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Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology
In this important new work, Haack develops an original theory of empirical evidence or justification, and argues its appropriateness to the goals of inquiry. In so doing, Haack provides detailed critical case studies of Lewis's foundationalism; Davidson's and Bonjour's coherentism; Popper's 'epistemology without a knowing subject'; Quine's naturalism; Goldman's reliabilism; and Rorty's, Stich's, and the Churchlands' recent obituaries of epistemology.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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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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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 27, 2023
I have translated this amazing book into Arabic. It has been a linguistic/ intellectual journey that has taken more than a year. This is one of the major philosophers whose writing style represents a challenge for anyone seeking to translate such texts. I hope I have contributed to the Arabic culture with a book that paves the way for further implementing the epistemological thought, by transmitting the sophisticated thought of prominent philosophers; Susan Haack is surely one of them.
I dedicated this translation to two people. One of them is my father who died at the same moment I wrote the last word in the translation. This book, and lots of other stuff, are dedicated to him.
I dedicated this translation to two people. One of them is my father who died at the same moment I wrote the last word in the translation. This book, and lots of other stuff, are dedicated to him.
April 3, 2017
This is a book I can't say I fully understood. Still I like the way Susan Haack thinks; she has become one of my favorite philosophers. Although, somewhat technical, especially in this book, her writing is clear enough to follow without philosophical training.
My take on what Susan Haack has written is that she wishes to present a combination of the foundationalist and coherentist basis of knowledge. Under foundationalism the basis of knowledge is ultimately grounded in experience, while under coherentism the basis is in how beliefs hang together. This is a simplification of the issue, as she explains many variations in the text. She argues for a need for both anchors. She presents the analogy of a crossword puzzle to help understand the combination. The clues are the foundaitonalist part, and the intersecting entries are the coherentist part. Following this analogy one would have to work with pencil as opposed to pen, and one would also need a virtually infinite crossword grid. And how would one connect far off words, that are nonetheless intimately tied together?
Another key part of her discussion is the need for evidence. This must be provided by the facts of the case and human psychology, but informed by a philosophical examination.
After all her arguments, she admits she has not proven her point, but only presented enough of the argument to show how her approach has the necessary components for a fully flesh out argument. The fully flesh out part she admits from the start will not be presented. In a way, I kept on thinking I was reading a murder mystery, in which I would never find out who did it.
Of course, I have not covered everything that she has written about in this book, but I will also say that she adds a number of additional essays at the end of the book. The most interesting to me was the one on feminist epistemology. She claims, quite reasonably, that she is a feminist and an epistemologist, but she is not a feminist epistemologist. That would be a person, most likely female, that believes that women have a special relationship to knowledge different from males. This is women have a different way of knowing from men. She has other arguments to show the incoherentness in this approach to knowledge, and how this position can even give rise to discrimination against women.
I really did like this book, despite the fact that I can't claim to have understood it completely, though at times a felt it to be a bit tedious for my liking. I recommend it to anyone who has some background with epistemology and who is interested in broadening their understanding of the theory of knowledge.
My take on what Susan Haack has written is that she wishes to present a combination of the foundationalist and coherentist basis of knowledge. Under foundationalism the basis of knowledge is ultimately grounded in experience, while under coherentism the basis is in how beliefs hang together. This is a simplification of the issue, as she explains many variations in the text. She argues for a need for both anchors. She presents the analogy of a crossword puzzle to help understand the combination. The clues are the foundaitonalist part, and the intersecting entries are the coherentist part. Following this analogy one would have to work with pencil as opposed to pen, and one would also need a virtually infinite crossword grid. And how would one connect far off words, that are nonetheless intimately tied together?
Another key part of her discussion is the need for evidence. This must be provided by the facts of the case and human psychology, but informed by a philosophical examination.
After all her arguments, she admits she has not proven her point, but only presented enough of the argument to show how her approach has the necessary components for a fully flesh out argument. The fully flesh out part she admits from the start will not be presented. In a way, I kept on thinking I was reading a murder mystery, in which I would never find out who did it.
Of course, I have not covered everything that she has written about in this book, but I will also say that she adds a number of additional essays at the end of the book. The most interesting to me was the one on feminist epistemology. She claims, quite reasonably, that she is a feminist and an epistemologist, but she is not a feminist epistemologist. That would be a person, most likely female, that believes that women have a special relationship to knowledge different from males. This is women have a different way of knowing from men. She has other arguments to show the incoherentness in this approach to knowledge, and how this position can even give rise to discrimination against women.
I really did like this book, despite the fact that I can't claim to have understood it completely, though at times a felt it to be a bit tedious for my liking. I recommend it to anyone who has some background with epistemology and who is interested in broadening their understanding of the theory of knowledge.
