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Susan Haack
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Western Philosophers Contemporary Philosophy |
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 Susan Haack at the University of Miami in the Spring of 2005
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| Name: | Susan Haack |
| Birth: | 1945 (England) |
| School/tradition: | Analytic |
| Main interests: | Philosophy of science, Logic, Epistemology, C.S. Peirce, Pragmatism |
| Notable ideas: | Foundherentism, Crossword Puzzle View of Science |
| Influences: | Francis Bacon, Quine, C.S. Peirce |
| Influenced: | Luciano Floridi |
Susan Haack (born 1945) is an English professor of philosophy and law at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, in the United States.
She has made contributions in the fields of philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics.
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Born in England, Haack is a graduate of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. She held the positions of Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge and professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick before taking her position at the University of Miami.
Haack's work has been reviewed and cited in such general interest publications as the The Times Literary Supplement as well as many more specialized academic journals. Books she has written include: Deviant Logic (1974), Philosophy of Logics (1978), Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate: Unfashionable Essays (1998) and Defending Science: Within Reason Between Scientism and Cynicism (2003; ISBN 1-59102-117-0). She has also edited (with associate editor Robert Lane) Pragmatism, Old and New (2006).
She compared the practice of science to solving a crossword puzzle and wrote a play, We Pragmatists ...: Peirce and Rorty in Conversation, comprised entirely of quotes from both philosophers. She performed the role of Peirce. She has written for Secular Humanism magazine and the "Council for Secular Humanism".
Her major contribution to philosophy 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.
Haack is an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa Society and Phi Kappa Phi, a past President of the "Charles S. Peirce Society" and a past member of the U.S./UK Educational Commission.
- Susan Haack's Web Page at University of Miami Web Site.
- Susan Haack Summary biography at University of Miami Web Site.
- Susan Haack, "Trial and Error: The Supreme Court's Philosophy of Science", American Journal of Public Health, June 2005.
- Susan Haack, "Vulgar Rortyism", The New Criterion, Vol. 16, No. 3, Nov. 1997.