ISSN 2291-5079 Vol 8 | Issue 6 + 7 2020

COSMOS + TAXIS
Studies in Emergent Order and Organization

Philosophy, the World,

Life and the Law:
In Honour of Susan Haack
PART II
OUR LIVES AND HOW WE LIVE THEM
THE LAW AND HOW WE USE IT
TESTIMONIALS AND TRIBUTES
 COVER IMAGE

COSMOS + TAXIS Susan Haack on being awarded the

Ulysses Medal by University College Dublin
Studies in Emergent Order and Organization Photo by Jason Clarke
VOLUME 8 | ISSUE 6 + 7 2020 http: www.jasonclarkephotography.ie

PHILOSOPHY, THE WORLD, LIFE AND EDITORIAL BOARDS

THE LAW: IN HONOUR OF SUSAN HAACK HONORARY FOUNDING EDITORS EDITORS
Joaquin Fuster David Emanuel Andersson*
PART II University of California, Los Angeles (editor-in-chief)
David F. Hardwick* National Sun Yat-sen University,
The University of British Columbia Taiwan
Lawrence Wai-Chung Lai William Butos
OUR LIVES AND HOW WE LIVE THEM University of Hong Kong (deputy editor)
Trinity College
Frederick Turner
Haack Among the Feminists: Or, Where are the Women? . . . . . . . . 1 University of Texas at Dallas Laurent Dobuzinskis*
Timothy J. Crowley (deputy editor)
Simon Fraser University
William James on the Meaningful Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Giovanni B. Grandi
Iddo Landau (deputy editor)
The University of British Columbia
Susan Haack on How to Regain the Faith to do Philosophy. . . . . 25
Rubén Sampieri Cábal Leslie Marsh*
(managing editor)
The University of British Columbia
THE LAW AND HOW WE USE IT Nathan Robert Cockram
(assistant managing editor)
Reflections on Truth in Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 The University of British Columbia
Brian H. Bix
What is Foundherentism, and what can it CONSULTING EDITORS
contribute to the Theory of Evidence in The Law?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Corey Abel Peter G. Klein
Daniel González Lagier Denver Baylor University
Proof Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt? Thierry Aimar Paul Lewis
Or Beyond Some Reasonable Doubt?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Sciences Po Paris King’s College London
Orión Vagas Veléz Nurit Alfasi Ted G. Lewis
Ben Gurion University Technology Assessment Group
The Relevance of the Susan Haack’s Epistemology to of the Negev Salinas, CA
Evidence Law in Latin America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Theodore Burczak Joseph Isaac Lifshitz
Andrea A. Meroi and Mario Chaumet Denison University The Shalem College
Gene Callahan Jacky Mallett
TESTIMONIALS AND TRIBUTES New York University Reykjavik University
Chor-Yung Cheung Alberto Mingardi
To Susan Haack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 City University of Hong Kong Istituto Bruno Leoni
Kiriake Xerohemona Francesco Di Iorio Stefano Moroni
Nankai University, China Milan Polytechnic
For Susan Haack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Gus diZerega* Edmund Neill
Jordi Ferrer Beltrán and Carmen Vázquez Taos, NM New College of the Humanities
How to be a Good Haacker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Péter Érdi Mikayla Novak
Bartosz Brożek Kalamazoo College Australian National University
Evelyn Lechner Gick Christian Onof
Preposterism vs. The Pursuit of Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Dartmouth College Imperial College London
Ana Luisa Ponce Miotti Peter Gordon Mark Pennington
University of Southern California King’s College London
Susan Haack: On Pineapples, Puzzles and
Real-Life Philosophy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Lauren K. Hall* Jason Potts
Rochester Institute of Technology Royal Melbourne Institute
Vitor de Paula Ramos
Marek Hudik* of Technology
Not Only Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 University of Economics Prague Don Ross
Rachel Herdy Sanford Ikeda University of Cape Town and
Purchase College Georgia State University
Susan Haack: A Passionate Moderate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 State University of New York Virgil Storr
Leslie Marsh George Mason University
Andrew Irvine
Not One of the Boys: Memoir of an Academic Misfit. . . . . . . . . . . . 92 The University of British Columbia Stephen Turner
Susan Haack Byron Kaldis University of South Florida
The Hellenic Open University Gloria Zúñiga y Postigo
Editorial Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Ashford University

