With this third edition of Nelson Goodman's The Structure of Appear ance, we are pleased to make available once more one of the most in fluential and important works in the philosophy of our times. Professor Geoffrey Hellman's introduction gives a sustained analysis and appreciation of the major themes and the thrust of the book, as well as an account of the ways in which many of Goodman's problems and projects have been picked up and developed by others. Hellman also suggests how The Structure of Appearance introduces issues which Goodman later continues in his essays and in the Languages of Art. There remains the task of understanding Good man's project as a whole; to see the deep continuities of his thought, as it ranges from logic to epistemology, to science and art; to see it therefore as a complex yet coherent theory of human cognition and practice. What we can only hope to suggest, in this note, is the b. road Significance of Goodman's apparently technical work for philosophers, scientists and humanists. One may say of Nelson Goodman that his bite is worse than his bark. Behind what appears as a cool and methodical analysis of the conditions of the construction of systems, there lurks a radical and disturbing thesis: that the world is, in itself, no more one way than another, nor are we. It depends on the ways in which we take it, and on what we do.

InhaltsangabeOne/On The Theory Of Systems.- I. Constructional Definition.- 1. Extensional Identity.- 2. Substitution Criteria.- 3. Extensional Isomorphism.- 4. Consequences of Isomorphism as a Criterion.- 5. On Systems of Predicates of Individuals.- II. The General Apparatus.- 1. General Apparatus and Special Basis.- 2. The Question of Classes.- 3. Nominalism.- 4. The Calculus of Individuals.- 5. The Calculus in Systems.- III. Extralogical Bases.- 1. The Nature of Primitive Terms.- 2. The Choice of Basis.- 3. Simplicity.- 4. Reflexitivity and Complexity.- 5. Transitivity, Self-completeness, and Complexity.- 6. Symmetry and Complexity.- 7. Final Formulae for Primary Complexity.- 8. Secondary Complexity 75 9. Evaluation of Bases.- 10. Complexity of Other Primitives.- 11. Basic Individuals.- 12. Postulates.- Two I On Qualities and the Concrete.- IV. Approach to the Problems.- 1. Things.- 2. Properties.- 3. Qualia.- 4. Physicalistic and Phenomenalistic Systems.- 5. Realistic and Particularistic Systems.- 6. Introduction to the Problems of Abstraction and Concretion.- V. The System of the 'Aufbau'.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The Basic Units.- 3. Methods of Construction.- 4. The Choice of a Primitive.- 5. Definition of Qualities.- 6. Further Constructions.- 7. Conclusion.- VI. Foundations of a Realistic System.- 1. Qualia as Atoms.- 2. Atoms of the System.- 3. Togetherness.- 4. The Problem of Concretion.- 5. A Revision and its Consequences.- 6. Rectification of Particularism.- 7. Alternative Treatments of the Problem of Concretion.- VII. Concreta and Qualification.- 1. The Individuals of the System.- 2. Principles of Togetherness.- 3. Complexes.- 4. Concreta.- 5. Elementary Qualification.- 6. Compound Qualification.- 7. A Paradox and its Lesson.- 8. A Note on Abstract, Concrete, Universal, and Particular Individuals.- VIII. Size and Shape.- 1. The Problem.- 2. Size.- 3. Shape.- 4. Initial and Derivative Quality Terms.- Three/On Order, Measure, and Time.- IX. The Problem of Order.- 1. A New Problem.- 2. Choice of a Basic Predicate.- 3. Mapping and the Mapped.- 4. Reduction of Basis.- 5. Categories and Realms.- 6. Principles of Matching.- 7. A Rule of Order.- X. Topology of Quality.- 1. The Formal Problem.- 2. Betwixtness.- 3. Justification of the Definition of Betwixtness.- 4. Besideness.- 5. Just Noticeable Difference.- 6. Adjusted Linear Maps.- 7. Some Cartographical Conventions.- 8. Some Types of Nonlinear Array.- 9. Besideness in Square-Cell Networks.- 10. Nextness.- 11. Spurious Maps.- 12. Toward Shape and Measure.- 13. Ordinal Quasianalysis.- 14. Recent Developments.- 15. Note Added in Third Edition 257.- XI. Of Time and Eternity.- 1. Phenomenal Time.- 2. Time and Language.- 3. The Passage of Time.- 4. The Temporal Field.- 5. The Physical World.- Index to Special Symbols.