Lexicon of Arguments

 

II VI Preface (H. Putnam)
Measuring/Goodman/Putnam: for example, we call a Bacillus S-shaped when it looks like this under a microscope. Then the term is not based on observation but can be projected completely. If one "ostensively" weakens and allows the use of instruments, then, as Goodman shows, grue is ostensively definable: one only needs to build a measuring instrument on which a red light illuminates when the time is before t, and the instrument registers something green, or the time later than t, when it registers something blue. See grueness.
... If we use such a tool, we can tell if something is grue or not, without knowing the time, by looking up whether the lamp is on. Critics might argue that the instrument actually measures the time: but in a certain understanding each measuring instrument that contains internal moving parts and depends on these movements, contains an internal clock. (See also measuring).
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III 220
Because what is displayed or measured, is never articulated (articulated: the opposite of dense. See Terminology/Goodman).