*Executive committee
http://cosmosandtaxis.org
 COSMOS + TAXIS

If you’ve had anything to do with anglophone Departments

Haack Among the of Philosophy over the last ten years or so, you’ve very like-
Feminists: Or, Where ly seen on prominent display one of the posters produced
by the American Philosophical Association’s ‘Commit-
are the Women? tee on the Status of Women’ (CSW). The one in my school
bears the caption ‘Philosophy: Where are the Women?’, and
hangs, rather appropriately perhaps, beside the Ladies’ rest-
room. The poster consists of a collection of 170 portraits of
TIMOTHY J. CROWLEY women, from figures of the ancient world through current,
and in some cases quite recently hired, academics. There is
Web: https://people.ucd.ie/tim.crowley
another version that differs from the former only in the cap-
tion—a more pointed, provocative query: ‘Philosophy: Got
Women?’. The poster is intended, according to the CSW, to
be a celebration of women in the discipline; and displaying
it, or other CSW posters, is said to be a way to show support
for women working in philosophy.1 I have also heard it de-
scribed as an aid to recruitment of young women towards
a philosophical career. But there is both much more, and
much less, to it than that.
It is hard not to see the poster also as a challenge: does
your department have women? Does it have enough wom-
en? If not, why not? And to take it so would be very much
in line with the mission of the CSW and associated organ-
isations like the Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP).2
But let’s take it at face value: a celebration of women in phi-
losophy. Now, to those among us who don’t habitually dis-
criminate philosophers who interest us in terms of their sex,
it can take more than a cursory examination of this post-
er to realise that there are some extraordinary omissions.
Take, for instance, the philosopher we are honouring in this
Festschrift. Susan Haack’s absence is striking: undoubted-
ly one of the greatest living philosophers, any display that
aimed at celebrating women philosophers ought, one might
have thought, to feature Haack in a position of especial es-
teem. She was included in a collection of the 100 Best Phi-
losophers of all time in 2004: six women were named in to-
tal, Haack one of only two born in the 20th c. (King 2004).
The other was G.E.M. Anscombe—and she doesn’t make
the CSW poster either.
Further inspection shows that Anscombe and Haack
are in very good company: also missing from the poster are
such important and influential philosophers as Hannah Ar-
endt, Sarah Broadie, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Philippa Foot,
Rosalind Hursthouse, Mary Midgely, Iris Murdoch, Susan
Stebbing (the first woman to hold a chair of philosophy in
the UK), Mary Warnock, and Kathy Wilkes. And that’s just
off the top of my head. Take a glance at Mary Warnock’s
1996 publication Women Philosophers (Warnock 1996).
Warnock names seventeen women in that book, but of the

