Barker and Achinstein on Goodman

Barker and Achinstein think that it is not possible for a predicate like grue to serve as well as a predicate like green in the role of a qualitative or non-positional predicate. Their arguments consist in a number of attempts to show that one who possesses green in his language can do things with that predicate which one who must work with grue instead cannot do. However, they succeed in showing only that a qualitative predicate is better adapted to our needs than its positional counterpart, rather than that grue is not capable of being a qualitative predicate.     

Goodman and Putnam on the Making of Worlds

Hilary Putnam and Nelson Goodman are two of the twentieth century's most persuasive critics of metaphysical realism, however they disagree about the consequences of rejecting metaphysical realism. Goodman defended a view he called irrealism in which minds literally make worlds, and Putnam has sought to find a middle path between metaphysical realism and irrealism. I argue that Putnam's middle path turns out to be very elusive and defend a dichotomy between metaphysical realism and irrealism.     

The paradoxes of analysis and synonymy

The very idea of informative analysis gives rise to a well-known paradox. Yet a parallel puzzle, herein called the paradox of synonymy, arises for statements which do not express analyses. The paradox of synonymy has a straightforward metalinguistic solution: certain words are referring to themselves. Likewise, the paradox of analysis can be solved by recognizing that certain expressions in an analysis statement are referring to their own semantic structures.     

Hume,Goodman and radical inductive skepticism

Goodman concurs in Hume’s contention that no theory has any probability relative to any set of data, and offers two accounts, compatible with that contention, of how some inductive inferences are nevertheless justified. The first, framed in terms of rules of inductive inference, is well known, significantly flawed, and enmeshed in Goodman’s unfortunate entrenchment theory and view of the mind as hypothesizing at random. The second, framed in terms of characteristics of inferred theories rather than rules of inference, is less well known, but provides a compelling view of inductive justification. Once the two accounts are clearly delineated, one can see that both are driven by a single deep conviction: that inductive justification can only be understood in terms of our actual inductive practice.