CONCEPT
Rightness of Rendering
Goodman's replacement for truth-as-correspondence—a version is right when it achieves internal coherence, fits with other accepted versions, serves its purposes, and meets its symbol system's standards.
Rightness of rendering is Nelson Goodman's answer to the question of how to evaluate representations when the copy theory has been abandoned. If versions do not copy a pre-given reality, what makes one version better than another? Goodman's answer: rightness—a complex of properties including internal coherence (the version does not contradict itself), fit with other accepted versions (the new version is compatible with what we already accept as reliable), productivity (the version generates understanding rather than merely repeating what was already known), and standards-compliance (the version meets the norms of the symbol system within which it operates). A right rendering is not an accurate copy—there is no version-free original to copy. It is a rendering that works, where 'works' means: achieves the purposes for which the version was constructed, organizes experience in ways that yield insight, and holds together under the kind of scrutiny appropriate to its symbol system. The standard is demanding without being impossible, rigorous without requiring correspondence to a metaphysical fantasy.
