Putting Philosophy to Work: Inquiry and Its Place in Culture -- Essays on Science, Religion, Law, Literature, and Life

by Susan Haack

Overview

This engaging and wide-ranging collection of essays is informed and unified by the conviction that philosophy can, and should, engage with real-world issues. Susan Haack's keen analytical skills and well-chosen illustrations illuminate a diverse range of cultural questions; and her direct style and wry sense of humor make complex ideas and subtle distinctions accessible to serious readers whatever their discipline or particular interests. Putting Philosophy to Work will appeal not only to philosophers but also to thoughtful scientists, economists, legal thinkers, historians, literary scholars, and humanists. This new, expanded second edition includes several previously unpublished essays: a devastating critique of Karl Popper's highly (and dangerously) influential philosophy of science; a searching and thought-provoking analysis of scientism; and a groundbreaking paper on "academic ethics in a preposterous environment" that every professor, and would-be professor, should read.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616144937
Publisher:	Globe Pequot Publishing
Publication date:	05/14/2013
Edition description:	Expanded Edition
Pages:	346
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Susan Haack (Coral Gables, FL) is Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, professor of philosophy, and professor of law at the University of Miami. She is the author of numerous highly acclaimed books, including Defending Science-Within Reason; Philosophy of Logics; Evidence and Inquiry; Deviant Logic, Fuzzy Logic: Beyond the Formalism; and Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate: Unfashionable Essays; and the editor of Pragmatism, Old and New. She is one of the handful of living philosophers in Peter King's 100 Philosophers: The Life and Work of the World's Greatest Thinkers, and she was included in the Sunday Independent's 2005 list of the ten most important women philosophers of all time.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Expanded Edition 11

Acknowledgments 15

Introduction: Putting Philosophy to Work 21

1 Staying for an Answer: The Untidy Process of Groping for Truth 35

2 The Same, Only Different 47

3 The Unity of Truth and the Plurality of Truths 53

4 Coherence, Consistency, Cogency, Congruity, Cohesiveness, &c.: Remain Calm! Don't Go Overboard! 69

5 Not Cynicism, but Synechism: Lessons from Classical Pragmatism 83

6 Science, Economics, "Vision" 97

7 Six Signs of Scientism 105

8 The Integrity of Science: What It Means, Why It Matters 121

9 Scientific Secrecy and "Spin": The Sad, Sleazy Saga of the Trials of Remune 141

10 Truth and Justice, Inquiry and Advocacy, Science and Law 153

11 Trial and Error: The Supreme Court's Philosophy of Science 165

12 Just Say "No" to Logical Negativism 179

13 An Epistemologist Among the Epidemiologists 195

14 Fallibilism and Faith, Naturalism and the Supernatural, Science and Religion 199

15 The Ideal of Intellectual Integrity, in Life and Literature 209

16 After My Own Heart: Dorothy Sayers's Feminism 221

17 Worthwhile Lives 229

18 Why I Am Not an Oxymoron 233

19 Formal Philosophy?-A Plea for Pluralism 235

20 Out of Step: Academic Ethics in a Preposterous Environment 251

Notes 269

Index 319