The Consequences of Goodman’s Nominalism for his Terminology

Abstract

The task is now to examine the immediate effects that Goodman’s nominalism has on the kinds of terms available to him in the rest of his philosophy as he was at pains to be consistent in his positions. Goodman’s nominalism denies abstract objects, classes, properties, meaning accounts, and fictive entities. Properties, as abiding characteristics of individuals, are suspect; as a more general category, abstract objects (often thought of as independent of space and time as they are construed by the mind), would include not only properties, but also propositions, tokens, and intentional acts; such entities would have no foundation within a Goodmanian system constructed around phenomenal qualia as the basic individual unit of experience given within a specific time and place. Semantics, as a kind of theory of reference, was an attempt to choose the “reference” fork instead of the “meaning” fork, and was part of a more general attempt to move away from the perceived vagueness of metaphysics and to instead give non-intensionalist accounts of reality. Fictive references are forbidden as they are analogous to the null set, and both are at odds with Goodman’s nominalism and extensionalism.