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Putting Philosophy to Work: Inquiry and Its Place in Culture, Essays on Science, Religion, Law, Literature, and Life
This wide-ranging collection of Susan Haack’s new and recent essays offers applied philosophy in a new key and a fresh voice — subtle, penetrating analyses of vital issues about science, society, religion, law, literature, even about what makes a life meaningful.
Is truth one, or many—or both? Or could it be just an illusion?
Are science and religion compatible? Does science itself require a kind of faith?
Is consistency intellectually indispensable, or merely "the hobgoblin of little minds"?
How does truth relate to justice, and how can courts best handle the scientific testimony often vital to a case?
Is economics the "queen of the social sciences," or are its scientific pretensions largely bogus?
Is philosophy itself a science, or is it more akin to literature?
How can we learn so much about life from fiction, when the stories novelists tell are not true?
Whether she is telling the "sad, sleazy saga" of a drug company’s efforts to suppress the unfavorable results of a clinical trial it had funded, disentangling the many senses of "coherent," or reflecting on the growth of intellectual character, Haack writes with the clarity, verve, and wit her readers have come to expect.
Is truth one, or many—or both? Or could it be just an illusion?
Are science and religion compatible? Does science itself require a kind of faith?
Is consistency intellectually indispensable, or merely "the hobgoblin of little minds"?
How does truth relate to justice, and how can courts best handle the scientific testimony often vital to a case?
Is economics the "queen of the social sciences," or are its scientific pretensions largely bogus?
Is philosophy itself a science, or is it more akin to literature?
How can we learn so much about life from fiction, when the stories novelists tell are not true?
Whether she is telling the "sad, sleazy saga" of a drug company’s efforts to suppress the unfavorable results of a clinical trial it had funded, disentangling the many senses of "coherent," or reflecting on the growth of intellectual character, Haack writes with the clarity, verve, and wit her readers have come to expect.
- GenresPhilosophy
264 pages, Hardcover
First published July 22, 2007
6 people are currently reading
83 people want to read
About the author
Susan Haack
27 books47 followersHaack is a graduate of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. At Oxford, she studied at St. Hilda's College, where her first philosophy teacher was Jean Austin, the widow of J. L. Austin.
She studied Plato with Gilbert Ryle and logic with Michael Dummett. David Pears supervised her B.Phil. dissertation on ambiguity. At Cambridge, she wrote her Ph.D. under the supervision of Timothy Smiley. She held the positions of Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge and professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick before taking her current position at the University of Miami.
Haack's major contribution to philosophy, in the 1993 book Evidence and Inquiry is her epistemological theory called foundherentism, which is her attempt to avoid the logical problems of both pure foundationalism (which is susceptible to infinite regress) and pure coherentism (which is susceptible to circularity). She illustrates this idea with the metaphor of the crossword puzzle. A highly simplified version of this proceeds as follows: Finding an answer using a clue is analogous to a foundational source (grounded in empirical evidence). Making sure that the interlocking words are mutually sensible is analogous to justification through coherence. Both are necessary components in the justification of knowledge. At least one scholar has claimed that Haack's foundherentism collapses into foundationalism upon further inspection.
Haack has been a fierce critic of Richard Rorty. She wrote a play, We Pragmatists ...: Peirce and Rorty in Conversation, consisting entirely of quotes from both philosophers. She performed the role of Peirce. Haack published a vigorous essay[8] in the New Criterion, taking strong exception to many of Rorty's views, especially his claim to be a sort of pragmatist.
Haack (1998) is highly critical of the view that there is a feminine perspective on logic and scientific truth. She holds that many feminist critiques of science and philosophy are overly concerned with 'political correctness'.
She has written for Free Inquiry magazine and the Council for Secular Humanism. Haack's work has been reviewed and cited in the popular press, such as The Times Literary Supplement as well as in academic journals.
Source
She studied Plato with Gilbert Ryle and logic with Michael Dummett. David Pears supervised her B.Phil. dissertation on ambiguity. At Cambridge, she wrote her Ph.D. under the supervision of Timothy Smiley. She held the positions of Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge and professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick before taking her current position at the University of Miami.
