SUSAN HAACK
99
than deducibility from unquestioned first principles. But this didn't help
much
(TWO,
p.145).
CSP:
The reader will, I trust, be too well grounded in logic to mistake
... mutual support for a vicious circle in reasoning (6.315).
Philosophy ought ... to trust ... to the multitude and variety of its
arguments .... Its reasoning should not form a chain which is no stronger
than the weakest link, but a cable whose fibers may be ever so slender, pro–
vided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected (5.265) .
RR:
But [as I said] this didn't help much . For coherence is a matter of
avoiding contradictions, and St. Thomas' advice, "When you meet a con–
tradiction, make a distinction," makes that pretty easy
(TWO,
p.145).
SH:
How do you feel about Professor Rorty's observation that making
distinctions is "pretty easy," Mr. Peirce?
CSP:
. ..
Kant's conception of the nature of necessary reasoning is clear–
ly shown by the logic of relations to be utterly mistaken, and his
distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments, ... which is based
on that conception, is so utterly confused that it is difficult or impossible
to do anything with it (5.176).
SH:
Perhaps, while we are on the subject of logic, you could explain your
attitude to the principle of bivalence . . .
RR:
The pragmatist ... should not succumb to the temptation to . .. take
sides on the issue of "bivalence" (CP, p.xxvi).
CSP:
Triadic logic is universally true
(Logic Notebook
for 1909).
SH:
Perhaps, Professor Rorty, it would be helpful if you would explain
how you see the relation of philosophy to science .. .
RR:
The pragmatist is betting that what succeeds the "scientific," positivist
culture which the Enlightenment produced will be
better
(CP, p.xxxviii).
Science as the source of "truth" . . . is one of the Cartesian notions which
vanish when the ideal of "philosophy as strict science" vanishes (p.34).
Pragmatism ... views science as one genre of literature - or, put the other
way around, literature and the arts as inquiries, on the same footing as sci–
entific inquiries (p.xliii) . Philosophy is best seen as a kind of writing.
It
is
delimited, as is any literary genre, not by form or matter, but by tradition .
. . . Philosophy as more than a kind of wri ting - is an ill usion . . .. [One] tra–
dition takes scientific truth as the center of philosophical concern (and
scorns the notion of incommensurable scientific world-pictures).
It
asks
how well other fields of inquiry conform to the model of science. The sec-
