Nelson Goodman

Nelson Goodman was an American philosopher who taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. With Henry Leonard he developed the calculus of individuals, a formal theory of parts and wholes that allowed a nominalist to do without sets. He also posed the 'new riddle of induction' with the predicate 'grue', and later developed a general theory of symbols covering art and science alike.

Key ideas

• The calculus of individuals lets parts and wholes do work that others assign to abstract classes, serving nominalism.
• The new riddle of induction: evidence equally confirms 'green' and 'grue', so we need an account of which predicates are projectible.
• Artworks are symbols, and the arts can be compared by how their notational systems work.
• We make many 'worlds' through different symbol systems, none uniquely privileged.

Major works

• The Calculus of Individuals and Its Uses (1940, with Henry S. Leonard)
• The Structure of Appearance (1951)
• Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (1955)
• Languages of Art (1968)

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