Haack's major contribution to philosophy, in the 1993 book Evidence and Inquiry is her epistemological theory called foundherentism, which is her attempt to avoid the logical problems of both pure foundationalism (which is susceptible to infinite regress) and pure coherentism (which is susceptible to circularity). She illustrates this idea with the metaphor of the crossword puzzle. A highly simplified version of this proceeds as follows: Finding an answer using a clue is analogous to a foundational source (grounded in empirical evidence). Making sure that the interlocking words are mutually sensible is analogous to justification through coherence. Both are necessary components in the justification of knowledge. At least one scholar has claimed that Haack's foundherentism collapses into foundationalism upon further inspection.
Haack has been a fierce critic of Richard Rorty. She wrote a play, We Pragmatists ...: Peirce and Rorty in Conversation, consisting entirely of quotes from both philosophers. She performed the role of Peirce. Haack published a vigorous essay[8] in the New Criterion, taking strong exception to many of Rorty's views, especially his claim to be a sort of pragmatist.
Haack (1998) is highly critical of the view that there is a feminine perspective on logic and scientific truth. She holds that many feminist critiques of science and philosophy are overly concerned with 'political correctness'.
She has written for Free Inquiry magazine and the Council for Secular Humanism. Haack's work has been reviewed and cited in the popular press, such as The Times Literary Supplement as well as in academic journals.
Source
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January 8, 2017
Susan Haack’s importance in modern philosophy is confirmed by being in Peter J. King’s 100 Philosophers: The Life and Work of the World’s Greatest Thinkers and Susan Haack: A Lady of Distinction, edited by Cornelis de Waal. The book is a collection of Susan Haack’s responses to various questions she has been ask over the years. Most I believe have been previously published. Some of the areas covered in the book are truth, pragmatism, philosophy of science, law, epistemology, literature, feminism, and academia.
The following are a lot of the notes, but not all, I had taken while reading the book (pagination is from the Kindle edition, italics are Haack’s).
Page 25: She writes, “. . . an insistence on consistency is a sign, rather, of an undesirable rigidity of mind or inflexibility of practice.” While the cases where inconsistency is acceptable to her is limited, I find in my thinking, that inconsistency lurks around some of the edges of my thought. I just wonder whether my inconsistencies (at least some of them) would be acceptable to her.
Page 25: She states that C. S. Peirce had a “. . . preference for hypotheses that posit continuities over those that posit sharp line of demarcation.” This is in line with my sense that life is better explained in shades of gray, rather than in black and white.
Page 32: She writes: “I point out that strong feelings don’t always or inevitably cloud your judgment . . .” It is hardly possible to separate feelings and thought anyway. The important thing to keep in mind is not to let feelings lead to irrational decisions.
Page 38: She writes: “So successful have the natural sciences been that the words ‘science’ and ‘scientific’ are often used honorifically, as all-purpose terms of epistemic praise.” Matter of fact, when people say they are scientific minded, they do not actually conduct any experiments, which are the sine qua non of most sciences. I think what they mean is they think rationally.
Page 42: She quotes William James as saying: “’[W]hen . . . we give up the quest for certitude do not thereby give up the quest or hope of truth itself.’” If in traditional pragmatism where truth becomes what is useful or what works, it does not mean there is no truth condition. If it did not prove to be useful or work it would not be true.
Page 64: She believes that reductionism is out of place in the social sciences and possibly even in biology. I would agree that reductionism in the social sciences does not provide much in the way of explanation, but while reductionism is not practical here, there is not any logical exclusion of it either. After all everything is built up from the quantum world, where causation is out of place, but once a quantum action does occur it is cause all the way up.
Page 81: Again, in a much thorough way than in the introduction, she discusses the use that inconsistencies may provide, saying, “. . . inconsistency may prompt fruitful intellectual advance . . .” This leads me to ask – can people really have totally consistent thoughts? This possibility really comes into its own when two different areas of thought are concerned.
Page 84: Again as with inconsistency, she writes more on continuities that C. S. Peirce explored. She states: “The idea . . . is rather that we should look for underlying continuities, and recognize that supposedly sharp distinctions may be better conceived as lines of demarcation drawn at some point on a continuum.” In plainer terms we must pay attention to the grays between the blacks and the whites. The big problem here is that logically this runs up against the sorites paradox, which I think is not solved by multi-valued logic.
