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Fact, Fiction, and Forecast

Fact, Fiction, and Forecast

OPEN THE BOOK WITH A QUESTION

With the same observations, why treat some classifications as guides to the future but not others?

Evidence-backed moments
6
Timeline events
2
Verified places
1

People who carry this work into the voyage

Read the argument as a story

Story 1How far can the past support the future?

Goodman — Rival descriptions of the same evidence

The question that opens it

With the same observations, why treat some classifications as guides to the future but not others?

What changes as you read the work
  1. 1

    “A Query on Confirmation” appeared in 1946 in `The Journal of Philosophy`, volume 43, issue 14, pages 383–385.

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    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • A Query on Confirmation

      Nelson Goodman · 1946 · The Journal of Philosophy 43(14), 383–385

      Locator: Article metadata, pages 383–385

      Open source
  2. 2

    Harvard University Press's edition of `Fact, Fiction, and Forecast` was published in Cambridge in 1955.

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    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Review of Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, & Forecast

      R. M. Martin · 1960 · Journal of Symbolic Logic 25(3), bibliographic review record

      Locator: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1955, 126 pages

      Open source
  3. 3

    Green emeralds observed before the reference time can be described, under the same observational facts, as satisfying both the predicates `green` and `grue`.

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    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Fact, Fiction, and Forecast

      Nelson Goodman · 1983 · Fourth edition, Harvard University Press

      Locator: “The New Riddle of Induction,” pages 72–75

      Open source
    • The Problem of Induction

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: Section 4.2

      Open source
  4. 4

    Applying the same simple-enumeration schema, the two descriptions lead to incompatible predictions about emeralds after the reference time.

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    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Fact, Fiction, and Forecast

      Nelson Goodman · 1983 · Fourth edition, Harvard University Press

      Locator: “The New Riddle of Induction,” pages 73–75

      Open source
    • The Problem of Induction

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: Section 4.2

      Open source
  5. 5

    The case shows that induction concerns not only the number of observations but also which predicates and regularities may be projected to unobserved cases.

    Check the evidence

    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Fact, Fiction, and Forecast

      Nelson Goodman · 1983 · Fourth edition, Harvard University Press

      Locator: “The New Riddle of Induction,” pages 75–83

      Open source
    • The Problem of Induction

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: Section 4.2

      Open source
  6. 6

    Goodman develops this as a `new riddle` added to Hume's problem, asking which way for the future to resemble the past is legitimate.

    Check the evidence

    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Fact, Fiction, and Forecast

      Nelson Goodman · 1983 · Fourth edition, Harvard University Press

      Locator: “The New Riddle of Induction,” pages 59–83

      Open source
    • The Problem of Induction

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: Section 4.2

      Open source
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How the work moved through time

  1. 1946

    A Query on Confirmation appears in The Journal of Philosophy.

  2. 1955

    The Harvard University Press edition is published in Cambridge.

    Cambridge, MA · Publication

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