Analyzing Nelson Goodman's Argument

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I will discuss Nelson Goodman’s understanding of the problem of induction. Inductive arguments are arguments in which the premises (propositions) provide strong evidence for the truth of its conclusion. I will begin by examining an inductive argument where using the proposition that “all observed emeralds are green”, we can conclude that “all emeralds are green”. As shown, sometimes, through such arguments we draw conclusions based on unobserved cases. This can be considered a problem (the problem of induction), especially if such conclusions are made without any justification. I will now examine another inductive argument which involves the statement “all observed emeralds are green” as the first premise and the Principle of Uniformity of Nature (PUN) as the second. According to the PUN, all unobserved instances in nature are like observed instances. Accordingly, the conclusion of the above argument would be “all emeralds are green”, which seems to be justified. Looking at the above argument, it is not surprising to believe that someone might think justifying the PUN would solve the problem of induction. …show more content…

This idea can be made clearer by Goodman’s argument, where an object is “grue” if and only if it is first observed before the year 2050 and green, or it is not first observed before the year 2050 and blue. The first premise of Goodman’s argument is that “all observed emeralds have been “grue” and the second is the PUN. Through induction, we conclude that “all emeralds are “grue”. Assuming the PUN is true, this gives us two contradictory conclusions. The conclusion of the first argument requires all emeralds to be green while the conclusion of Goodman’s argument allows the possibility of emeralds to be grue (and blue provided they are not observed before the year 2050). This is a clear failure of the

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