Page 87: Here she presents some more of Peirce’s thought, which I will not quote, but gives me the feeling that here he is sprouting woo-woo-ness and gobbly-gook. Given Haack’s devotion to clarity, it surprises me that she has such admiration for him.
Page 89: She writes: “Metaphysics does, and must, rest on observable phenomena.” This is exactly the stand of metaphysical naturalism, which I am certainly on board with.
Page 89: Again quoting Peirce: “Philosophy ‘does not undertake to make any special observations or to obtain perceptions of a novel description. Microscopes and telescopes, voyages and exhumations . . . are substantially superflouus. . . . It contents itself with a more attractive scrutiny and comparison of the facts of everyday life. . . .’” This is, of course, mostly true. But, philosophy cannot ignore the findings of science as well as other areas of inquiry when they impact the philosophical exploration at hand.
Page 95: She writes: “Though a person’s beliefs, etc., are certainly physiologically realized, they are not simply reducible to neurophysiological states.” I would say that this may be so in an explanatory sense, but definitely not in the causal sense.
Page 108: She states parenthetically: “(Rigid dogmatism is always epistemologically undesirable, rigid dogmatism about even the best-warranted scientific theory included.)” I would say that not only is this the case in science, but even more so in philosophy were proof at best supplies a supportive function.
Page 109: She pretty much states that pseudo-science is not a very helpful term. I disagree. While those areas labeled pseudo-science may use some of the accouterments of science, it fails to rise to the necessary scientific quality that is the hallmark of good science. Therefore, its findings are suspect, and should not be given the label of science.
Page 112: She writes: “There is no sharp boundary between psychology and philosophy of mind, nor between cosmology and metaphysics.” Maybe not, but some philosophers will ignore or not attempt to find out what empirical evidence might have a bearing on their investigation.
Page 113: Again speaking about using the term pseudo-science, she claims that “instead of simply sneering at ‘pseudo-science,’” they need “to specify what exactly is wrong with the work” that is under scrutiny. Most of the stuff I have read about pseudo-science does exactly this. It shows what is wrong with these types of studies. The work of Michael Shermer is a good example of this kind of writing.
Page 155: She uses the phrase “pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo” after she criticized its use in a previous chapter. This seems inconsistent, but not detrimentally so, if it leads her to a better overall conception of pseudo-science. This would be an example of what she discussed on page 81.
Page 194: I was impressed by her demolition of Karl Popper’s philosophy of science. Here she says: “So I can’t resist having a little unkind fun playing with the possible sub-titles I might appropriately have given this paper: ‘The Farrago of Falsificationism,’ perhaps, or ‘Down with Deductivism’? But, no: in view of Popper’s motto, I would have to chose ‘Finally, Some Critical Common-sense about Critical Rationalism.” In this chapter she not only shows that Popper’s work is not only unsound, but is not even coherent.
Page 201: In her chapter on religion and science she writes: “Nevertheless, it seems to me, as to both religious and scientific incompatibilists, that the scientific world-picture of a vast universe in one small corner of which human beings have evolved is profoundly inhospitable to the idea that we are the chosen creatures, with a special relation to a divine creator.” Certainly, while science and religion do not mix well, if at all, some believers seem to live lives that encompasses both. While these beliefs are incompatible, a life can be lived with a person holding both views, however, inconsistent. Even scientists, such as Francis Collins, the director of NIH, holds both views.
Page 205: She states further, “. . . in the case of explanations in terms of divine design, the sub-optimality of the biological mechanisms,” gives “particular difficulties” to the design argument. I have been arguing this for some time now. It should also put to rest any valid argument for deism.
Page 207: She writes that “Philip Johnson voices the common objection that science does depend on faith-faith in naturalism, faith that nature is governed by laws, faith that those laws are discoverable by creatures like us, faith in the senses.” Yes, but, we come by this knowledge from our experiences of nature given through our senses, which I bet Johnson does not question his as he goes about his everyday life. In addition, science is not dependent on fallible texts, which are often proven wrong, and where they are not, can be rationally argued against.
