Loci Communes - C.F.G.

Cogito ergo absum.

[colingorrie]

The root assumption is that there are absolutely simple properties into which others may, and indeed for some purposes must, be analyzed. The nature of this simplicity is obscure to me, since the question whether or not a given property is analyzable seems to me quite as ambiguous as the question whether a given body is in motion. I regard "unanalyzability" as meaningful only with respect to a sphere of reference and a method of analysis, while Carnap seems to regard it as having an absolute meaning.

Goodman, Nelson (1947). On infirmities of confirmation-theory. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 8(1): 149-151. p149

[colingorrie]

Undoubtedly we do make predictions by projecting the patterns of the past into the future, but in selecting the patterns we project from among all those that the past exhibits, we use practical criteria that so far seem to have escaped discovery and formulation.

Goodman, Nelson (1946). A query on confirmation. The Journal of Philosophy 43(14): 383-385. p385

[colingorrie]

The entrenchment of a given predicate as antecedent and as consequent may not be equal; but in saying that the consequent of one hypothesis is, for example, better entrenched than the consequent of another, I am always speaking of the comparative entrenchment of the two predicates _as consequents_. And likewise, in the case of antecedents, what is relevant is their entrenchment _as antecedents_.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 104-105.

[colingorrie]

[N]onprojectibility does not in general imply illegitimacy. Even the best entrenched competing hypotheses are nonprojectible when further evidence is needed to decide between them.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 103

[colingorrie]

A hypothesis is _projectible_ if all conflicting hypotheses are overridden, _unprojectible_ if overridden, and _nonprojectible_ if in conflict with another hypothesis and neither is overridden.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 101

[colingorrie]

The reason why only the right predicates happen so luckily to have become well entrenched is just that the well entrenched predicates have thereby become the right ones.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 98

[colingorrie]

When the time comes, the hypothesis that all emeralds are green may prove to be false, and the hypothesis that all are grue may prove to be true. We have no guarantees. The criterion for the legitimacy of projections cannot be truth that is as yet undetermined. Failure to recognize this was responsible, as we saw, for some of the worst misconceptions of the problem of induction.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 99

[colingorrie]

I am not much concerned with whether the entrenchment or the projectibility comes first.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 98

[colingorrie]

Somewhat like Kant, we are saying that inductive validity depends not only on what is presented but also on how it is organized; but the organization we point to is effected by the use of language and is not attributed to anything inevitable or immutable in the nature of human cognition.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 96-97

[colingorrie]

One principle for eliminating unprojectible projections, then, is that a projection is to be ruled out if it conflicts with the projection of a much better entrenched predicate.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 96

[colingorrie]

The entrenchment of a predicate alone but also of all predicates coextensive with it. In a sense, not the word itself but the class it selects is what becomes entrenched.... On the other hand, the class becomes entrenched only through the projection of predicates selecting it

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 95

[colingorrie]

[I]f we count the occasions when each hypothesis [i.e. 'all so-and-sos are green' and 'all so-and-sos are blue'] was in this sense available for projection [i.e. supported, unviolated, and unexhausted], the two predicates have equal status. The significant difference appears only if we consider just those occasions when each predicate was actually projected.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 94-95

[colingorrie]

[N]either the violated nor the exhausted hypotheses are ... denied to have been projectible at an earlier time.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 93

[colingorrie]

[A] hypothesis may remain unviolated at a given time even though some of its past-instance-statements are in fact false; for the violation of a hypothesis consists rather in one of its instances having been _already_ determined to be false.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 91-92

[colingorrie]

When all the undetermined cases of a hypothesis are future cases, its projection is a prediction. Very often, however, undetermined cases may be past cases; and here we have a projection that is not a prediction.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 90-91

[colingorrie]

Obviously, adoption of an exhausted hypothesis involves nothing that we would want to call projection.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 90

[colingorrie]

[A]doption of a hypothesis constitutes actual projection only if at the time in question the hypothesis has some undetermined cases, some positive cases, and no negative cases.

Goodman, Nelson (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Fourth Edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 90