Haack Among the Feminists: Or, Where are the Women? 1

 COSMOS + TAXIS

nine born in the 20th c., seven are not on the poster (that seven includes Haack and many of those just
named). Quite remarkable; but we need not stop there. The British newspaper The Independent ran a piece
on ten great female philosophers in 2005 (Paglia & Levenson 2005). This time, the poster did rather better;
half of the Independent’s women can be found on it—Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand, and historical figures
Anne Conway (17th c.), Mary Wollstonecraft (18th c.), and Hypatia of Alexandria (5th c. AD). The half left out
are Arendt, Anscombe, Warnock, Margaret Fuller, and, again, Haack. Say what you like about these sorts of
surveys, but it is hard to imagine any attempt to celebrate women that have made, or are making, a mark in
philosophy that could leave out such figures as Arendt or Anscombe, Stebbing or Foot, Warnock or Midge-
ly; or Susan Haack.
What’s going on? What could possibly explain such glaring omissions? This is a poster that finds space
for the fictional Diotima of Plato’s Symposium,3 for Pericles’ paramour Aspasia,4 and for a whole gaggle of
medieval mystics.5 Descartes’ correspondent Elizabeth of Bohemia appears twice!6 There’s room too for a
few contemporary women whose claims to be active in philosophy seem dubious; a Professor of Commu-
nication, a Buddhist scholar and ‘Leader of Faith-Based Health Initiatives’, and at least one woman who,
since the poster’s publication, appears to have moved on to a career outside academia. Now we might be for-
giving of blunders in any well-intentioned product of that most cumbersome animal, a committee—never
mind an academic committee.7 And certainly one might allow an oversight or two; to err is human. But this
many? Is there something more going on here than the innocent celebration of, and support for, women
in philosophy? Let’s put this question another way: leaving aside the approximately 40 historical (i.e., pre-
20thc.) figures, who—or who else apart from the already named, and rather odd bedfellows, de Beauvoir and
Rand—is on this poster?
What we find is that the vast majority are feminist philosophers. Now perhaps this might seem like a
statement of the obvious—particularly, I imagine, to many of the men in philosophy who agreed to the dis-
play of this poster in their workplace.8 Surely, one might innocently think, if one is a woman, and one does
philosophy, then, in all likelihood, one must thereby be a feminist philosopher? After all, women who have
succeeded in philosophy, or in other so-called ‘non-traditional’ professions, might be presumed to believe
in equality of opportunities for both sexes; and isn’t that pretty much what we mean by ‘feminism’? More-
over, doesn’t Susan Haack herself say she is a feminist? (Haack 1998, 3; 1998a, 123).
There is a difference, however, between being a philosopher who is also a feminist, and being a feminist
philosopher; and this difference corresponds to very different conceptions of ‘feminism’. The former does
her work in the area of philosophy in which she is interested, be it Metaphysics or Ethics or Epistemology,
or in the History of Philosophy, and is someone who believes in the principle that women and men ought
to have equal rights and opportunities. She may well believe that today, and for some time now, they do
(at least in the West). The latter, on the other hand, might very well be active in Metaphysics or Ethics or
Epistemology, or in the History of Philosophy, but she consciously pursues her interests through a feminist
prism; she does Feminist Metaphysics, Feminist Ethics, Feminist Epistemology, Feminist History of Philoso-
phy. No fewer than 110 of the women on the poster—over 85% of the contemporary women featured—self-
identify as ‘feminist philosophers’ in this sense: they specialise, or cite research interests in, feminist phi-
losophy, or ‘feminist theory’.
It seems to me that there is something in this. In fact, as we shall see, if we say a little bit more about
feminist theory, its assumptions, and its commitments, then the absence from the CSW poster of Haack,
Anscombe, and the others ceases to be so puzzling. One simple way to begin is by noting a striking pecu-
liarity of feminist theory, namely that, in the preceding paragraph, when describing the ‘philosopher who is
also a feminist’, I might have written ‘the former does her or his work…’; but the addition of the masculine
pronoun would be impossible with respect to the ‘feminist philosopher’. Men can’t possibly be feminists
of the latter sort—their role can only be that of either enabler, or amanuensis. As Haack writes, ‘‘feminist
philosophy’ in the now more usual sense [is] an enterprise for which being of the appropriate sex, or, as the
jargon goes, ‘gender’, seems usually to be quietly assumed a qualification’ (Haack 1998b, 175). This is be-
cause at the heart of feminist theory is the conviction that there is a fundamental difference between men’s