Page 214: She presents the need to avoid thinking “that a person’s hope, desires, and fears can have no legitimate bearing on his intellectual life.” This is unavoidable seeing that thoughts and feelings are intimately connected.
Page 229: She opens her chapter on “Worthwhile Lives” with: “’What is the meaning of life?’ is a really bad question. Presupposing that there is something-some one thing-for the right answer to identify, it invites a religious response in term’s of God’s plan for us. It encourages us to run together what gives people’s lives shape and meaning for them, with what makes human life as such significant; and which goals, activities, relationships, or ideas people find engaging, with which we are really satisfying, and which morally good.” I have come to feel her sentiment independently. I just have not given it such an eloquent presentation. Although, I would say that it is us that determine what is morally good. In other words, morality is not given and is not found in the world.
Page 236: Writing about the nature of philosophy, she says, “. . . I think of philosophy, not as a sharply delineated and tightly specialized discipline, but as a loose federation of inquiries into a characteristic, though constantly evolving, class of questions . . .” I think of questions as the beginning of all philosophical inquiry, or as I like to say, exploration. For anyone that has a question about something they have a possible start on the path into philosophy.
Page 278: For an exception to the negative view of scientism she provides this quote in a footnote by Michael Shermer, who I mentioned in connection with pseudo-science: “’[s]cientism is a scientific worldview that encompasses natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural explanations, and embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a philosophy of life suitable for an Age of Science.’” She adds that he “is an exception.”
Page 314: In another footnote she states, “. . . I expect a fully-developed ethical theory would require both and understanding of moral obligations and of moral virtues.” This maybe so, but after the moral obligations are figured out, one should determine what virtues may best allow for the fulfilling of these obligations and follow Aristotle’s advice to practice these virtues, so that they become central in the individual’s life and hopefully in society at large.
Susan Haack is one of my favorite philosophers. I like her style, where she often looks at things from many different angles. Her writing is also clear despite the need for complex sentences, which I believe is a necessity when doing philosophical writing. I may not agree with all that she writes, but she does deserve a reading, especially in epistemology, philosophy of science, pragmatism, and her attacks on the new cynics. I also like the fact that she honestly assesses the reliability of the arguments she puts forward.
This book was quite enjoyable. The questions that it raises are very well presented and thought out. The questions that it raised in me were for the most part profitable. It allowed me to further explore pragmatism and philosophy of science, especially. One thing I did not care for was the repetitiveness in a lot of the material in the individual chapters. This is probably so because each chapter arose from particular inquiries Haack was ask to respond to and the independent publication of the papers where the responses originally appeared. Since, several chapters share areas of philosophy she used in expressing her responses, that explains the repetitions.
I could recommend this book to the reader who wants to be challenge with philosophical thought. It should be of profit for those seeking to see how philosophy matters in our modern world, especially those areas which require critical thinking. If you want to see a first rate philosopher’s mind in action, than this book will not disappoint.
The following are a lot of the notes, but not all, I had taken while reading the book (pagination is from the Kindle edition, italics are Haack’s).
Page 25: She writes, “. . . an insistence on consistency is a sign, rather, of an undesirable rigidity of mind or inflexibility of practice.” While the cases where inconsistency is acceptable to her is limited, I find in my thinking, that inconsistency lurks around some of the edges of my thought. I just wonder whether my inconsistencies (at least some of them) would be acceptable to her.
Page 25: She states that C. S. Peirce had a “. . . preference for hypotheses that posit continuities over those that posit sharp line of demarcation.” This is in line with my sense that life is better explained in shades of gray, rather than in black and white.
Page 32: She writes: “I point out that strong feelings don’t always or inevitably cloud your judgment . . .” It is hardly possible to separate feelings and thought anyway. The important thing to keep in mind is not to let feelings lead to irrational decisions.
Page 38: She writes: “So successful have the natural sciences been that the words ‘science’ and ‘scientific’ are often used honorifically, as all-purpose terms of epistemic praise.” Matter of fact, when people say they are scientific minded, they do not actually conduct any experiments, which are the sine qua non of most sciences. I think what they mean is they think rationally.
