"Horn 1: no predicates carve at the joints. Here only two attractive options seem open. One is Goodmania: all talk of objecive joints in reality is simply mistaken." T. Sider (2011) Writing The Book of the World, 186.
"Let it be clear that the question here is not of the possible worlds that many of my contemporaries, especially those near Disneyland, are busy making and manipulating." N. Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking, 2.
One nugget in the Healy citation data is the near-absence of Nelson Goodman. The only work by Goodman found in the top 500 is The Structure of Appearance (1951) with 11 citations in the H4 (between 1993-2013). No mention of Goodman's Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (over 3000 citation according to google.scholar) or the foundational work in mereology; there is no harm--even Harvard professors can be forgotten (recall Jon on Collingwood paradoxicality; it seems Goodman's reputation went into decline around 1996). A more serious matter is that Goodman's Languages of Art (published in 1976), which over 4000 citations, is invisible in the H4. So, this tells you at once that nominalism is discussed and aesthetics is seriously neglected in our supposedly, generalist journals. This should come us no surprise (recall this post earlier in the week.) Given the significance of the widely deployed aesthetic principles embedded in the theoretical virtues of simplicity, elegance, harmony, this absence is something of a scandal (over and beyond the intrinsic value of aesthetics). (By the way: in the Stanford Encyclopedia, Goodman's aesthetics is the only entry primarily devoted to Goodman--it even contains a biographical sketch, as if the editors doubt there ever will be a systematic Goodman entry.)
The absence of Goodman's (1978) Ways of Worldmaking (WOW) is in some sense more important. (For the record: I never met Goodman.) Let me explain.
Despite its absense in the Healy data Goodman's WOW is mentioned in Sider's bibliography. It is also "argued" against earlier in the book:
"We have [A] uncovered a web of connections between structure and various notions. This [B] web of connections yields the primary argument against Goodman's claim that structure is merely the projection of our interests or biology: subjectivisim about structure leads to subjectivism about the other notions in the web. We could not [C] formulate an appropriately objective form of Bayesianism. [D] We could not rebut conventionalists about physical geometry. [E] We could not believe in objective semantic determinacy." (Sider, 65; bracketed letters added to facilitate discussion).
While Sider assumes his "knee-jerk realism" (recall here and here), [A-E] does offer a response to Goodman (and his ilk). From assuming knee-jerk realism Sider obtains [A-B]. But how far does that take us? Take for example, [C]; nobody would deny that one could formulate an objective form of Bayesianism. It is just massively hubristic to adopt it in one's decision-making in the real world (except, perhaps, in very controlled and impoverished environments). Even all my technical colleagues in decision theory that advocate sophisticated versions of subjective Bayesianism ought to be far more disconcerted than they are by the financial meltdown of 2008, which was, in part, facilitated by the widespread adoption of decision-theoretic tools! On [D]: maybe one could, or maybe not; all Sider tells us is that the "epistemological" problems of deciding what the proper, univocal geometry of spacetime is (given, say, underdetermination) can eventually be "solved" by appeal to "simplicity" (and other such theoretical virtues) and, if not, we can remain "agnostic" (42). (In his review, Schaffer picks up on the deeper version of the problem (internal to Sider's system) hinted at here.) On [E] fair enough, but it it clear (?) that nothing in [A-D] compels such belief to somebody not on board in the first place.
Sider does considerable burden-shifting, but he never engages Goodman on Goodman's own terms. We really do not get an internal or extenal refutation. Rather we have here an instance of a whole-sale change of philosophical fashion--WOW simply does not speak to Sider (and his contemporaries anymore). Even so, Sider's engagement with Goodman (and any views in the vicinity), meagre as it is, is better than Goodman's own performance. When Goodman wrote WOW Kripke was already famous and even by the mid 1970s David Lewis was well on the way of the development of his system (see here). Neither is mentioned in WOW. As we see in the second epigraph to this post, Goodman does not engage--he prefers sneering ridicule (and Sider returns the favor by coining Goodmania).
Goodman's sneering attitude sowed the seeds of WOW's demise: by not engaging with metaphysical realism, WOW -- beautiful and even brilliant, as it is -- left few resources to those friendly to Goodman's project and eager to articulate a response to, say, post-Lewisian philosophy hastening a descent into being a pejorative. One wonders what pejoratives will be coined when the wheels of fortune turn again.
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