Conversations On Natural Philosophy, by the Author of Conversations On Chemistry Book

"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.