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Philosophy 8 10/19/2017

Nelson Goodman’s New Riddle of Induction

Nelson Goodman’s New Riddle of Induction demonstrates the problem that there is no

single correct confirmation theory. In this paper, I will argue that it is not possible to justify the

Principle of Uniformity of Nature (PUN) and therefore it cannot be used to justify induction.

Goodman argues that distinguishing projectable predicates can justify induction however it is

difficult to do so.

The aim of Goodman’s new riddle of induction is to show that since PUN is vacuously

true and trivial in nature, it is insufficient to justify induction. PUN is the principle that instances

that have occurred in the past, will occur in the same or similar way in the future. Using PUN,

one may infer conclusions about unobserved instances based on other observed instances. One

might think justifying PUN would solve the problem of induction because it follows the straight

number of positive outcomes


rule which determines the degree of confidence ( ) that the next instance
total number of outcomes

will be a certain outcome. For example, the degree of confidence that a quarter will land on

heads would be 0.5.

However, PUN cannot be justified using induction; doing so introduces the problem of

circularity:

Premise 1 Events in the future will resemble events in the past.

Premise 2 In the (past) past, events in the future have resembled events in

the past.

Conclusion Events in the future will continue to resemble events in the past.
Philosophy 8 10/19/2017

Circularity is the process in which a method of reasoning is used to justify the same

method. For example, counter induction cannot be used to justify induction as it is an inductive

method of reasoning. We cannot justify any law of nature using inductive or deductive reasoning

and justifying PUN is insufficient to justifying induction as it fails to distinguish between good

and bad arguments.

Goodman argues that an argument can be good or bad based on the predicates used. To

demonstrate this, he created two inductive arguments with identical structures and used different

predicates: “green” and “grue” to differentiate the two. He believes that the way to justify

induction is through the difference between good predicates such as “green” and bad (or

gruesome) predicates such as “grue.” The predicate “green” is understood throughout society and

is therefore okay to use in inductive arguments whereas “grue” can only be defined as an object

that is first observed before 2050 and green or first observed after 2050 and blue. “Grue” is a

gruesome predicate because is it not entrenched in our language and is not a natural property. It

is very difficult to justify induction in the way that Goodman deems necessary because a “natural

property” is not easily defined.

A natural property is difficult to determine as it is solely a convention ingrained into our

language and culture which consists of vocabulary like “green” yet vocabulary such as “grue” is

artificial and arbitrary. Therefore, Goodman’s solution to the new riddle of induction is that

inductive arguments require restriction on the terms used. While it is true that projectable

predicates help the process of induction to more accurately make predictions in the world, it does

not solve the problem that induction (and PUN) cannot be justified with any methods that we

have.

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