Goodman Paradox, Hume's Problem, Goodman-Kripke Paradox: Three Different Issues

This paper reports (in section 1 “Introduction”) some quotes from Nelson Goodman which clarify that, contrary to a common misunderstanding, Goodman always denied that “grue” requires temporal information and “green” does not require temporal information; and, more in general, that Goodman always denied that grue-like predicates require additional information compared to what green-like predicates require. One of the quotations is the following, taken from the first page of the Foreword to chapter 8 “Induction” of the Goodman’s book “Problems and Projects”: “Nevertheless, we may by now confidently conclude that no general distinction between projectible and non- projectible predicates can be drawn on syntactic or even on semantic grounds. Attempts to distinguish projectible predicates as purely qualitative, or non-projectible ones as time-dependent, for example, have plainly failed”. Barker and Achinstein in their famous paper of 1960 tried to demonstrate that the grue-speaker (named Mr. Grue in their paper) needs temporal information to be able to determine whether an object is grue, but Goodman replied (in “Positionality and Pictures”, contained in his book “Problems and Projects”, chapter 8, section 6b) that they failed to prove that Mr. Grue needs temporal information to determine whether an object is grue. According to Goodman, since the predicates “blue” and “green” are interdefinable with the predicates “grue” and “bleen”, “if we can tell which objects are blue and which objects are green, we can tell which ones are grue and which ones are bleen” [pages 12-13 of “Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences”]. But this paper points out that an example of interdefinability is also that one about the predicate “gruet”, which is a predicate that applies to an object if the object either is green and examined before time t, or is non-green and not examined before time t. The three predicates “green”, “gruet”, “examined before time t” are interdefinable: and even though the predicates “green” and “examined before time t” are interdefinable, being able to tell if an object is green does not imply being able to tell if an object is examined before time t (the interdefinability among three elements is a type of interdefinability present, for example, also among the logical connectives). Thus, it is wrong the Goodman’s thesis according to which if it is possible to determine without having temporal information whether the predicate “green” has to be applied to an object, then it is also possible to determine without having temporal information whether a predicate interdefinable with “green” has to be applied to an object. Another example of interdefinability is that one about a decidable predicate PD, which is interdefinable with an undecidable predicate PU: therefore even though we can tell whether an object is PD and whether an object is non-PD, we cannot tell whether an object is PU (since PU is an undecidable predicate) and whether an object is non-PU. Although the predicates PD and PU are interdefinable, the possibility to determine whether an object is PD does not imply the possibility to determine whether an object is PU (since PU is an undecidable predicate). Similarly, although the predicates “green” and “grue” are interdefinable, the possibility to determine whether an object is “green” even in absence of temporal information does not imply the possibility to determine whether an object is “grue” even in absence of temporal information. These and other examples about “grue” and “bleen” point out that even in case two predicates are interdefinable, the possibility to apply a predicate P does not imply the possibility to apply a predicate interdefinable with P. And that the possibility to apply the predicate “green” without having temporal information does not imply the possibility to apply the predicate “grue” without having temporal information. Furthermore, knowing that an object is both green and grue implies temporal information: in fact, we know by definition that a grue object can only be: 1) either green (in case the object is examined before time t); 2) or blue (in case the object is not examined before time t). Thus, knowing that an object is both grue and green, we know that we are faced with case 1, the case of a grue object that is green and examined before time t. Then the paper points out why the Goodman-Kripke paradox is a paradox about meaning that cannot have repercussions on induction. Finally the paper points out why Hume’s problem is a problem different from Goodman’s paradox and requires a specific treatment

Explaining Explanation

It is not a particularly hard thing to want or seek explanations. In fact, explanations seem to be a large and natural part of our cognitive lives. Children ask why and how questions very early in development and seem genuinely to want some sort of answer, despite our often being poorly equipped to provide them at the appropriate level of sophistication and detail. We seek and receive explanations in every sphere of our adult lives, whether it be to understand why a friendship has foundered, why a car will not start, or why ice expands when it freezes. Moreover, correctly or incorrectly, most of the time we think we know when we have or have not received a good explanation. There is a sense both that a given, successful explanation satisfies a cognitive need, and that a questionable or dubious explanation does not. There are also compelling intuitions about what make good explanations in terms of their form, that is, a sense of when they are structured correctly

Necessarily the old riddle necessary connections and the problem of induction

In this paper, I will discuss accounts to solve the problem of induction by introducing necessary connections. The basic idea is this: if we know that there are necessary connections between properties F and G such that F-ness necessarily brings about G-ness, then we are justified to infer that all, including future or unobserved, F s will be Gs. To solve the problem of induction with ontology has been proposed by David Armstrong and Brian Ellis. In this paper, I will argue that these attempts to solve the problem of induction fail. Necessary connections fail to reliably imply the respective regularities for two main reasons: Firstly, according to an argument originally presented by Helen Beebee, the respective necessary connections might be time-limited, and hence do not warrant inferences about future cases. As I will discuss, arguments against the possibility or explanatory power of time-limited necessary connections fail. Secondly, even time-unlimited necessary connections do not entail strict or non-strict regularities, and nor do they allow inferences about individual cases, which is an important function of inductive reasoning. Moreover, the proposed solution to the problem of induction would only apply to a tiny minority of inductive inferences. I argue that most inductive inferences are not easily reducible to the proposed inference pattern, as the vast majority of everyday inductive inferences do not involve necessary connections between fundamental physical properties or essences

