The “grue paradox” presented by Nelson Goodman raises challenges for induction and makes us wonder why we make judgments and favor one hypothesis more than another. The “green” hypothesis is more compelling than the “grue” one in that “grue” is subject to changes in many circumstances.
The hypothesis that is discussed by Nelson Goodman is an enumerative induction, which concludes that “all emeralds are green” since all the many emeralds we have observed prior to 2020 are green. Instinctively, this type of inductive argument looks like a good argument due to the fact that the premises are certain examples with the same properties of the conclusion. This hypothesis is confirmed by observations of green emeralds because based on our knowledge so far, all emeralds are green and no exception has shown up. In this case, the generalization of all emeralds being green is confirmed by its examples, which are green emeralds.
However, by introducing a new term “grue”, Goodman says that not all generalizations are necessarily confirmed by their examples. Goodman defines “grue” as follows: “An object is grue if and only if it was first observed before 2020 A.D. and is green, or if it was not first observed before 2020 A.D. and is blue”. As we are in the year of 2014 now, all the evidence we have supports the “grue” hypothesis exactly as much as it supports the “green” hypothesis. Taking the inductive reasoning above, if we can conclude that “all emeralds are green”, it is equally true that we can conclude “all emeralds are grue”. Nevertheless, this will lead to an absurd conclusion that the emeralds we have observed so far are both green and grue, which obviously does not reflect the real case in science because the hypothesis th...
... middle of paper ...
...re events will occur as it always has in the past. For instance, the induction that “all swans we have seen are white and therefore all swans are white” is not justified because black swans were later discovered by Europeans in 1697. If someone has already observed 1000 emeralds that are green, normally what he will do is stop finding more emeralds and just make the conclusion that “all emeralds are green”. It might be true for a limited number of emeralds, but the generalization based on previous observations does not give us a guarantee because we have not examined all emeralds in the world.
Even with the problem of induction, we are still justified to conclude that all emeralds are green. Either out of common sense, or due to certain constraints the “grue” hypothesis has, we find the induction that concludes that all emeralds are green more compelling.
The first type of premise he uses is an empirical premise. “Empirical premises use empirical evidence that appeals to facts about the world obtained through observing or measuring the world” (Quant...
Any hypothesis, Gould says, begins with the collection of facts. In this early stage of a theory development bad science leads nowhere, since it contains either little or contradicting evidence. On the other hand, Gould suggests, testable proposals are accepted temporarily, furthermore, new collected facts confirm a hypothesis. That is how good science works. It is self-correcting and self-developing with the flow of time: new information improves a good theory and makes it more precise. Finally, good hypotheses create logical relations to other subjects and contribute to their expansion.
...concrete theories and empirical truths, no matter how factual, that we may attempt to use
The Raven paradox includes three plausible premises, and derives from them a fairly implausible-looking conclusion about the confirmation of generalizations. The first premise is: “All ravens are black.” This premise is a hypothesis that takes a general form— “all Fs are G”. The hypothesis “All ravens are black” is logically equivalent to the hypothesis “All non-black things are non-ravens.” Logical equivalence can be defined as: “P being logically equivalent to Q,” which means that P and Q are true or false in all the same situations and that each one is a valid argument for the other.
Charles Lyell was a British lawyer and one the smartest geologist known in his time. He was known as the author of the Principles of Geology, which helped popularize the theories and concepts of uniformitarianism. The Principles of Geology was the first book written by Lyell and explained the changes of the earth’s surface. He used the research and information in the book as his proof to determine that the earth was over 6,000 years old. The central argument in his book was “the present is the key to the past”, this meant that to find out what happened in the past you had to look at what was happening now. It explained that changes which happened in the past, were happening in the present, and will happen in the future. Lyell’s book was later published into three volumes from 1830-1833. After the publication, it gave him credentials as an important geological theorist. His book later influenced a young Charles Darwin. Lyell’s influential book led Darwin to follow his principles and they later became friends. Darwin began to explore the changes that happen on the earth and develop his theories of evolution, though Charles did not completely endorse Darwin’s theory of evolution. Lyell was a devout Christian and Darwin’s theory of evolution did not line up with his Lyell’s beliefs with natural selection. Darwin continued his research and beliefs of his own and became a scientist working with his theories of evolution.
