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the individualistic relativist who would like to think that he has
transcended convention, tradition, and history in his solipsistic
imaginings.
Here I push Goodman's argument further perhaps than he does
because it is precisely at this point that the book begins to disap–
point.
If
a world must also be found before it can be made or re–
made, what are we to think of "worldfinding"? Does the priority of
the world we find place some limitations on the act of worldmaking?
How are we to treat the traditional scientific, moral, and artistic
practices we inherit in the "old world we have on hand"?
If
we
can
transform them as much as we want, how much transformation
should
we want?
Ways
of
Worldmaking
seems less cryptic and mystical on
rereading.
If
at first it appears that Goodman's relativism gets the
best of him, it later becomes clear that he does wish to defend claims
to "rightness" within the worlds, and that he considers scientific con–
ceptions of truth among the highest forms of rightness. As he wrote
in the
Journal of Philosophy
in 1979: "... my argument that the arts
must be taken no less seriously than the sciences is not that the arts
'enrich' us or contribute something warmer and more human, but
that the sciences as distinguished from technology, and the arts as
distinguished from fun, have as their common function the advance–
ment of understanding." Goodman's antifoundationalism is anything
but nihilistic; it is an invitation to create something from the world
we have. Thus the reader's disappointment - in finding the "given–
ness" of the world unexplored - is exaggerated by the expectations he
has raised. Why, one wonders, is this book's title not,
Ways of World
Remaking?
II.
If
Nelson Goodman is now a holist reflecting on his turn from
foundationalism, Hilary Putnam is an apostate foundationalist un–
comfortable with his available alternatives. Best known for his work
in the philosophy of science and mathematical theory, Putnam was,
up until just a few years ago, what he would call a "metaphysical
realist" - that is, someone who believed it is possible to construct "a
model of the relation of any correct theory to all or part of THE
WORLD." His views have altered substantially since, and this
transformation has, in turn, redirected his interests toward the social