Hypothesis of the basic biological sense of cancer revisited: a putative explanation of Peto's paradox

The conventional interpretation of cancer, summarized in the unified genetic theory of carcinogenesis, assumes that the malignant cell is the anatomical and physiological unit of cancer. This assumption means that any evolutionary increase in the number of cells (and thus body size) should lead to a higher tumor incidence since the population at risk is higher. However, the available data fail to support this prediction: most animals, in particular most mammals, exhibiting wide differences in body size and lifespan, from the mouse to the blue whale, display a roughly similar tumor incidence. This unexpected lack of correlation between body size, lifespan and cancer is usually called Peto?s paradox and it has intrigued theoretical oncologists for decades.In this essay, we attempt to offer a putative explanation of this paradox based on the notion that the unit at risk of carcinogenesis is actually the tissue or organ rather than the individual cell. In turn, this notion is based on a different interpretation of neoplastic diseases that we proposed some years ago and that has been called the hypothesis of the biological sense of cancer. This hypothesis was based on the observation that throughout the animal kingdom, cancer seems to arise only in organs and tissues (or parts of them) that have experienced a significant decrease in the regenerative ability, and this would occur when a critical proportion of their cells have partially or wholly lost that capacity. In such a case, if an organism or an organ were x times larger than another one, the probability that its regenerative capacity is critically diminished would be x times lower, because an x times greater number of cells would have to be affected to depress that capacity. This lower probability would balance the proportionally higher number of their cells that could be transformed and this would explain why the blue whale displays no greater risk of developing cancer than the mouse by unit of time. However, since big animals tend to live y times longer than small ones, it remains to explain why both animals may display a similar tumor incidence by lifespan. The concept of mass-specific basal metabolic rate (msBMR) can account for this problem since msBMR diminishes with body weight as much as lifespan increases meaning that the time for individual cells to get both the natural decline in regenerative ability and potential neoplastic mutations should be, in the big animal, y times slower than in the small one. This could explain why the tumor incidence in blue whales along their long lifespan may be not higher than that observed in mice along their short life.Fil: Bustuoabad, Oscar David. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Medicina Experimental. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Medicina Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Ruggiero, Raul Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Medicina Experimental. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Medicina Experimental; Argentin

Teaching Peirce to Undergraduates

Fourteen philosophers share their experience teaching Peirce to undergraduates in a variety of settings and a variety of courses. The latter include introductory philosophy courses as well as upper-level courses in American philosophy, philosophy of religion, logic, philosophy of science, medieval philosophy, semiotics, metaphysics, etc., and even an upper-level course devoted entirely to Peirce. The project originates in a session devoted to teaching Peirce held at the 2007 annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. The session, organized by James Campbell and Richard Hart, was co-sponsored by the American Association of Philosophy Teachers

Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity

One might think that, once we know something is computable, how efficiently it can be computed is a practical question with little further philosophical importance. In this essay, I offer a detailed case that one would be wrong. In particular, I argue that computational complexity theory---the field that studies the resources (such as time, space, and randomness) needed to solve computational problems---leads to new perspectives on the nature of mathematical knowledge, the strong AI debate, computationalism, the problem of logical omniscience, Hume's problem of induction, Goodman's grue riddle, the foundations of quantum mechanics, economic rationality, closed timelike curves, and several other topics of philosophical interest. I end by discussing aspects of complexity theory itself that could benefit from philosophical analysis.Comment: 58 pages, to appear in "Computability: G\"odel, Turing, Church, and beyond," MIT Press, 2012. Some minor clarifications and corrections; new references adde

The Effects of an Induced Negative Mood State on Ground- Based Learning in Student Pilots

The United States Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration\u27s Aviation Instructors Handbook (D.O.T.) (1999) emphasizes that aviation students must maintain a healthy and positive state of mind in order to succeed at learning. Factors such as worry, lack of interest, physical discomfort, and anxiety are all listed as obstacles to a student\u27s ability to learn successfully during flight instruction. In addition, numerous studies support the idea that a negative mood state will have a detrimental effect on learning. This study attempts to investigate the effects of an induced negative mood state on ground- based learning in student pilots

The spectrum of Ischemia-induced white matter injury varies with age

Stroke is a neurological condition that targets the whole range of the human population, from the pre-term infant to the elderly and is a major cause of death worldwide (Ingall 2004). During its lifespan, the brain's vulnerability to hypoxia-ischemia varies. Term infants who suffer this insult usually exhibit widespread neuronal injury in the cerebral cortex with a stroke-like distribution of damage (Deng 2008), whereas in pre-term infants immature oligodendrocytes and subplate neurons below the neocortex are most vulnerable and result in Periventricular Leukomalacia (PVL) (Back et al. 2007; McQuillen et al. 2005). The incidence of stroke decreases in young adulthood, but peaks again in the elderly. Moreover, the underlying pathological mechanisms that occur following ischemia are different at each stage. Experimental stroke research on stroke has traditionally focused on grey matter injury, but recent evidence indicates that white matter injury is a critical part of its pathophysiology. In this debilitating condition the mechanisms of ischemia-induced damage differ with age and all cellular components of white matter (axons, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes) are affected. This review paper focuses on the relative vulnerability to ischemia of white matter during the course of development and on our recent findings of how individual cellular components are affected during each stage.peer-reviewe