Susan Haack
Encyclopedia
Susan Haack is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 professor of philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 at the University of Miami
University of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. She has written on logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...

, the philosophy of language
Philosophy of language
Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for analytic philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language...

, epistemology, and metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

. Her pragmatism
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...

 follows that of Charles Sanders Peirce.

Career

Haack is a graduate of the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 and the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

. At Oxford, she studied at St. Hilda's College
St Hilda's College, Oxford
St Hilda's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.The college was founded in 1893 as a hall for women, and remained an all-women's college until 2006....

, where her first philosophy teacher was Jean Austin, the widow of J. L. Austin
J. L. Austin
John Langshaw Austin was a British philosopher of language, born in Lancaster and educated at Shrewsbury School and Balliol College, Oxford University. Austin is widely associated with the concept of the speech act and the idea that speech is itself a form of action...

. She also studied Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

 with Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle , was a British philosopher, a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers that shared Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical problems, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the...

 and logic with Michael Dummett
Michael Dummett
Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett FBA D.Litt is a British philosopher. He was, until 1992, Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford...

. David Pears
David Pears
David Pears was a British philosopher renowned for his work on Wittgenstein.An Old Boy of Westminster School, he was in the Royal Artillery during World War II, and was seriously injured in a practice gas attack. After leaving the army he studied classics at Balliol College, Oxford, and was then...

 supervised her B.Phil. dissertation on ambiguity
Ambiguity
Ambiguity of words or phrases is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision contained or available in the information.Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity...

. At Cambridge, she wrote her Ph.D. under the supervision of Timothy Smiley
Timothy Smiley
Timothy John Smiley FBA is Emeritus Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at Clare College, Cambridge University.He has edited and contributed to numerous papers and publications including:...

. She held the positions of Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge
New Hall, Cambridge
Murray Edwards College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It was founded as "New Hall" in 1954, at a time when Cambridge had the lowest proportion of women undergraduates of any university in the United Kingdom, and when only two other colleges admitted women...

 and professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...

 before taking her current position at the University of Miami.

Ideas

Haack's major contribution to philosophy, in the 1993 book Evidence and Inquiry is her epistemological theory called foundherentism
Foundherentism
In epistemology, foundherentism is a theory of justification that combines elements from the two rival theories addressing infinite regress, foundationalism prone to arbitrariness, and coherentism prone to circularity...

, which is her attempt to avoid the logical problems of both pure foundationalism
Foundationalism
Foundationalism is any theory in epistemology that holds that beliefs are justified based on what are called basic beliefs . This position is intended to resolve the infinite regress problem in epistemology...

 (which is susceptible to infinite regress) and pure coherentism
Coherentism
There are two distinct types of coherentism. One refers to the coherence theory of truth. The other refers to the coherence theory of justification. The coherentist theory of justification characterizes epistemic justification as a property of a belief only if that belief is a member of a coherent...

 (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
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...

. She wrote a play, We Pragmatists ...: Peirce and Rorty
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...

 in Conversation
, consisting entirely of quotes from both philosophers. She performed the role of Peirce. Haack published a vigorous essay in the New Criterion, taking strong exception to many of Rorty's
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...

 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 reasoning, logic, scientific method, and scientific truth, stating that many feminist critiques of science and philosophy as being concerned that the outcomes of scientific inquiry be "politically correct".

She has written for Free Inquiry
Free Inquiry
Free Inquiry is a bi-monthly journal of secular humanist opinion and commentary published by the Council for Secular Humanism, which is part of the Center for Inquiry. Philosopher Paul Kurtz is the editor-in-chief and Thomas W. Flynn the editor. Feature articles cover a wide range of topics from a...

magazine and the "Council for Secular Humanism
Council for Secular Humanism
The Council for Secular Humanism is a secular humanist organization headquartered in Amherst, New York. In 1980 CODESH issued A Secular Humanist Declaration, an argument for and statement of belief in Democratic Secular Humanism...

". Haack's work has been reviewed and cited in the popular press, such as The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...

as well as in academic journals.

Memberships

Haack is an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa Society
Phi Beta Kappa Society
The Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic honor society. Its mission is to "celebrate and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences"; and induct "the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at America’s leading colleges and universities." Founded at The College of William and...

 and Phi Kappa Phi
Phi Kappa Phi
The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi is an honor society established 1897 to recognize and encourage superior scholarship without restriction as to area of study and to promote the "unity and democracy of education"...

, a past President of the Charles S. Peirce Society, and a past member of the U.S./UK Educational Commission.

Select Writings by Haack

  • 1974. Deviant Logic
    Deviant logic
    Philosopher Susan Haack uses the term "deviant logic" to describe certain non-classical systems of logic. In these logics,* the set of well-formed formulas generated equals the set of well-formed formulas generated by classical logic....

    . Cambridge University Press.
  • 1978. Philosophy of Logics. (Charles Sanders Peirce and Karl Popper
    Karl Popper
    Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...

     have strikingly similar views on the propensity theory of probability
    Propensity probability
    The propensity theory of probability is one interpretation of the concept of probability. Theorists who adopt this interpretation think of probability as a physical propensity, or disposition, or tendency of a given type of physical situation to yield an outcome of a certain kind, or to yield a...

     and philosophy of science
    Philosophy of science
    The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

    .)
  • 1993, Evidence and Inquiry.
  • 1996, Deviant Logic, Fuzzy Logic: Beyond the Formalism. The University of Chicago Press. (Extends the 1974 Deviant Logic, with some additional essays published between 1973 and 1980, particularly on fuzzy logic, cf The Philosophical Review
    The Philosophical Review
    The Philosophical Review is a quarterly journal of philosophy edited by the faculty of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University and published by Duke University Press . The journal publishes original work in all areas of analytic philosophy, but emphasizes material that is of general...

    , 107:3, 468-471 http://www.columbia.edu/~av72/papers/PhilReview(Review)_1998.pdf)
  • 1997, "Vulgar Rortyism," The New Criterion 16.
  • 1998. Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate: Unfashionable Essays.
  • 2003. Defending Science: Within Reason Between Scientism and Cynicism. ISBN 1-59102-117-0.
  • 2005, "Trial and Error: The Supreme Court's Philosophy of Science, ," American Journal of Public Health.
  • 2006 (edited with Robert Lane). Pragmatism, Old and New.
  • 2008. Putting Philosophy to Work: Inquiry and Its Place in Culture

External links

  • Susan Haack's Web Page at University of Miami
    University of Miami
    The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...

    .
  • Susan Haack Summary biography.
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