SUSAN HAACK
95
[A] realist is simply one who knows no more recondite reality than
that which is represented in a true representation (5.3l2,cont.). [am myself
a scholastic realist of a somewhat extreme stripe (5.470). Nomenclature
involves classification; and classification is true or false, and the generals to
which it refers are ei ther reals in the one case, or figments in the other
(5.453).
Pragmaticism could hardly have entered a head that was not already
convinced that there are real generals (5.503).
SH: [
wonder how Professor Rorty feels about your references to "true
representations" ...
RR:
Pragmatism [isJ anti-representationalism
(PPD,
p.l).
CSP:
REPRESENT: to stand for, that is, to be in such a relation to anoth–
er that for certain purposes it is treated by some mind as if it were that
other. ... When it is desired to distinguish between that which represents
and the ... relation of representing, the former may be termed the "rep-
resentamen," the latter the "representation" (2.273).
A sign, or
represwtamen,
is something which stands to somebody for
something in some respect or capaci ty. [t ... creates in the mind of that
person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign
which it creates [ call the
interpretalll
of the first sign. The sign stands for
something, its
object .
..
in reference to a sort of idea, which I have some–
times called the
grollnd
of the representamen (2.228).
RR:
The notion of "accurate representation" is simply an ... empty com–
pliment which we pay to those beliefs which are successful in helping us
do what we want to do
(PMN,
p.l0).
CSP:
It is as though a man should address a land surveyor as follows: "You
do not make a true representation of the land; you only measure lengths
from point to point ... you have to do solely with lines. But the land is a
surface ... You, therefore, fail entirely to represent the land." The survey–
or, I think, would reply, "Sir, you have proved that ... my map
is not
the
land. I never pretended that it was. But that does not prevent it from truly
representing the land, as far as it goes" (5.329).
SH: I
am beginning to think that you may disagree with each other not
only about nominalism, but about the nature and status of metaphysics ...
RR:
The pragmatist ... does not think of himself as
any
kind of a meta–
physician ...
(CI~
p.xxviii).
CSP:
[The Pragmatic MaximJ will serve to show that almost every propo–
sition of ontological metaphysics is either meaningless gibberish - one
