Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate: Unfashionable Essays [Paperback]

The essays in this collection expand on these themes. Most of the essays are adapted from presentations Dr. Haack had given, and therefore present a somewhat dizzying mix of the overview-for-the-layman with the chat-with-other-experts. Much of the discussion of, for example, the New Cynic position takes for granted that the reader is familiar not only with the arguments advanced by the postmodernist deconstruction movement, but also the particular players in the movement. On the other hand, there is enough information for the layman to get his or her bearings on the thrust of these arguments.

The essays cover a number of interesting subjects: in "Is science social? Yes and no", Haack discusses what benefits may be obtained from recognizing the social forces in the sciences, while at the same time making a convincing case that "science is social" is either a trivial observation, or an incorrect one. Another essay addresses affirmative action from a somewhat outsider's point of view (Haack is british), and takes a refreshing tack: what is affirmative action meant to accomplish, and why? And does it actually accomplish this? The sobering conclusion is that it does not, and that the very real ills it addresses need to be fix by major surgery, not the simple touch-up of affirmative action. At the same time, she exposes many of the contradictions and flaws of the "feminist epistemology" movements.

Other essays discuss the role of metaphor in philosophy, and Haack's own middle ground between the Foundationalists and Conherentism in epistemology. Many also expand on a particularly interesting metaphor of Haack's own: that doing science is like doing a crossword puzzle, in which entries are judged not only by how they address the clue (experimental evidence), but also by how they intersect with other established entries (background theory) and how supported does entries are independent of the current entry. Kuhn's paradigm shifts would be the equivalent of replacing a long entry that has been used to fill out many shorter ones, to give one example of how the metaphor is used.

Haack's positions and analysis are moderate in the sense of landing her solidly in the middle ground between the extremes that have dominated the public discourse. A refreshing change, and one worthy of further exploration. I give it four stars rather than five only because it will be hard reading for many, given the assumption of familiarity many of the essays have.

Highlites include a brilliantly constructed 'panel' discussion between 1800's pragmaticist Charles S. Peirce and modern neo-pragmatist Richard Rorty. Haack constructed the dialogue using exerpts of their work and she does a beautiful job making it feel like a discussion. Also, the essay 'Puzzling Out Science' and 'Science as Social' do an excellent job showing that science (contrary to the old Baconian and new 'pragmatist' thought) can be both social and individual. The last two essays deviate a bit from the underlying sceince theme, tackling affirmative action and the absurdities of the academy's expectation that professors (along with masters and doctoral students), to achieve noteriety, must argue the most outlandish theories in the most outlandish way. True to form, these essays are not blank social criticisms so common in books today but are well reasoned, philosophical explorations. The only problem with the book is one common to essay collections. The essays tended to repeat themselves from time to time, not only in ideas (towards the end, you WILL be predicting what Haack's next line will be) but in phrasing. Save for that, flawless!