grue and bleen

[Joel S. Berson]

In my personal experience, something is grue if I call it "green" and
a particular acquaintance, no names being used, calls it "blue"; and
is bleen if I call it "blue" and that same unnamed acquaintance calls
it "green".

Joel

At 10/18/2010 09:57 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>Well, there's a "grue" I'm familiar with, but it's not the one hiding
>in "gruesome".  In a classic paper or book (I forget which, since I
>didn't read it, but just recall the cite) on induction, the mid-20th
>century philosopher of Nelson Goodman proposes "grue" as the label
>for a color of objects that are green when seen before noon (or
>whenever) and blue when seen after it.  (As opposed to "bleen", which
>has the opposite property but didn't catch on to the same extent.)
>The puzzle had to do with why we assume objects that look green are
>green rather than grue.
>
>Let's see if I can google it up...  Yup, and even with a somewhat
>less than immortal ode to the color "grue":
>
>Nelson Goodman seems quite keen
>Induction yet to show anew
>Is somewhat sick as will be seen
>And may not be completely true.
>
>Is this leaf a lovely green?
>Or is it rather colored grue?
>Is the sky above quite bleen?
>Or am I right in seeing blue?
>
>I really don't care to be mean
>And have no wish to Goodman skew;
>But childish puzzles can demean;
>Has he nothing else to do??
>-JSH, "On 'The New Riddle of Induction'"
>http://www.massline.org/philosdog/G/Goodman.htm

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