Page 42: She quotes William James as saying: “’[W]hen . . . we give up the quest for certitude do not thereby give up the quest or hope of truth itself.’” If in traditional pragmatism where truth becomes what is useful or what works, it does not mean there is no truth condition. If it did not prove to be useful or work it would not be true.
Page 64: She believes that reductionism is out of place in the social sciences and possibly even in biology. I would agree that reductionism in the social sciences does not provide much in the way of explanation, but while reductionism is not practical here, there is not any logical exclusion of it either. After all everything is built up from the quantum world, where causation is out of place, but once a quantum action does occur it is cause all the way up.
Page 81: Again, in a much thorough way than in the introduction, she discusses the use that inconsistencies may provide, saying, “. . . inconsistency may prompt fruitful intellectual advance . . .” This leads me to ask – can people really have totally consistent thoughts? This possibility really comes into its own when two different areas of thought are concerned.
Page 84: Again as with inconsistency, she writes more on continuities that C. S. Peirce explored. She states: “The idea . . . is rather that we should look for underlying continuities, and recognize that supposedly sharp distinctions may be better conceived as lines of demarcation drawn at some point on a continuum.” In plainer terms we must pay attention to the grays between the blacks and the whites. The big problem here is that logically this runs up against the sorites paradox, which I think is not solved by multi-valued logic.
Page 87: Here she presents some more of Peirce’s thought, which I will not quote, but gives me the feeling that here he is sprouting woo-woo-ness and gobbly-gook. Given Haack’s devotion to clarity, it surprises me that she has such admiration for him.
Page 89: She writes: “Metaphysics does, and must, rest on observable phenomena.” This is exactly the stand of metaphysical naturalism, which I am certainly on board with.
Page 89: Again quoting Peirce: “Philosophy ‘does not undertake to make any special observations or to obtain perceptions of a novel description. Microscopes and telescopes, voyages and exhumations . . . are substantially superflouus. . . . It contents itself with a more attractive scrutiny and comparison of the facts of everyday life. . . .’” This is, of course, mostly true. But, philosophy cannot ignore the findings of science as well as other areas of inquiry when they impact the philosophical exploration at hand.
Page 95: She writes: “Though a person’s beliefs, etc., are certainly physiologically realized, they are not simply reducible to neurophysiological states.” I would say that this may be so in an explanatory sense, but definitely not in the causal sense.
Page 108: She states parenthetically: “(Rigid dogmatism is always epistemologically undesirable, rigid dogmatism about even the best-warranted scientific theory included.)” I would say that not only is this the case in science, but even more so in philosophy were proof at best supplies a supportive function.
Page 109: She pretty much states that pseudo-science is not a very helpful term. I disagree. While those areas labeled pseudo-science may use some of the accouterments of science, it fails to rise to the necessary scientific quality that is the hallmark of good science. Therefore, its findings are suspect, and should not be given the label of science.
Page 112: She writes: “There is no sharp boundary between psychology and philosophy of mind, nor between cosmology and metaphysics.” Maybe not, but some philosophers will ignore or not attempt to find out what empirical evidence might have a bearing on their investigation.
Page 113: Again speaking about using the term pseudo-science, she claims that “instead of simply sneering at ‘pseudo-science,’” they need “to specify what exactly is wrong with the work” that is under scrutiny. Most of the stuff I have read about pseudo-science does exactly this. It shows what is wrong with these types of studies. The work of Michael Shermer is a good example of this kind of writing.
Page 155: She uses the phrase “pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo” after she criticized its use in a previous chapter. This seems inconsistent, but not detrimentally so, if it leads her to a better overall conception of pseudo-science. This would be an example of what she discussed on page 81.
Page 194: I was impressed by her demolition of Karl Popper’s philosophy of science. Here she says: “So I can’t resist having a little unkind fun playing with the possible sub-titles I might appropriately have given this paper: ‘The Farrago of Falsificationism,’ perhaps, or ‘Down with Deductivism’? But, no: in view of Popper’s motto, I would have to chose ‘Finally, Some Critical Common-sense about Critical Rationalism.” In this chapter she not only shows that Popper’s work is not only unsound, but is not even coherent.
