grue and bleen

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:49 AM -0400 10/19/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>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

OK, sounds good; now you just need someone to write a poem on your
practice and publish (or at least web-post) it.  The rest of us will
be grue with envy--or bleen, depending on the time of day.

LH

>
>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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