FROM METAPHYSICS TO LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY
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questions in favor of natural-scientific ones-which leads in short order to
irrationalism.
After all, natural-scientific investigation cannot reasonably be expected
to answer such characteristically philosophical questions as: are the natural
sciences epistemologically special, and if so, why? is its yielding true pre–
dictions an indication of the truth of a theory, and if so, why?, etc.; and it
is incomprehensible why, unless these were legitimate questions with less–
than-skeptical answers, one could be justified, as the most ambitious style
of scientism proposes, in doing science instead of philosophy.
Hence the peculiar affini ty of revol utionary scientism wi th the anti–
scientific attitudes which, as I conjecture, are prompted by resentment, as
scientism is prompted by envy, of the sciences. One hears from Paul
Churchland, on the scientistic side, that, since truth is not the primary
aim
of the ceaseless cogni tive activi ty of the ganglia of the sea-sl ug, it should
maybe cease to be a primary aim of science, and even that talk of truth may
make no sense; from Richard Rorty, on the anti-science side, that truth is
just what can survive all conversational objections, and that the only sense
in which science is exemplary is as a model of human solidarity. One hears
from Patricia Churchland, on the scientistic side, that "truth, whatever that
is, definitely takes the hindmost"; from Sandra Harding, on the anti-science
side, that "the truth-whatever that is!-will not set you free ." One hears
from Steven Stich, on the scientistic side, that truth is neither intrinsically
nor instrumentally valuable, and that a justified belief is one which con–
duces to whatever the believer values; from Steve Fuller, on the
anti-science side, that the worth of scholarship all depends on "who[m]
you are trying to court in your work."
And now one begins to see why preposterism poses a particular peril
for philosophy, the discipline to which it falls
to
inquire into inquiry itself,
its proper conduct and conditions.
Here is C.S. Peirce, a century or so ago, describing what happens when
pseudo-inquiry is commonplace: "men come to look upon reasoning as
mainly decorative.... The result of this state of things is, of course, a rapid
deterioration of intellectual vigor. ... [M]an loses his conceptions of truth
and of reason." This is just what is taking place before our eyes . The ubiq–
uity of sham and fake reasoning has induced a factitious despair of the
possibility of attaining truth by investigation-the despair revealed in the
astonishing outbreak of sneer quotes with which so much recent philo–
sophical writing expresses its distrust of "truth," "reality," "facts,"
"reason," "objectivi ty," etc.
When sham and fake reasoning are ubiquitous, people become
uncomfortably aware, or half-aware, that reputations are made as often by
clever championship of the indefensible or the incomprehensible as by
serious intellectual work, as often by mutual promotion as by merit.
