🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct31.171156.16978@husc3.harvard.edu>, zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

|> Having resisted entering this morass for some time, I will venture a few
|> remarks on its subject.  Hempel's crow paradox, as well as the closely
|> related "grue" paradox of Goodman, are absolutely unproblematic from a
|> standpoint not bound by their respective allegiance to Empiricism and
|> Nominalism.  Neither non-black, nor non-crow, nor indeed grue objects form
|> a natural kind; the latter holds in any world not characterized by abrupt
|> color shifts, while the former calls for an intensional reading of the
|> attributes, combined with a colorful, multi-species universe.  The lucky
|> Platonists in the audience may follow me in disembarking from this decrepit
|> vessel right now; with but a little confidence, you too can learn to walk
|> on water.  To the rest of you I heartily wish good luck in rebuilding it
|> while attempting to keep it afloat.  Keep the life preservers handy,
|> though, and remember the fate of the _Medusa_.

Notice the typical Platonistic approach to a "solution":  postulate a new kind
of thing (natural kind, in this case) and claim that you have solved the problem.
(Which Michael, of course, knows has not at all been solved by this move.)
So we immediately have a solution to the crow problem which we achieved simply
by abandoning empiricism and nominalism.  That was easy!  Now, unfortunately,
we have a new set of problems about natural kinds.  For example, how do you
tell when a "kind" is "natural"?  How do you tell when you can "project" a
predicate?  Somehow the crows seem friendlier.

On reflection it might appear that answers to these latter questions (which
after all turn out to be fundamental questions of epistemology rather than
metaphysics) might serve equally well as solutions within the empiricist
and nominalist frameworks.  Alas, it may be that the lucky Platonists
have abandoned one decrepit vessel for a larger and more complicated one
that is no less decrepit.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm