Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate: Unfashionable Essays

- Book Review Excerpts

For those who have been following Professor Haack's spirited exchanges with the anti-scientific and epistemologically anarchistic arm of the academic left, this new book is a gem. ... Manifesto of a Passionate moderate is an important book. It is indeed refreshing to find a philosopher in the pragmatist tradition addressing the tendencies in society that are most in need of philosophical clarification in a way that is accessible to a general audience. -- Robert Talisse, Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy Newsletter

Forthright and wryly humorous, philosopher Susan Haack deploys her penetrating analytic skills on some of the most highly charged cultural and social debates of recent years. Relativism, multi­culturalism, feminism, affirmative action, pragmatisms old and new, science, literature, the future of the academy and of philosophy itself -- all come under her keen scrutiny in Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate.

Is it possible for a philosopher to have a wicked wit, a kindly heart, a passion for clarity, and an utterly convincing argument that crossword puzzles are, for thinkers, what labs are for scientists? It is, if her name is Susan Haack. If you have not yet experienced Haack's wit, heart, clarity and puzzle solving abilities, this collection will convince you that these words do not exaggerate her talents. -- Robert Heilbroner, author of The Worldly Philosophers

One guidebook I would recommend for a tour through the labyrinths of modern skepticism is Susan Haack's Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. -- Mary Lefkowitz, New York Times Book Review

A sensible discussion of topics where silliness often masquerades as sophistication. ... A refreshing alternative to the extremism that characterizes so much rhetoric today. -- Kirkus Reviews

Everywhere in this book there is the refreshing breeze of common sense, patiently but inexorably blowing. -- Roger Kimball, Times Literary Supplement

I'll be surprised if other readers are not as refreshed and invigorated as I was by Haack's no-nonsense defense of uncorrupt inquiry -- in other words, of intellectual integrity. ... Haack is a forthright and opinionated writer, and often witty; but she is also a no-kidding philosopher who does no-kidding philosophy right here in this book... [T]he virtue of Haack's book, and I mean virtue in the ethical sense, is that it embodies the attitude that it exalts. ... Haack's voice is urbane, sensible, passionate -- the voice of philosophy that matters. How good to hear it again. Jonathan Rauch, Reason.

[Haack's] sentences and paragraphs are honed to a fine edge, and an unexpectedly impish sense of humor invigorates some of her more technical discussions. Hers is a tough mind, confident of its power, making an art of logic. ... Her argumentation demonstrates, as does that of few of her contemporaries, that honest inquiry is not only possible and valuable but moral. -- Paul R. Gross, Wilson Quarterly

Few people are better able to defend the notion of truth, and in strong, clear prose, than Susan Haack. She is a philosopher of great distinction, one of the world's leading experts in logic and the theory of knowledge. ... Not many people who write about philosophy have much new to say that really matters. But to this rule Haack is a notable exception. -- Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, National Review.

Of course, there are real problems about truth and reality, especially in science. Haack maps this awkward country skillfully ..., devising a balanced and convincing form of critical realism... clearly, forcefully, and funnily, shooting down a lot of academic nonsense which is a serious nuisance to the general reader, and for that we are all in her debt. -- Mary Midgely, Commonweal

Haack mounts a rigorous, articulate and engaging defense of the view that honest inquiry is not only possible, but valuable: epistemologically, instrumentally, and morally ... She goes beyond standard criticisms (e.g., that relativism is self-refuting) to explain how it is that so many academicians have come to disrespect truth and knowledge and to be skeptical of the possibility of unbiased research. Her treatment of the so-called "science wars" is especially noteworthy. ... because of Haack's nimble and lucid style, even [the philosophically densest chapters] are accessible to the philosophical layman. Each essay of this Manifesto hums with penetrating observation and a wit rarely found among academic writers, let alone philosophers. -- Robert Lane, Knowledge, Technology, and Policy.

Known for her critical research into the nature of inquiry and logic, Haack puts a welcome British spin on the very American school of Pragmatism. -- Library Journal

The most wide-ranging examination of these fashionable dogmas [of relativism] is being carried out by Susan Haack. [This book] is well-written and accessible, and can be recommended to lay readers as well as professional philosophers and other academics. Years ago a well-known professor said: "Sue Haack's style is as clear as the clearest, purest water" and he was right. -- Jenny Teichman, New Criterion

... an incisive and brilliant critique of intellectual and social forces in the academy today, which have debased, if not entirely obscured, the concept of intellectual integrity. ... Haack's book is an impressive model of philosophical writing and reasoning ... rich in subtlety, irony, and humor ... thorough and even relentless in the pursuit of her arguments, and scrupulous and imaginative in generating and responding to possible objections. -- Ellen Kappy Suckiel, Metaphilosophy

