ABSTRACT
When I introduced and explained the methodology I would employ in this book, I characterized its individual chapters as fibers that, braided together, would constitute the strong cable linking film and philosophy. I borrowed the metaphor of a cable from C. S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism. Peirce used it to criticize the a priori method he saw dominant in the practice of Western philosophy. He criticized the idea that philosophy should involve a single chain of logically certain argumentation that linked a well accepted premise to a more dubious conclusion. In place of that, he urged philosophers to use a multiplicity of mutually supporting arguments:
Philosophy ought to imitate the successful sciences in its methods, so far as to proceed only from tangible premises, which can be subjected to careful scrutiny, and to trust rather to the multitude and variety of its arguments than to the conclusiveness of any one. Its reasoning should not form a chain which is no stronger than its weakest link, but a cable whose fibers may be ever so slender, provided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected. 1
