Catherine Z. Elgin
Papers on Nelson Goodman

• Construction and Cognition (Theoria, 24, 2009, 134-146.)
  Abstract: The Structure of Appearance presents a phenomenalist system which constructs enduring visible objects out of qualia. Nevertheless Goodman does not espouse phenomenalism. Why not? In answering this question this paper explicates Goodman's views about the nature and functions of constructional systems, the prospects of reductionism, and the character of epistemology.
  
  
• Denying a Dualism: Goodman's Repudiation of the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 28, 2004, 226-238.)
  
  
• The Legacy of Nelson Goodman (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 62, 2001, 679-690.)
  Abstract: Nelson Goodman was one of the foremost philosophers of the twentieth century. His work radically reshaped the subject, forcing fundamental reconceptions of philosophy's problems, ends and means. Goodman not only contributed to diverse fields, from philosophy of language to aesthetics, from philosophy of science to mereology, his works cut across these and other fields, revealing shared features and connecting links that more narrowly focused philosophers overlook. This paper begins to assess Goodman's legacy by reviewing his major accomplishments and identifying a cluster of metaphysical, epistemological, and methodological commitments that run through his works.
  
  
• Worldmaker: Nelson Goodman (Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 31, 2000, 1-18.)
  
  
• Reorienting Aesthetics, Reconceiving Cognition (Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 58, 2000, 219-225.)
  
  
• The Power of Parsimony (Philosophia Scientiae, 2, 1997, 89-104; reprinted in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 45, 1997, 487-499 (in German).)
  Abstract: Extensionalism is often rejected on the grounds that it cannot explicate metaphor, fiction, indirect discourse, and ascriptions of propositional attitude. I argue that Nelson Goodman's extensionalism has the resources to explicate all these devices. But Goodman recognizes multiple modes of reference, whereas intensional theories recognize only one. So it is not obvious that his theory is more austere than its intensional rivals. What recommends Goodman's extensionalism, I contend, is not its ontological austerity so much as its flexibility and sensitivity to context.
  
  
• What Goodman Leaves Out (Journal of Aesthetic Education, 25, 1991, 89-96.)
  
  
• Changing the Subject, with Nelson Goodman, (The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 46, 1987, 219-233; reprinted in Analytic Aesthetics, ed. Richard Shusterman, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989, 190-196; and in Estetyka w swiecie, ed. Maria Golaszewska (in Polish).)
  Abstract: We argue that the analytic turn enabled aesthetics to shift its focus to the study of symbols. With this reconception, a variety of traditional aesthetic problems, such as the paradox of ugliness, dissolve; others, including the role of emotion and the importance of excellence, are reconceived. This enables us to see how arts function cognitively -- how they contribute, when effective, to human understanding.