Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Grue, philosophy: Artificial predicate in a thought experiment by Nelson Goodman (N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast, Indianapolis, 1965) to illustrate his "New riddle of induction". An object x is grue iff x has been observed before time t and is green or has been observed after t and is blue, the time t being in the future. The problem of uncertainty as to whether something is green or grue arises because the set of green objects is a subset of the set of grue objects. See also induction, projectability, predicates._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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Noam Chomsky on Grue - Dictionary of Arguments
I 290 Grue/ChomskyVsGoodman: Grueness is amarginal problem - the initial question is much too vague. - You can easily find a property of language "grue bleen" which is not a property of a "languange like German" - e.g. the predicate "being similar", only applied to objects rather than to qualia. Chomsky: there is no point in time t such that we can predict of objects that they will not be similar - they could be the similar if both were green - it is a property of natural languages that they behave more like German than like "grue bleen" - but language concepts such as "German" are too vague to satisfy Goodman’s criterion - we cannot explain why the learner does not acquire grue as basis for generalisation - that certainly follows from the sensory system. >Learning, >Language acquisition, >Induction._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Chomsky I Noam Chomsky "Linguistics and Philosophy", in: Language and Philosophy, (Ed) Sidney Hook New York 1969 pp. 51-94 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle, Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Chomsky II Noam Chomsky "Some empirical assumptions in modern philosophy of language" in: Philosophy, Science, and Method, Essays in Honor of E. Nagel (Eds. S. Morgenbesser, P. Suppes and M- White) New York 1969, pp. 260-285 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle, Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Chomsky IV N. Chomsky Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Cambridge/MA 1965 German Edition: Aspekte der Syntaxtheorie Frankfurt 1978 Chomsky V N. Chomsky Language and Mind Cambridge 2006 |