Similarity After Goodman
Open Access
- 26 June 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Review of Philosophy and Psychology
- Vol. 2 (1), 61-75
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-010-0035-y
Abstract
In a famous critique, Goodman dismissed similarity as a slippery and both philosophically and scientifically useless notion. We revisit his critique in the light of important recent work on similarity in psychology and cognitive science. Specifically, we use Tversky’s influential set-theoretic account of similarity as well as Gärdenfors’s more recent resuscitation of the geometrical account to show that, while Goodman’s critique contained valuable insights, it does not warrant a dismissal of similarity.Keywords
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