Ways of World Making by Nelson Goodman

by Nelson Goodman

Required reading at more than 100 colleges and universities throughout North America.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Art, Metaphysics, Science, Writing, Narrative

Paperback Bunko

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Henry Nelson Goodman was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics.

Reviews

[Polo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nelson Goodman is seldom noticed in contemporary philosophy. There are several reasons for this I believe: a.) Goodman is committed to a fact-constructivism, a view which maintains that facts are description dependent or partially description dependent, b.) Goodman is committed to a theory of symbols which he finds applicable to the sciences and the arts, two fields that are thought to be separate.

This book (if anything) deserves praise for its accessibility, even if one is not entirely keen on constructivism or relativism. Goodman's writing style is terse and direct. It's a crime is he is not read more often or widely.

As for the book itself, each chapter may read independently or in succession. I found his chapter on the puzzle of perception especially relevant in this regard, as I found it to be a tremendous resource to my work on perceptual experience.

As for the content, the book is not about possible-world semantics or modal realism, despite its title "Ways of Worldmaking." Goodman is concerned about symbols (or representations or statements or propositions) and the various ways they are incorporated within symbolic systems. That's as far as I'll go without spoiling the book.

If you're not a fan of constructivism, read the book for it's style. If you're not a fan of style, read the book because it's about symbolic representation. If you're not keen on representation, read the book because it's about constructivism. If neither of these reasons suits you, read "Ways of Worldmaking" anyway!

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The perceptual is no more a rather distorted version of the physical facts than the physical is a highly artificial version of the perceptual facts" (93). This quote exemplifies the "world" that Goodman makes in this book. His overall project is to argue for the plurality of truth and bolstering it with an account of "rightness" conditions, which can replace traditional epistemological truth conditions. "World-making" refers to how different people, from artists to scientists, all cope with nature and propose new world-versions that are diverse tenable views that unproblematically contradict each other. This might sound like a ridiculous claim at first. How could the "world" of particle physics be comparable to the "world" of a painting? And how could contradictions be unproblematic? Goodman, in this book, addresses these problems and left me convinced of his overall claim.

The seven chapters in this book cover diverse subjects that at first seem disjointed. These include chapters on a theory of aesthetic style, the problem of quotation, the question of the nature of art, the
psychology of perception, and the problem of fundamental epistemology. Although I came to see how many of the chapters are explicitly related and contribute to Goodman's overall project, some of them still seem mysteriously disconnected. Goodman doesn't make a move to show how they all contribute, and I wish he did so.

Nonetheless, Goodman makes some bold and colorful claims and manages to defend them. One claim is for his theory of "irrealism", the view that there is no foundational epistemology. It is different than other mainstream theories of relativism. I found it much more convincing than Rorty's anti-foundationalism, for example, because Goodman evokes a plurality of ways that a "world" could be right, compared to Rorty who says rightness simply reduces to the relativity of social practices. Readers sympathetic to anti-foundationalism will love what Goodman does.

Goodman also claims that the philosophy of art deserves to be as important a field as epistemology or metaphysics, since artists, scientists, and philosophers are all alike in how they "make worlds". He defends this claim through an examination of representationalism and rightness conditions. This examination leads into my favorite point made in the book. Goodman argues that the classic account of representationalism should be revised. Instead of regarding representations in terms of truth conditions, we should consider representations as symbols, which are free from truth conditions and simply refer to other "worlds" (e.g. bodies of knowledge, artistic traditions). Such a view without further qualifications is the recipe for disastrous relativism. However, Goodman saves his argument by demonstrating how there is a range of kinds of "rightness" conditions that are applicable to symbols and world-making. For example, a representation can be right if it "fits" the relative world-version that a person care about. Some philosophers take issue with Goodman's irrealism and find it suspect to relativism; I believe that this worry is valid logically, but practically, Goodman's irrealism is indeed secure from relativism. People just can't have world-versions that deviate to extents of absurdity because of the constraints of embodiment, psychology, and socialization. Overall, I think for a book that manages to account for the whole range of "worlds" from the arts to the sciences, Goodman does a fantastic job.

[Quiver · Rating 4 out of 5]

The dramatically contrasting versions of the world can of course be relativized; each is right under a given system — for a given science, a given artist, or a given perceiver and situation.

Truth—usually timeless and referred to in the singular—is actually a mortal multitude. Nelson's argument hinges on the idea that we cannot speak of anything from without a reference frame. The frame will depend on your choice of audience and medium, your belonging to a culture and era, and on your particular take on being you.

Predicates, pictures, other labels, schemata, survive want of application, but content vanishes without form. We can have words without a world but no world without words or other symbols.
The many stuffs—matter, energy, waves, phenomena—that worlds are made of are made along with the worlds. But made of what? Not from nothing, after all, but from other worlds. Worldmaking as we know it always starts from the worlds already on hand; the making is the remaking.

Goodman doesn't give free rein to relativism, nor does he deny the existence of reality as a world vision that we all buy into through our daily interactions. Rather worlds are vocabularies with which we speak.

Insightful exploration, especially for philosophers of literature.

[John Zorko · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, i'm fascinated with the premise that epistemological intersections exist - that some semblance of truth about something in the world can be shared between multiple approaches i.e. science and art. This book speaks a lot about that, though it seemed too pragmatic / relativistic at times, and hence didn't give me many of the answers I sought. I think this is one of those books that I will need to re-read later, once my thinking wrt epistemological intersections matures.

[Joel Gn · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can always count on Goodman to tackle postmodern problems with analytical clarity and precision.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goodmam's Ways of Worldmaking is a very dense but rewarding book. The main idea behind it is that our world consists of many different worlds, all of which are equally important to us. For example, we inhabit the various worlds presented to us by our theoretical sciences, but we're also engaged in moral and aesthetic discourse. Moreover, our common-sense does not track a world populated by fields, but rather constructs a world of chairs, banks, and persons. Articulating a theoretical relation between these various worlds (a reductive one where physics is sufficient, for example), seems an impossibility, but what's the alternative? Goodman argues that we need to adopt a radically new epistemology, where truth may be replaced by the criterion of rightness. Thus, Goodman aspires both to avoid irrationalism, as well as advance a rigorous relativism.

[Kishimo0726 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Our problem on this book is probably at large concerning where Goodman, or his idea of radical relativism, stands between structuralism and deconstruction theory. And considered even by my little knowledge about "affordance"(Gibson, Reed, and so on.), Goodman's thought of regarding us, or existences, as agencies of "worldmaking" seems to be similar to the notion of affordance.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10

[rokas · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Never mind mind, essence is not essential and matter doesn't matter. We do better to focus on versions rather than worlds. … This does not mean ... that right versions can be arrived at casually, or that worlds are built from scratch. We start, on any occasion, with some old version or world that we have on hand and that we are stuck with until we have the determination and skill to remake it into a new one. ... Worldmaking begins with one version and ends with another.” (p. 96-97)

To select a version of the world and follow its route implies a commitment to a certain frame of reference, and if we are to adopt a certain frame of reference, the means and contents of reference carry a cognitive cost and restriction, hence committing one to a particular rendering of the criteria of rightness of what and how the world is made.

The most captivating moment is the proposal to envision the notion of rightness (rather than the notions of truth/correspondence or belief) as the constitutive basis for cognition -- the cognition of worldmaking does not necessarily rest on the criteria of truth (and therefore logic, language and semantics), just as it is not invested in modal metaphysics (the ontology of possible worlds, etc.) or subjectivism (psychologist relativism).