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and women’s experiences, and, consequently, between their ways of conceptualising these experiences. The
most a wannabe ‘male feminist’ can do, according to one prominent feminist theorist, is ‘teach and write
about women’s thought, writings, and accomplishments… criticise their male colleagues… move material
and resources to women and feminists’ (Harding 1991b, 109; quoted in Haack 1998b, 179). (I don’t know
about you, reader, but to my mind, at least, this unedifying image recalls nothing so much as the self-geld-
ing devotees of Cybele.)
Haack, then, is a feminist, but her feminism, as she herself puts it, is an ‘old fashioned’ feminism, a
‘modest style which stressed the common humanity of women and men, focused on justice and opportuni-
ty’; the other sort is a ‘new-fangled’ feminism, ‘an ambitious, imperialist feminism which stresses the ‘wom-
an’s point of view’ and claims revolutionary significance for all areas of philosophy’ (Haack 1998, x; 1998a,
123). These two kinds of feminism map well onto the distinction often made between ‘equity’ and ‘gender’
feminism.9 ‘Equity feminism’ is very much the ‘old-fashioned’ feminism to which Haack subscribes, rooted
in the tradition of classical liberalism, and is concerned with the equal treatment of men and women before
the law, and the removal of prohibitions to women’s participation in society. Haack’s own early article ‘On
the Moral Relevance of Sex’ is an excellent example of an equity feminist rationally demolishing a contribu-
tion to the debate over women’s rights that attempted to defend such prohibitions in certain circumstances
(Haack 1974). ‘Gender feminism’, on the other hand, has its roots in the ‘radical’ feminism of the 70s, has
parallels with and indeed is inspired by Marxism, and developed further through interactions with post-
modernist theory towards questions of gender identity and sexuality. It is this latter sort of feminism that
is the dominant ideology of most contemporary academic feminists—that is, it is the feminism of ‘feminist
theory’. Returning to the poster, then, we might say that the vast majority of the women featured are ‘gender
feminists’. And this is something that should not surprise us, if we glance at the CSW’s mission statement.
For among its goals, the Committee ‘seeks to facilitate an understanding of issues of gender and of the range
of positions represented in feminist theories’ (my emphasis).10 The CSW sponsored Newsletter on Feminism
and Philosophy makes gender the key term in its self-description: ‘The Newsletter is designed to provide an
introduction to recent philosophical work that addresses issues of gender’ (Callahan 2001, 2).
Before going further, let’s pause to consider an objection. Academic feminists themselves do not draw
any such distinction between ‘equity’ and ‘gender’ feminism; it is a division made by others—by critics of
feminist theory. It might seem unfair, then, to characterise them with a label they have neither adopted nor
recognised; moreover, this classification of feminism might appear far too simplistic. Elizabeth Anderson,
for instance, insists that it is misleading, irrelevant, and unworthy of attention, as it fails to cater adequately
for the plurality and diversity of feminist research: it is not, she writes, ‘an intellectually serious way to rep-
resent the range of feminist thought’ (Anderson 2004). Anderson’s point is worth considering; for it is one
regularly made by feminists when attempting to present or defend feminism. The CSW itself refers to femi-
nist theories, in the plural; and the Newsletter states that it does not ‘advocate any particular type of femi-
nist philosophy’. Aren’t there, then, many kinds of feminism? Isn’t ‘feminism’ a term with so many different
meanings? Already in 1986, the editors of What is Feminism? were speaking of the ‘impossibility… of arriv-
ing at a shared feminist definition of feminism …it now makes more sense to speak of a plurality of femi-
nisms than one… [for instance] radical feminists, socialist feminists, Marxist feminists, lesbian separatists,
women of colour…’ (Mitchell & Oakley 1986, 8-9; cf. Cudd & Andreasen 2004, 7).
At times it can seem that there is such a bewildering variety of feminisms that one might get the im-
pression that each individual feminist subscribes to her own kind of feminism; rather like St Thomas’ an-
gels, each feminist a distinct species unto itself. But this bit of dogma is a sham, an attempt to turn criti-
cising feminism into a game of whack-a-mole: try to hit it, it disappears and turns up elsewhere.11 This ‘so
many feminisms’ move reminds me of Darío Fernández-Morera’s remarks about a similar Marxist trope—
that ‘materialist discourse is so heterogeneous and complex as to be beyond critical scrutiny—unlike the
bourgeoisie, Capitalism, ‘society’, ‘the classes’, ‘the West’ … which are so monolithic and simple as to be
routinely bandied about’ (Fernández-Morera 1996, 5). Likewise with feminism: how often do we hear femi-
nists bandy about these terms, and others too, e.g., ‘masculinity’, etc—as if they were simple and mono-

