My Quarrels with Nelson Goodman

Anyone familiar with Nelson Goodman's philosophical career knows that to have quarreled with him was a hazardous enterprise. For aside from his creative brilliance and analytical subtlety, he was also one of the foremost dialecticians of the age. Seeing through the flaws of rival views and rebutting putative counterarguments to his own came as easily to him as breathing. To recall his rejoinders to a long list of would-be rebuttals of his paper, "On Likeness of Meaning",' or the acute series of counterexamples to received views of scientific law in his pioneering paper, "The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals",2 or his replies to criticisms of his nominalism in "A World of Individuals",3 or again, his replies to confident attacks on his theory of projection4 is to find ample evidence of an intimidating intellectual presence. To take issue with him was in fact to take one's philosophical life in one's hands and many are those over the course of his career who rued the venture. Since I was one of the earliest of Goodman's doctoral advisees, starting in 1949 at the University of Pennsylvania, and studying with him during the period of his controversies over likeness of meaning, counterfactuals, and induction, as well as the first publication of his monumental book, The Structure of Appearance,' you can be sure that I did not pick my quarrels with him lightly. Moreover, I had no independent reason to quarrel with him. Indeed, he was generous and helpful to me, commenting on my early efforts with care and suggesting publication for my first papers. The truth is that I not only admired him enormously both as a thinker and a teacher but also