David Hume drew our attention to the popular problem about inductive reasoning, which can be seen as an argument that cannot provide a circular justification for inductive reasoning. However, Nelson Goodman’s problem is different, because he is not questioning how we can justify induction, but rather what kinds of inductive practices are valid, and unfortunately, there is no clear answer to this question. In this paper, I will be explaining Goodman’s «New Riddle of Induction» and how we can ‘solve’ it.
“As principles of deductive inference, we have the familiar and highly developed laws of logic; but there are available no such precisely stated and well-recognized principles of inductive inference.” (Goodman Fact Fiction- New Riddle, p 65), - claims Goodman. …show more content…
He explains it by creating a new term, less familiar than green, it is predicate ‘grue’: Something is ‘grue' if: (a) it is observed before (T1) and is green or
(b) it is observed after (T1) and is blue. with this new definition, everything is making sense now, it gives us clear conditions on what an author is trying to say.
Nelson Goodman is using this example with emeralds: he is saying that all emeralds that we see before time (T1) (i.e. December 8th, 2047) are green up to the time (T1), all observations confirm the hypothesis ‘all emeralds are green’. Consider, for example, the argument that all the first emerald is ‘grue’ and the second emerald is ‘grue’…. and the emerald 546 is ‘grue’ it is getting us to the conclusion that all emeralds are ‘grue’. But this is actually not right, it is not enough to believe that all emeralds which have been observed till now are blue. At this point all the observations before (T1) confirm both: all emeralds are green and all emeralds are ‘grue’
But it is not making any sense because these hypotheses are mutually
“As principles of deductive inference, we have the familiar and highly developed laws of logic; but there are available no such precisely stated and well-recognized principles of inductive inference.” (Goodman Fact Fiction- New Riddle, p 65), - claims Goodman. …show more content…
He explains it by creating a new term, less familiar than green, it is predicate ‘grue’: Something is ‘grue' if: (a) it is observed before (T1) and is green or
(b) it is observed after (T1) and is blue. with this new definition, everything is making sense now, it gives us clear conditions on what an author is trying to say.
Nelson Goodman is using this example with emeralds: he is saying that all emeralds that we see before time (T1) (i.e. December 8th, 2047) are green up to the time (T1), all observations confirm the hypothesis ‘all emeralds are green’. Consider, for example, the argument that all the first emerald is ‘grue’ and the second emerald is ‘grue’…. and the emerald 546 is ‘grue’ it is getting us to the conclusion that all emeralds are ‘grue’. But this is actually not right, it is not enough to believe that all emeralds which have been observed till now are blue. At this point all the observations before (T1) confirm both: all emeralds are green and all emeralds are ‘grue’
But it is not making any sense because these hypotheses are mutually