January 11, 2021
In my view, this is one of the premiere epistemology books of the 20th Century. Clear, comprehensive, original and compelling, Haack's "foundherentism" is the inescapable way for all future epistemologists.
Essential reading for anyone interested in the natures of knowledge and justification.
Essential reading for anyone interested in the natures of knowledge and justification.
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June 17, 2021La propuesta de Haack es centrada y posee los matices suficientes como para erigirse en una alternativa sólida y sin duda lo es. Su articulación del fundeherentismo (frente al fundamentismo y el coherentismo) permite conservar la importancia de la experiencia sin olvidar la coherencia de las ideas previas e incorpora elementos realistas y antirealistas de manera adecuada. También incluye un repaso y una crítica importante a algunas de las alternativas recientes en su momento (años 90) a las teorías clásicas de la justificación, como el fiabilismo, la epistemología sin sujeto de Popper, el conversacionalismo de Rorty o el naturalismo antiepistemológico. Por todo ello es una lectura imprescindible en el campo de la epistemología y con la que hay que dialogar.
August 5, 2018
The best book on epistamology I have read, well written and accessible.
September 9, 2019
I read this for a philosophy class in my twenties. Good, but dense.
December 29, 2014
The book is interesting and full of arguments, which vary in strength and persuasiveness. It's cumbersome and sometimes meanders around the point without making it fully explicit. Her main argument against coherentism seems to be verbal, since the best move to avoid the input problem (she calls it the drunken sailors objection) involves defining coherence over appearance as well as doxastic states. She claims such a move sacrifices the character of the coherence theory and capitulates to her theory (foundherentism). I don't see much of an argument here, since both the coherence theorist and the foundheretist would repudiate direct ampliative inference from basic beliefs, as well as the notion of a basic belief having epistemic efficacy and independence. Haack and the coherentist can admit that some beliefs have an initial level of credibility (conservatism) while also affirming that those beliefs lack enough justificatory weight to serve as reasons without background conditions of mutual support. Further, her notions of C-evidence and S-evidence do not contradict anything essential to coherence theories. While the idea of S-evidence may compromise some of the internalist trappings of coherence theories, it's likely the case that recognizing the evidential relevance of S-evidence is compatible with the core features of such theories.
All in all, the book is interesting, sarcastic, and occasionally tedious. The argument against the coherence theory called "the drunken sailors objection" is not persuasive, since there are viable moves to resist it; and Haack has no response to the coherentist who makes those moves, save for accusing her of misapplying the label "coherentism". Even that response is unpersuasive, though, since it not only captures the theories of self-proclaimed coherentists (Lycan, Poston, et. al.), but also preserves the core characteristics of coherentism (repudiating direct ampliative inference, basic beliefs, unrevisable beliefs, etc.). Haack's foundherentism is closer to an input-objection-resistant coherence theory than she thinks.
All in all, the book is interesting, sarcastic, and occasionally tedious. The argument against the coherence theory called "the drunken sailors objection" is not persuasive, since there are viable moves to resist it; and Haack has no response to the coherentist who makes those moves, save for accusing her of misapplying the label "coherentism". Even that response is unpersuasive, though, since it not only captures the theories of self-proclaimed coherentists (Lycan, Poston, et. al.), but also preserves the core characteristics of coherentism (repudiating direct ampliative inference, basic beliefs, unrevisable beliefs, etc.). Haack's foundherentism is closer to an input-objection-resistant coherence theory than she thinks.
February 18, 2018
I think Haack's theory of justification is pretty great. I'm inclined to believe that she has the most productive approach to epistemology going. But!
1) how is experiential C-evidence supposed to 'check' the justification of S-reasons, exactly? Except in a quantitative sense (tally up the points of evidence / reasons). Setting aside the justification contributed by S-reasons alone, why should I believe that C-evidence indicates truth, or more accurately, why and in combination with what sorts of S-reasons should I believe that C-evidence indicates truth? The pragmatist character of Haack's theory really comes out in her attempt to ratify the theory-- to show why some experiences tend to lead us to believe what is the case, while others do not tend this way. We evaluate the accuracy of perception with respect to perceptual norms (e.g., the conditions Sellars went on about in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind). Of course, those norms are the products of social conditions in history. I'm not gunning for skepticism; I just wonder what Haack does with these worries. Ultimately, I would be more persuaded by a ratification that goes into the evolutionary reasons for perception reliably indicating truth, to which Quine gave lip service. Because Peirce did a lot of pretty serious work in that direction, and I think Haack's theory of justification could only benefit from a Peircean theory of perception.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews