"Truth cannot be defined or tested by agreement with 'the world'; for not only do truths differ for different worlds but the nature of agreement between a world apart from it is notoriously nebulous"
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Goodman denies that truth is simply matching our statements to a single, ready-made world. What counts as a world for us is already organized by our symbol systems - languages, logics, measures, and styles of representation. If the organizing apparatus changes, so do the truths that hold within it. Euclidean space yields one set of geometric truths; non-Euclidean frameworks yield others. A map that preserves area tells the truth about size while distorting shape; a different projection preserves shape while distorting area. Asking which one agrees with the world, apart from any scheme of description, is asking for a comparison no one can make.
These claims sit at the heart of Goodmans irrealism in Ways of Worldmaking and his new riddle of induction. The predicate "grue" shows that evidence confirms hypotheses only relative to a vocabulary that has become entrenched by use. So agreement with the world is not a neutral court of appeal; our very evidence is theory-laden. Yet he is not endorsing anything-goes relativism. Versions are constrained by standards internal to practices: coherence, calculational power, fit with observation as already described, and the capacity to support successful action. Scientific worlds and artistic worlds alike are made by constructing and refining symbol systems; they can conflict, overlap, and coexist without being reducible to a single master picture. The moral is methodological humility: when we test for truth we must specify the version within which we test, and we should expect multiple right answers across legitimate versions. What becomes nebulous is the idea of comparing a description to a world stripped of all description. The better question is whether a version works, connects, and earns entitlement within its own network of symbols and practices, and how shifting our symbols might remake what counts as fact.
These claims sit at the heart of Goodmans irrealism in Ways of Worldmaking and his new riddle of induction. The predicate "grue" shows that evidence confirms hypotheses only relative to a vocabulary that has become entrenched by use. So agreement with the world is not a neutral court of appeal; our very evidence is theory-laden. Yet he is not endorsing anything-goes relativism. Versions are constrained by standards internal to practices: coherence, calculational power, fit with observation as already described, and the capacity to support successful action. Scientific worlds and artistic worlds alike are made by constructing and refining symbol systems; they can conflict, overlap, and coexist without being reducible to a single master picture. The moral is methodological humility: when we test for truth we must specify the version within which we test, and we should expect multiple right answers across legitimate versions. What becomes nebulous is the idea of comparing a description to a world stripped of all description. The better question is whether a version works, connects, and earns entitlement within its own network of symbols and practices, and how shifting our symbols might remake what counts as fact.
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| Topic | Truth |
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