A Critical Review of Nelson Goodman's Science of the New Riddle of Induction

Abstract

Induction is a specific form of reasoning in which the premises of an argument support a conclusion, but do not ensure it. It came into limelight after the medieval period of philosophy. In this times, man witnessed a new era and change in his perception of the world and his place in it, which stemmed from the varied scientific movements. Following the scientific movement and discoveries of modern science during this period, there was a shift in man's quest for knowledge, from theology to science, god to man, which gave rise to different developments and advancements in science with induction being part of this development. David Hume in his discovery of the problem of the old method of induction argued that since no necessary connections exist between observed occurrences, it is always possible then that a future observation will prove our inferences wrong no matter how appealing past observations might appear to be. The problem however has been referred to as the uniformity principle, since due to the uniformity observed in nature that induction is held to have some grounding. Hence, Nelson Goodman in his work presents a different opinion of what he refers to as the new riddle of induction which sought to replace the old induction so as to be able to proffer a solution which is in distinguishing between law-like statements and accidental statements. Thus, this paper showed how Goodman dissolved the old induction and outlined a confirmation that ensures the safe arrival of the new riddle of induction, thereby generating a tentative solution to the problem through his method of projection which never eradicated the problem of induction but propounded new ones.