On Hetherington's Solution of the Goodman Paradox

Abstract

The Goodman paradox presents us with the problem of selecting the hypotheses that are confirmed by their positive instances. In a recent paper, Stephen Hetherington proposes a criterion that enables us to specify the hypotheses that are subjectively confirmed by these instances. But there is also an objective aspect to be considered here because, as a matter of fact, the hypotheses selected by the criterion have often been highly reliable even if they were based on the observation of only a few positive instances. In the present note, I examine this aspect and I point out that Hume not only dealt with the reliability phenomenon but also gave a plausible explanation of the phenomenon. I also point out that Hume's explanation is surprisingly similar to the explanation given lately by a number of naturalistic philosophers to the reliability phenomenon.