Goodman's hypothesis of 'grue' is quite different from the above two indeterminacy in terms of both objective of introducing the concept and the usage of it. Goodman's issue is to search for the rules in screening out 'bad' assumptions in induction. This induction issue is not indeterminacy of Wittgenstein's skeptic arguments or Quine's radical translation.
...onsideration, we can see that Winkler’s argument is inductively weak and neglects information that should be considered.
It is thought that Meno's paradox is of critical importance both within Plato's thought and within the whole history of ideas. It's major importance is that for the first time on record, the possibility of achieving knowledge from the mind's own resources rather than from experience is articulated, demonstrated and seen as raising important philosophical questions.
A paradox stems from a statement that apparently contradicts itself yet might still be true. In most cases logical paradoxes are essentially known to be invalid but are used anyways to promote critical thinking. The Raven’s paradox is an example of a paradox that essentially goes against what most logical paradoxes stand for in that it tries to make a valid claim through inductive logic. Carl Hempel is known for his famous accepting of this paradox with minor adjustments by the use of the contraposition rule. In this paper, however, I argue that Hempel’s solution to the Raven’s paradox is actually unsuccessful because he fails to take into account a possible red herring that serves as evidence against his solution. Irvin John Good is responsible for the formulation of the red herring argument as he tries to prove that the observation of a black raven can potentially negate the Raven’s paradox as valid. In addition to Good’s claim, Karl Popper and his view of falsificationism also functions as evidence to reject Hempel’s solution. Using Popper’s view as a basis, Israel Scheffler and Nelson Goodman formulate the concept of selective confirmation to reject the contraposition rule used by Hempel. Based off of all of the rejections that Hempel’s solution has it can clearly be seen that the Raven’s paradox has flaws that principally lead it to it being invalid.
Messenger, E., Gooch, J., & Seyler, D. U. (2011). Arguing About Science. Argument! (pp. 396-398). New York, NY: Mcgraw-Hill Co..
In Life of the Cosmos, Lee Smolin’s main criticism for the Weak Anthropic Principle is that it does not give a prediction that can be falsified by observation. Smolin applies this same criticism toward its postulates and asserts cosmological natural selection as a superior concept (Smolin 203-204). My paper will explain Smolin’s criticism toward the Anthropic Principle and its postulates while comparing them to cosmological natural selection. I will then argue that Smolin’s criticism of the Anthropic Principle is valid but misleading and his assertion of cosmological natural selection is only better scientifically; not in application.
Caplan 's argument is that,if these theory is allowed perhaps the scientists would not be the
In the Meno, Plato addresses the question of virtue, what it is, how to obtain and if virtue can be taught. Meno came to conclusion after a long discussion with Socrates that it is impossible to know what virtue is. The Meno’x paradox states, “if one knows what virtue is, he does not need to search for it. However, if one does not know what virtue is, how can he search for it? He may not know he has it even when he gets it.” Seeing how hopeless Meno is, Socrates propose the theory of recollection as a way to obtain virtue. This paper will argue against this theory.
... All of these are empirical, these signify the most probable behaviour of our world. There is no way of knowing what exactly will happen, even if all circumstances are known. The Cause and Effect relationship on which science is built is only valid as an empirical result. This was very hard for scientists to accept.
Induction is an everyday part of our life’s I make decisions based on this method of inference in order to function within society. It is the process of predicting the outcome of future events based on the outcome of similar events that have occurred in the past. Our calender, the seasons and the clocks we use to manage our time are based on the rotation of the earth in relation to its orbit around the sun. Every day I awake with the 'knowledge ' that the sun will rise and indicate the beginning of my day. I make this assertion due to the sun having risen every day since my birth and therefore through induction I infer it will rise tomorrow, the day after and so on. I work at a tra...