Goodman’s landscape is far more general and outreaching: a worldmaking encompasses the systems of symbols and their nominalistic modes of referring and organizing, this way a frame of reference can be a frame of science, frame of language, frame of art; their modes of reference need not be only denotation or description, they too can be expressions or exemplifications: “science and art proceed in much the same way with their searching and building” (p. 107).

“Ways of Worldmaking” is apt for identifying the aporia of multiple worlds and laying the bizarre groundwork for dodging the entrenched philosophical binaries, although it does not go beyond a symptomatological level.

[M. Altuğ Yayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nelson Goodman’ın Dünyalar Nasıl Yapılır adlı eseri, sadece felsefeyle ilgilenenler için değil, edebiyat araştırmacıları için de son derece ufuk açıcı bir çalışma olduğunu düşünüyorum. Goodman’ın “dünya yapımı” kavramı, kurmaca anlatıların hakikatle kurduğu ilişkiyi yeniden düşünmeye davet ediyor. Ona göre dünyalar keşfedilmez, kurulur—tıpkı bir romancının ya da bir şairin kurduğu metinsel evrenler gibi...

Edebiyatı yalnızca bir temsil biçimi olarak değil, bir dünya yapma pratiği olarak düşünmek, Goodman’ın yaklaşımıyla yeni bir bakış kazanıyor. Metinsel kurmacaların gerçekliğe alternatif “dünyalar” kurma gücünü felsefi bir zeminle buluşturması, anlatı kuramları, kurmaca kuramı ve hatta edebi modernlik tartışmaları açısından güçlü bir teorik dayanak sunuyor. Özellikle post-yapısalcı düşünceyle kesişen yönleri, edebi anlatının üretim koşullarını yeniden sorgulamamıza olanak tanıyor diye de düşünüyorum.

Kısacası, Dünyalar Nasıl Yapılır, edebiyat araştırmalarında temsil, hakikat ve kurmaca kavramlarını tartışmak isteyenler için hem teorik hem de metodolojik bir kaynak işlevi gördüğü kesin. Goodman, edebiyatın kurduğu dünyaların yalnızca estetik değil, aynı zamanda ontolojik meseleler de barındırdığını hatırlatıyor ve edebiyatın meşruiyeti adına yeni imkanlar sunuyor.

[channel]

yeah im over it/dnf

exciting start but collapsed rapidly into episodes of hyperfocus on matters i cannot find a reason to care about (or approaching matters i do care about from an angle i really have no use for whatsoever, which feels remarkable considering all the shit i read)

these episodes seem, like a really seriously unfortunate amount of analytic philosophy, to presuppose that i'm already in agreement with some ground rules re: ontic status and some linguistic matters. i struggle to decrypt what these assumptions are and they could very well just be sloppiness re: language, idk. i think there is a very specific audience being addressed for a lot of this and maybe he's trying to break down some preconceptions some milieu is burdened with but i am definitely not in it

[Sam Brock-Mahood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve started reading this book, and so far I love it. Once I get to the end I will update this review.

He is making the case for a position that I held prior, differing perhaps in the particulars of his argument. And I find those particulars convincing so far. He’s also a great writer, he’s very clear. And witty!

[Emily Casella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grad Thesis research!

[K. R. B. Moum · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Sentences at odds with one another get along better when kept apart” (p. 111).

[Scott Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

an object may symbolize different things at different times, nothing at other times ...

[uzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merci Goodman pour mon concours blanc 🤙🏼
Non en vrai super compréhensible et très intéressant !

[Yann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Assez difficile à lire, tout est écrit comme pensée, il faut réussir à suivre le cheminement mais c'est vraiment intéressant!

[David Val Campillo]

Goodman es un makina :3

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does art, besides being beautiful or sublime, or directly portraying scenes, have its own sense of rightness or truth? This book states it does, and not only by means of expressing apparent moods, but by exemplifying certain features, features when seen cohesively with their time and environment have their own sense of appropriateness. However, the claim of this volume is stronger than this, namely it is not only that art is a phenomena that fits or fails to fit its context, but like science is not after any laundry-list of truths, but instead develops and investigates particular features for systematic findings, in which as trials can succeed or fail to extract phenomena of interest. These findings, when successful, are rightful; an extension of truth.