... very readable ... especially useful for faculty in almost any area who care to reflect on methodological issues in their disciplines. -- Choice

Haack is an iconoclast, or rather, in our age of iconoclasty, she examines and skewers the distortion and misrepresentations of current conformities ... packed with good things and good thinks ... if you relish acute observation and straight talk, this is a book to read. -- Recommended Reading, Phi Beta Kappa, The Key Reporter

In each and every one of these essays, Manifesto is what it announces itself to be: a manifesto in which Haack battles a whole range of doctrines and attitudes ... Her analyses, the moderation and wisdom of her conclusions and how greatly they affect some of our most basic philosophical commitments and the circumstances of our academic life, make the Manifesto a passionate work and obligatory reading. -- Juan Jose Acero, Theoria (Spain)

.. accomplishes the rare feat of writing with rigour, precision and depth about topics of immediate interest to all thoughtful citizens ... the gusto with which [Haack] tracks down and disables one false dichotomy after another make reading her as enjoyable as it is instructive ... a deep and splendid book. To read it is to relish it. -- Mark Migotti, Calgary Herald (Canada)

In a way that is interesting and unsettling, Susan Haack has brought new questions into the domain of issues of public interest that need philosophical illumination. .. She manages to place under scrutiny the areas in which sloppy thinking now is rich in consequences but as yet thrives unmasked. .. Her project can be seen as a refusal to lay down the arms of philosophical analysis, instead to use them where they have most bite. -- Jan Willner, Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)

In one essay [Haack] distinguishes between different types of multiculturalism, and explains to which of them she adheres. In another she discerns different meanings of 'feminist', and argues for the one that seems to her worthwhile. In a third essay she draws distinctions among many types of relativism, and shows how a non-relativistic view of realism can be sophisticated and strong enough to withstand many relativistic criticisms. And in a fourth Haack presents another intermediate, and unconventional view, about affirmative action: she argues that the contemporary academic environment suffers from graver problems than affirmative action can deal with, and suggests an outline of other strategies to cope with them. -- Iddo Landau, Iyyun (Israel)

Each of [Haack's] essays show[s] deep concern for the issues but eschew[s] simplistic answers which exaggerate and distort. ... Haack deals with themes that are of great philosophical interest, but the overall focus is on their implications for a wide range of more general intellectual issues, implications too often ignored by philosophers. Her vigorous style is well adapted to this wider concern without detracting from the power of her philosophical comment. -- F. John Clendinnen, Metascience (Australia)

In his book Dreams of a Final Theory, the physicist Steven Weinberg remarked that the only thing he learned from philosophers was how to avoid mistakes made by other philosophers. Poor fellow, he should have read a better class of philosophical critics before delivering that mal mot. Had he read Susan Haack's Manifesto, for instance, he would have found, rather than confining us within our own back yard, the best criticism liberates thought by showing more of what the world may be like as it simultaneously urges us from the path of error ... so long as there are those like Weinberg who strive to find truth, and Haack, who provides a conceptual footing for the search, science and epistemology will remain robust and intact. -- James Van Evra, Philosophy in Review (Canada)

... an oasis of good sense .. exudes common sense of the best kind... Very well-written and very entertaining. -- M. J. Frap­olli, Teorema (Spain)

Anyone who cares for truth and reason, and appreciates trenchancy in criticism, will value this book and applaud its author. Susan Haack is an epistemologist who holds that philosophy, while not to be confused with natural science, resembles the latter in being a truth-seeking enquiry which aspires to as much rigor and precision as possible. She is consequently the uncompromising enemy equally of certain fashionable skepticisms about these aims and of some current perversions of academic life. She stages, inter alia, a dialogue between Peirce and Rorty; and might even, rather freely adapting Burke, have called her entire tract "An appeal (or reproach) from the old to the new pragmatists." -- Sir Peter Strawson, University College, Oxford

Hewing a middle path between the Old Deferentialists and the New Cynics, Susan Haack defends with exemplary clarity the view that science, while not epistemically privileged, is an extraordinarily successful embodiment of rational inquiry: "neither sacred nor a confidence trick." Acknowledging that science is a social enter­prise, but denying that scientific knowledge is a mere social construction, she analyzes the social and political conditions under which scientists are more or less likely to discover truths (or approximate truths) about the world. -- Alan Sokal, New York Universi­ty

This is a collection of essays in what is loosely called "public philosophy." Philosophers as distinguished as Susan Haack who deplore the trends she discusses are often reluctant to engage, but her willingness will be appreciated, for the need is great. -- Ruth Barcan Marcus, Yale University

A devastating critique of current intellectual nihilism, [Haack's] book is driven by a fundamentally positive purpose: to serve as a step back on the path to the "calm sunlight of the mind." -- Sophie Berman, Telos.