The Goodman-Kripke Paradox Robert Kowalenko King’s College London PhD Philosophy 2003 © Robert Kowalenko 2 Abstract The Kripke/Wittgenstein paradox and Goodman’s riddle of induction can be construed as problems of multiple redescription, where the relevant sceptical chal- lenge is to provide factual grounds justifying the description we favour. A choice of description or predicate, in turn, is tantamount to the choice of a curve over a set of data, a choice apparently governed by implicitly operating constraints on the relevant space of possibilities. Armed with this analysis of the two paradoxes, several realist solutions of Kripke’s paradox are examined that appeal to dispositions or other non- occurrent properties. It is found that all neglect crucial epistemological issues: the en- tities typically appealed to are not observational and must be inferred on the basis of observed entities or events; yet, the relevant sceptical challenge concerns precisely the factual basis on which this inference is made and the constraints operating on it. All disposition ascriptions, the thesis goes on to argue, contain elements of idealiza- tion. To ward off the danger of vacuity resulting from the fact that any disposition ascription is true under just the right ideal conditions, dispositional theories need to specify limits on legitimate forms of idealization. This is best done by construing dis- position ascriptions as forms of (implicit) curve-fitting, I argue, where the “data” is not necessarily numeric, and the “curve” fitted not necessarily graphic. This brings us full circle: Goodman’s and Kripke’s problems are problems concerning curve-fitting, and the solutions for it appeal to entities the postulation of which is the result of curve-fitting. The way to break the circle must come from a methodology governing the xidealizations, or inferences to the best idealization, that are a part of curve- fitting. The thesis closes with an argument for why natural science cannot be ex- pected to be of much help in this domain, given the ubiquity of idealization. © Robert Kowalenko 3 Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 2 Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ 2 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 5 1. Two Paradoxes ...................................................................................................................... 13 1.1 Kripke’s “Sceptical Problem” ........................................................................................... 15 1.1.1 Plus vs. Quus ........................................................................................................... 15 1.1.2 ‘Infinitary’ Meaning................................................................................................... 24 1.2 Goodman’s Riddle of Induction ....................................................................................... 30 1.2.1 The Riddle................................................................................................................ 31 1.2.2 Simplicity Relativized............................................................................................... 36 1.3 Curves and Redescriptions ............................................................................................. 43 1.3.1 The Curve-Fitting Problem...................................................................................... 43 1.3.2 Multiple Redescription ............................................................................................. 52 1.3.3 Similarity Relativized ............................................................................................... 57 2. Realism about Dispositions................................................................................................. 65 2.1 Empiricism about dispositions......................................................................................... 67 2.1.1 Carnap...................................................................................................................... 69 2.1.2 Goodman.................................................................................................................. 75 2.2 Ontological Realism ......................................................................................................... 80 2.2.1 What Do Statements About Dispositions Mean? .................................................. 82 2.2.2 The Metaphysics of Dispositions ............................................................................ 86 2.2.3 Pregnant Spinsters and Unwanted Children (Epistemological Worries I) ........... 92 2.3 Counterfactual Realism ................................................................................................. 100 2.3.1 Do Disposition Ascriptions Report ‘Conditional Facts’?...................................... 100 2.3.2 Reduction Sentences ............................................................................................102 2.3.3 Omniscience (Epistemological Worries II) ...........................................................104 2.4 Teleological Realism...................................................................................................... 108 2.4.1 Rule-following, Biological Purposes, and Competence ...................................... 108 2.4.2 Competences and Deep Dispositions.................................................................. 114 2.5. Nomological Realism .................................................................................................... 120 2.5.1 Dispositions, ceteris paribus ................................................................................. 120 2.5.2 Absolute Exceptions, Impossible Completers, and Scientific Reputation ......... 132 2.5.3 Completers and Independent Explainers.............................................................146 3. Ceteris Paribus-Laws, Dispositions, and Idealization .................................................. 161 3.1 Disposition-ascriptions as Ampliative Inference ..........................................................162 3.1.1 Context-relative Disposition-ascriptions...............................................................163 3.1.2 Disposition-ascriptions as Curve-fitting................................................................172 3.2 Curve-Fitting and Idealization........................................................................................181 3.2.1 Curve-fitting as Idealization................................................................................... 182 © Robert Kowalenko 4 3.2.2 Idealization vs. approximation .............................................................................. 185 3.2.2 Curve-fitting and Approximation. The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)......... 192 3.3 “Carving Nature at its Joints”—Yes, but Which Ones? ............................................... 205 3.3.1 Disentangling vs. Limiting Case Laws.................................................................. 205 3.3.2 Natural Laws and Modal Properties ..................................................................... 218 3.4 Inference to the Best Idealization? Or: Conclusion ..................................................... 224 Index........................................................................................................................................... 227 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................230 © Robert Kowalenko 5 Introduction In his foreword to the fourth edition of Nelson Goodman’s Fact, Fiction and Forecast1 Hilary Putnam points to a strong resemblance between Goodman’s treat- ment of induction and the later Wittgenstein’s considerations on rule-following. The resemblance obtains on a particular interpretation of Wittgenstein, as put forward in Saul Kripke’s well-known commentary Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Lan- guage.2 There, Kripke famously suggests that Wittgenstein ought to be considered the father of a new form of philosophical scepticism founded on a paradox about rule- following and meaning. Wittgenstein’s alleged scepticism ‘should be obvious to any reader of Goodman,’ Kripke points out, for Goodman’s strategy in deploying the “new riddle of induction” is strikingly close to Wittgenstein’s sceptical arguments (Kripke 1982, pp. 20, 58). Although he is not the first to make observations of this kind, Kripke’s exegesis proved particularly influential, generating, in the words of one commentator, ‘excitement unparalleled since the heyday of Wittgenstein scholar- ship in the early 1960s.’3 Kripke’s interpretation prompted a vast amount of new work on the (by that time) well-worn subject of rule-following, and even philoso- phers not normally concerned with Wittgenstein’s views took interest in the new form of meaning scepticism put forward. However, although some authors refer to Witt- genstein’s alleged sceptical stance in one breath with Goodman’s treatment of induc- tion,4 Kripke remains to date the only distinguished philosopher in the field to une- 1 First published as Goodman, N. (1954). Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, London, Athlone Press. All page references will be to the fourth edition,