This book was compiled from multiple papers and then elaborated upon them further, with no real attempt to integrate them into anything cohesive, though they work together thematically. From that perspective, what would be of most service to the reader is a kind of road map of how the chapters loop into each other. The first four chapters were originally self-standing articles

1. Words, works, worlds: this chapter identifies some ways of worldmaking as "frame-of-reference building" using an analytical approach (admitting that analysis is one of many ways of "universe of world building"), these ways including: composition (labeling and relation making), weighting and emphasis, utilizing systems of ordering (of tones of duration into pitches and periodicity or letters into words), perceptual effects of deletion and supplimentation (pursued in 5), and deformations such as exaggeration and data fitting. It then observes the man-on-the-street, seeing the world in a homemade bricolage of perceptual/scientific/artistic/ad-hoc concepts formed from their experience.

2. The status of style: this chapter applies to the tools of the above to what style consists of, questioning common choices such as "that which is the way something is said rather than its content" or "what is expressed about the topic rather than its facts"

3. Some questions concerning quotation: an attempt to expand quotation into visual arts and music. I think this section is rather misguided, getting hung up on the "x" versus x form of quotation instead of attempting to integrate it with the kind of quotation found in jazz, that involves themes considered broadly recognizable and often signaled by changes in style, just as " and italics are changes in formatting. I think that more cohesive with the worldmaking theme there would have been a rightful quotation that subsumed logical quotation.

4. When is art? Though some particular items are likely perceived as art or not no matter how they are used, the context of presenting something as art is usually effective to making it into art (as presenting a particular rock in a natural history museum makes it a sample of that kind of rock). This chapter introduces sampling as a means to determine when a given item is rightful.

The next article could also have been self standing, but from there the multiple threads become more clearly integrated.

5. A puzzle about perception: this looks into various perceptions of motion (namely running lights) and how all perceptions of motion stem from sudden changes in color, leading to questions about what constitutes a real perception of motion, pursuing how perceptual issues affect worldmaking.

6. The fabrication of facts: an elaboration of 1.'s worldmaking as applied to art and fiction.

7. On rightness of rendering: this chapter looks to conflicts in worlds, and when one is wrong instead of both being mutually right in their respective frameworks of reference, continuing to develop worldmaking ideas of 1 and 6 using the sampling ideas of 4.

Overall, this book contains a number of fascinating ideas but could have been more rightfully rendered, allowing any given sampling to either give a more cohesive view of worldmaking or a yet more varied texture that would have exemplified the differences between worlds. This style ironically undercuts its message.

[Nat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is wild and crazy philosophy. That might be good or bad, depending on your personal taste. (Goodman says the book is "trying" in both senses of the word.) I think it's good. There isn't a lot of sustained argument, instead, there are various suggestive ways of putting things. I was particularly interested in Goodman's remarks on "musical quotation", which are related to Zed's work on sampling, and his discussion of varieties of conflict between claims, which bears on arguments in contextualism.

I'm undecided about whether I would use some of this book when teaching anti-realism.

[Chris Motta · Rating 3 out of 5]

wow is all i can say, be careful. this one is for you Carl

[Dell · Rating 4 out of 5]

We live in worlds of which we are not only participants but agents, engineers, worldbuilders. The potential for creating worlds is limited only by the resources we bring or acquire.

[Sean Pagaduan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably should be a must-read for any serious artists out there.

[Tjitze Vogel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring way to look at art and how to enter its worlds. Legible, short. Just found goodman's "languages of art". Looking forward to it

[Elif · Rating 2 out of 5]

Çoook yanlış bir zamanda okumaya çalıştığımı düşünüyorum. O yüzden yorum yapamayacağım. Sevgiler..