The Short of It

The Short of It Nelson Goodman; Joseph Ullian The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 75, No. 5. (May, 1978), pp. 263-264. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%28197805%2975%3A5%3C263%3ATSOI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I The Journal of Philosophy is currently published by Journal of Philosophy, Inc..

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THE SHORT OF IT

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T o sun1 up: the central problems of epistemology are concerned with the notion of justification. We have been given no reason to think that our understanding of that notion turns on our discovering what conditions we should need to adcl to the justified-truebelief analysis of knowledge to cope with the Gettier counterexamples. As for the proposed use of Gettier examples to determine when beliefs are based on inference, if this is a matter oE detecting unconscious psychological processes, the test is of dubious validity. Furthermore, its relevance to any typically epistemological problems is obscure. Harman tries to establish a connection by arguing that the principles of inference that warrant belief are those in accordance with which the mind works. However, on closer examination, this "psychologism" reduces to the claim that the study of inference requires some pre-theoretical ideas about when beliefs call for justification and about what kinds of justification are acceptable. As such, it offers no support for the idea that unconscious psychological processes have some special significance for the epistemological study of justification. And as far as the Gettier problem itself goes, we saw that Harman's attempt to account for the counterexamples by means of principle P is more plausible if the notion of "reasons for belief" is explained in terms of what a person would (or perhaps ought to) say if questions of justification were pressed, rather than in terms of whatever unconscious reasoning might have led him to his belief. Finally, I argued that principle P does not preclude a theory of inductive inference based on rules of acceptance. That anything important turns on coming up with a solution to Gettier's problem remains to be shown. MICHAtL WILLIAMS

Yale University

THE SHORT OF IT

A few final words on Zabludowski's arguments against Fact, Fiction, and Forecast: 1. When we judge a hypothesis projectible, we in effect bet that there is no competitor it does not override. Thus whenever we 1 Third edition (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1973). See further our "Projectibility LXXIII,9 (Sept. 16, 1976): 527-531, and Zabludowski's Unscathed," this JOURNAL, "Quod Periit, Periit," ibid., LXXIV, 9 (September 1977): 541-552. We here omit discussion of the supererogatory principle of wanton embedding.

0022-362X/78/7505/0263$00.50

0 1978 The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

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THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHI

project a hypothesis, we resolve any indecision concerning its conflict with a n able competitor. Accordingly, Zabludowski's premisethat for every otherwise qualified hypothesis H there is always another equally well qualified hypothesis K such that our assumptions do not exclude conflict with H-is false.

2. As in the case of two hypotheses, three or more, such as 'All emeralds are green', 'All emeralds are grue', 'All emeralds are gred', etc., conflict only if they assign to something several predicates such that only one actually applies. XELSON GOODMAN

Harvard University JOSEPH ULLIAN

Washington University

BOOK REVIEWS Vico arzd Herder. T w o Studies in the Histo~y of Ideas. ISAIAH New York: Viking Press, 1976. xxvii, 228 p. Cloth $12.50, paper $3.95.

BERLIN.

Reviewing a book that has just come from the press and tries to find its way to the public for the first time is quite different from giving a critical account of a well-known scholar's work which, less than a year after publication of the hardcover edition, has been honored by the publisher with a paperback edition and has thus become something of a classic on the subject within a short time. Sir Isaiah Berlin's book on Vico and Herder, published i n May, 1976, and reprinted as a paperback in February, 1977, has now been reviewed more than thirty times by the most competent scholars in the most influential journals and newspapers.= Berlin's book will be essential reading for everybody interested i n Vico and Herder for years to come. Some, attracted by the author's name, may make their first acquaintance with these two well-known but rarely read thinkers of the eighteenth century; others may use some of Berlin's less favorable remarks on his heroes as an argument against the 2Zabludowski writes "evidence" rather than "assumptions"; but, as made clear from the start of Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, judgments of conflict of unviolated hypotheses must of course depend on assumptions. 1 See the bibliography in Social Research, XLIII (1976): 911-912. 0022-362X/78/7505/0264.$00.70

0 1978 The Journal of Philosopll!-, Inc.

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[Footnotes] 1

Projectibility Unscathed Joseph Ullian; Nelson Goodman The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 73, No. 16. (Sep. 16, 1976), pp. 527-531. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%2819760916%2973%3A16%3C527%3APU%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H

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