts, expression thus goes beyond mere labeling to actively possessing and displaying the qualities it symbolizes, allowing works to "apply to themselves" in a way that mere denotation does not. This framework aligns with Goodman's nominalist metaphysics by avoiding abstract universals, treating symbols as concrete particulars that refer through relational systems rather than inherent essences. Goodman positioned art as having a profound cognitive role, enabling understanding and through multifaceted systems comparable to those in scientific inquiry, thereby dismissing the traditional that art merely imitates . Instead, artworks facilitate cognitive extension by training and interpretation across dense, replete, or discrete notations, fostering skills in manipulation that enhance comprehension of the world. This cognitive emphasis underscores art's epistemic value, where engagement with cultivates habits of mind akin to scientific reasoning, prioritizing reference and truth over emotional or decorative functions. Goodman's theory applies broadly to various artistic media: in , dense systems like denote through holistic patterns; in music, discrete notations like scores provide exact replication; and in , syntactic density allows for layered semantic references. These ideas have profoundly influenced by providing an analytical toolkit for dissecting symbolic functions in culture and communication. Furthermore, through his founding of at Harvard in 1967, Goodman extended these principles to art education, promoting curricula that emphasize cognitive processes in arts learning—such as symbol production and interpretation—to develop perceptual and critical skills, as detailed in the project's early reports and ongoing programs.

Constructivism: Worldmaking and Cognitive Extension

In his 1978 book Ways of Worldmaking, Nelson Goodman developed a constructivist positing that realities, or "worlds," are not discovered but actively constructed through human practices such as categorization, projection, and composition. He argued that there is no singular "one true world" awaiting representation; instead, multiple versions of the world are created and deemed "right" based on their utility and fit within established systems, rather than strict correspondence to an underlying reality. Goodman outlined specific processes of worldmaking, including deletion and supplementation (omitting or adding elements to sparse data, as in scientific ), weighting (emphasizing certain features over others to alter relevance), ordering (arranging elements according to systems like temporal sequences or hierarchies), and composition and (breaking wholes into parts or combining them, such as taxonomic classifications). These operations, drawn from diverse fields like , , and everyday , enable the fabrication of versions without reliance on a neutral given; for instance, a supplements uncharted areas while deleting irrelevant details to form a functional world-version. This framework embodies an irrealism that rejects a monolithic , affirming multiple conflicting worlds as actual—such as geocentric and heliocentric versions—without descending into , since not all versions qualify as right. Central to Goodman's constructivism is the extension of , where mind and world are co-constituted through symbolic practices, extending beyond mere mental processes to encompass how symbols in and collaboratively shape . He critiqued the notion of an unconceptualized "given" in , asserting that "there is no without conception," as all understanding imposes structure and thus fabricates versions from the outset. This co-constitution links artistic symbolization—briefly, as explored in his —to scientific inquiry, blurring boundaries between creative and empirical endeavors. The implications for and are profound: scientific theories construct fertile versions through projectible predicates and supplementation, judged not by mirroring an external world but by coherence () and fertility (capacity to yield further insights and applications). In , this means sensory input is always interpreted via preconceived categories, rendering direct access to illusory and emphasizing the constructive of cognitive frameworks in building viable worlds.
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