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PARTISAN REVIEW
beliefs as representations ... and instead to think of them as successful rules
for action, then it becomes ... hard to isolate a "method" that will embody
this attitude
(PWM, pp.260-262).
CSP:
It is far better to let philosophy follow perfectly untrammeled a sci–
entific method .... If that course be honestly and scrupulously carried out,
the resul ts reached, even if they be not al together true, even if they be
grossly mistaken, can not but be highly serviceable for the ul timate dis–
covery of truth
(1.644).
Rational methods of inquiry ... will make that
result as speedy as possible ... (7.78).
The first problems to suggest themselves to the inquirer into nature
are far too complex ... for any early sol ution .... What ought to be done,
therefore, .. . is at first to substitute for those problems others much ...
more abstract .... The reasonably certain sol utions of these last problems
will throw a light ... upon more concrete problems .... This method of
procedure is that Analytic Method to which modern physics owes all its
triumphs. It has been appli ed with great success in psychical sciences also.
. . . It is reprobated by the whole Hegelian army, who think it ought to
be replaced by the "Historic Method," which studies complex problems
in all their complexity, but which cannot boast any distinguished
successes.
There are in science three fundamentally different kinds of reasoning,
Deduction, ... Induction, ... and Retroduction ... Analogy combines the
characters of Induction and Retroduction
(1.63-6).
SH:
Do you share Mr. Peirce's high regard for logic, Professor Rorty?
RR: Rigorous argumentation ... is no more
generally
desirable than block–
ing the road of inquiry is generally desirable
(Cl~
p.xli).
CSP:
There are two qualifications which every true man of science pos–
sesses.... First, the dominant passion of his whole soul must be to find out
the truth in some department .... Secondly, he must have a natural gift
for reasoning, for severely critical thought (7.605). Logic is the theory of
right
reasoning, of what reasoning ought to be ...
(2.7).
RR: We no longer think of ourselves as having reliable "sources" of
knowledge called "reason" or "sensation" . .. (OE,
p.531).
CSP:
The data from which inference sets out and upon which all rea–
soning depends are the
perceptllal Jacts,
which are the intellect's fallible
record of the
percepts,
or "evidence of the senses"
(2.143).
RR: Eventually I got over [my] worry about circular argumentation by
deciding that the test of philosophical truth was overall coherence, rather