Page 201: In her chapter on religion and science she writes: “Nevertheless, it seems to me, as to both religious and scientific incompatibilists, that the scientific world-picture of a vast universe in one small corner of which human beings have evolved is profoundly inhospitable to the idea that we are the chosen creatures, with a special relation to a divine creator.” Certainly, while science and religion do not mix well, if at all, some believers seem to live lives that encompasses both. While these beliefs are incompatible, a life can be lived with a person holding both views, however, inconsistent. Even scientists, such as Francis Collins, the director of NIH, holds both views.
Page 205: She states further, “. . . in the case of explanations in terms of divine design, the sub-optimality of the biological mechanisms,” gives “particular difficulties” to the design argument. I have been arguing this for some time now. It should also put to rest any valid argument for deism.
Page 207: She writes that “Philip Johnson voices the common objection that science does depend on faith-faith in naturalism, faith that nature is governed by laws, faith that those laws are discoverable by creatures like us, faith in the senses.” Yes, but, we come by this knowledge from our experiences of nature given through our senses, which I bet Johnson does not question his as he goes about his everyday life. In addition, science is not dependent on fallible texts, which are often proven wrong, and where they are not, can be rationally argued against.
Page 214: She presents the need to avoid thinking “that a person’s hope, desires, and fears can have no legitimate bearing on his intellectual life.” This is unavoidable seeing that thoughts and feelings are intimately connected.
Page 229: She opens her chapter on “Worthwhile Lives” with: “’What is the meaning of life?’ is a really bad question. Presupposing that there is something-some one thing-for the right answer to identify, it invites a religious response in term’s of God’s plan for us. It encourages us to run together what gives people’s lives shape and meaning for them, with what makes human life as such significant; and which goals, activities, relationships, or ideas people find engaging, with which we are really satisfying, and which morally good.” I have come to feel her sentiment independently. I just have not given it such an eloquent presentation. Although, I would say that it is us that determine what is morally good. In other words, morality is not given and is not found in the world.
Page 236: Writing about the nature of philosophy, she says, “. . . I think of philosophy, not as a sharply delineated and tightly specialized discipline, but as a loose federation of inquiries into a characteristic, though constantly evolving, class of questions . . .” I think of questions as the beginning of all philosophical inquiry, or as I like to say, exploration. For anyone that has a question about something they have a possible start on the path into philosophy.
Page 278: For an exception to the negative view of scientism she provides this quote in a footnote by Michael Shermer, who I mentioned in connection with pseudo-science: “’[s]cientism is a scientific worldview that encompasses natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural explanations, and embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a philosophy of life suitable for an Age of Science.’” She adds that he “is an exception.”
Page 314: In another footnote she states, “. . . I expect a fully-developed ethical theory would require both and understanding of moral obligations and of moral virtues.” This maybe so, but after the moral obligations are figured out, one should determine what virtues may best allow for the fulfilling of these obligations and follow Aristotle’s advice to practice these virtues, so that they become central in the individual’s life and hopefully in society at large.
Susan Haack is one of my favorite philosophers. I like her style, where she often looks at things from many different angles. Her writing is also clear despite the need for complex sentences, which I believe is a necessity when doing philosophical writing. I may not agree with all that she writes, but she does deserve a reading, especially in epistemology, philosophy of science, pragmatism, and her attacks on the new cynics. I also like the fact that she honestly assesses the reliability of the arguments she puts forward.
This book was quite enjoyable. The questions that it raises are very well presented and thought out. The questions that it raised in me were for the most part profitable. It allowed me to further explore pragmatism and philosophy of science, especially. One thing I did not care for was the repetitiveness in a lot of the material in the individual chapters. This is probably so because each chapter arose from particular inquiries Haack was ask to respond to and the independent publication of the papers where the responses originally appeared. Since, several chapters share areas of philosophy she used in expressing her responses, that explains the repetitions.
I could recommend this book to the reader who wants to be challenge with philosophical thought. It should be of profit for those seeking to see how philosophy matters in our modern world, especially those areas which require critical thinking. If you want to see a first rate philosopher’s mind in action, than this book will not disappoint.
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