"That is": A Reply to Isaac Newton Nozick Nelson Goodman The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 70, No. 6. (Mar. 22, 1973), p. 166. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%2819730322%2970%3A6%3C166%3A%22IARTI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y The Journal of Philosophy is currently published by Journal of Philosophy, Inc..
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166
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
"THAT IS": A REPLY TO ISAAC NEWTON NOZICK *
"A pint's a pound the world around; that is, a pint of water in normal circumstances weighs about 16 ounces avoirdupois." "Wrong. A pint of mercury weighs many pounds." "You overlooked my 'that is. . .'."
". . . the general excellence just sketched becomes aesthetic when exhibited by aesthetic objects; that is, aesthetic merit is such excellence in any symbolic functioning that, by its particular constellation of attributes, qualifies as aesthetic." "Wrong. Isaac Newton Nozick's verse symbolizes effectively in conveying the laws of motion, and is an aesthetic object, but is aesthetically bad." "You overlooked my 'that is. . .'."
Obviously a man may govern well or sing folk songs well and sing opera badly; the excellence of his governing or folk singing is entirely compatible with the badness of his opera singing. Likewise, obviously, a text may function well as a treatise and badly as a poem. Strictly, a way a thing functions symbolically, rather than the thing itself, qualifies or fails to qualify as aesthetic; and aesthetic excellence consists of effectiveness in aesthetic symbolic functioning. T o see that I am saying this rather than making a simple-minded mistake, though, requires reading dauntlessly all the way to the end of my sentence, right past the semicolon and on through the "that is. ..." NELSON GOODMAN
Harvard University
BOOK REVIEWS Language and Human Nature: A French-American Philosophers' Dialogue, edited by PAUL KURTZ. St. Louis, Mo.: Warren H. Green, 1971. xii, 251 p. $17.50. I n October 1968 there took place at the State University of New York a "French-American Philosophers Conference." Six main See Robert Nozick, "Goodman, Nelson on hferit, Aesthetic," this 21 (Nov. 23, 1972): 783-785.
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