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lithic? For this reason the candour of Lorna Finlayson’s recent Introduction to Feminism is to be welcomed.
While insisting as usual that there are ‘many and varied ‘feminisms’’, Finlayson claims that the ‘constant
amid the differences’ is the recognition of ‘the fact of patriarchy’. Finlayson explains it thus: ‘‘Patriarchy’
names a system in which men rule or have power over or oppress women, deriving benefit from doing so, at
women’s expense. Feminists believe that this system exists… as central, woven into the fabric of social real-
ity’ (Finlayson 2016, 6 n. 6, 9).
Ah, the patriarchy: that vast conspiracy of gentlemen, according to which every tool at their disposal is
employed to keep women under the heel, such as rape, sexual harassment, and adjusting the air condition-
ing in offices (Dvorak 2015). Now we have reached the dark heart of feminist theory. Finlayson’s is a sweep-
ing claim, but, as far as feminist theory goes, it would seem to be justified (and, interestingly, as we shall
see later, it seems consistent with the public perception of feminism). Whatever internecine issues feminist
theorists might have, the belief that holds them together as a group is indeed a belief in the patriarchal ‘op-
pression’ thesis. The editors of the 2005 anthology Feminist Theory make this very clear: ‘Feminist theory
is the attempt to make intellectual sense of, and then critique, the subordination of women to men… [it is
premised on the claim that] women are dominated not only politically and economically but also sexually,
physically, and in nearly every field of artistic endeavour and philosophical thought’ (Cudd & Andreasen
2004, 1).
Feminist theory, then, involves an interrogation of every sphere of life, and just about every disci-
pline in the academy, for evidence of patriarchal oppression of women—which, unsurprisingly, it invari-
ably finds. Given that feminist theory is marked by its belief in the patriarchy, the dice are loaded from the
start. And nothing, no intellectual pursuit or feature of social life, can be spared the feminist inquisition, no
matter how far from questions of the equality of the sexes it might seem, at first, to be. Take, for instance,
feminist metaphysics. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy entry for ‘Feminist Metaphysics’, by Sally
Haslanger and Ásta Sveinsdóttir, explains that the field is primarily concerned with uncovering the extent
to which the central claims and concepts of (traditional) metaphysics support sexism. The feminist meta-
physician asks if our ‘frameworks for understanding the world are distorting in ways that privilege men or
masculinity’ (Haslanger & Sveinsdóttir 2011)—and, again, she generally answers ‘yes, yes they are’. And
these frameworks include the very distinction between the sexes—or the ‘genders’. In fact it is here, in the
cradle as it were, that discrimination begins. For, following the patriarchy hypothesis, the next central com-
mitment of feminist theory is to the hypothesis of the social construction of gender.12
According to this view, which has the status of an article of faith, gender differences are ‘not rooted in
biology’, but are ‘artificial constructs that work to reinforce women’s oppression’ (Cudd & Andreasen 2004,
8). In other words, behavioural differences between men and women are not manifestations of innate bio-
logical differences, but are thoroughly social, or cultural, phenomena; and, as such, they are conventional,
arbitrary, and therefore, ultimately, malleable. This promise of malleability fuels the vision of feminist the-
ory of a genderless or androgynous utopia of social equality (Charvet 1982, 4-5, 128-9; Elshtain 1986, 5-6,
11). For, according to feminist theory, only by abandoning or deconstructing gender can there be an end to
unfair discrimination. But, as things stand, in our patriarchal society, socially recognised or ‘traditional’
gender roles display an imbalance, favouring men over women politically, socially, legally and economi-
cally. Given the social construction thesis, the assignment of certain gender roles to men, and others to
women, must therefore be a sexist exercise of power and domination. Indeed, any numerical inequality in
certain occupations13 or academic disciplines that displays an ‘underrepresentation’, as the jargon goes, of
women, is typically reckoned to be evidence sufficient to maintain a charge of systemic sexist discrimina-
tion or bias in that occupation or discipline. The assumption seems to be that outcomes between men and
women in society would be equal, were it not for that pesky patriarchal gender division.
This view is captured neatly—if startlingly—in one feminist theorist’s assertion that at birth humans
are ‘bi-sexual infants’ that are then ‘transformed into male and female gender personalities, the one des-
tined to command, the other to obey’ (Bartky 1990, 50). According to feminist theory, then, the gender
schema is the deepest and most important socio-political division. And this is why the use of the term ‘gen-

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der feminist’ to describe the feminism of feminist theory is justifiable. It is precisely its emphasis on gen-
der that gives rise to feminist theory’s key difference from ‘equity feminism’, i.e., its insistence that the sort
of equality prized and pursued by equity feminists isn’t enough for the genuine liberation of women from
sexist oppression. Mere equity leaves the fundamental structures of oppression untouched (Charvet 1982,
4). The goal of feminist theory, then, is centred on gender equality, rather than the comparatively superfi-
cial level of political or economic equality. Gender feminists thus express impatience with equity feminists.
Elizabeth Minnich denounces the ‘ordinary feminism’—liberal or equity feminism—which merely ‘prom-
ises women the same individual rights as men in an otherwise unchanged world’ (Minnich 1998, 169). It is
not enough, then, for feminism to look to end explicit sex discrimination, and to have equality before the
law; only a thorough revolution of culture and society can end sexist oppression.14 This, then, is the conse-
quence of the rejection of biology and the flight to social constructionism; all differences, other than the re-
productive, between men and women are due to conditioning; therefore the only path to equality is the dis-
mantling of the instruments of this conditioning—the social and political structures that oppress women.
The patriarchy must be smashed.
Comical though it may be to think of our feminist theorist colleagues manning the barricades like so
many modern Mariannes, feminist theory is thus committed to promoting a blatantly revolutionary politi-
cal agenda. As Haslanger and Sveinsdóttir write, ‘[t]he aim of feminism is, in the most general terms, to end
the oppression of women. The goal of feminist theory is, therefore, to theorize how women are oppressed
and how we can work towards ending it’ (my emphasis, Haslanger & Sveinsdóttir 2011). Again, this pops up
in an introductory article on feminist metaphysics! The politically activist aspect is also emphasised by Fin-
layson: ‘a central purpose of feminism is that of opposing the system of patriarchy—which means emanci-
pating and improving the lives of women’ (Finlayson 2016, 6, 8).
Now it might seem reasonable to ask whether there is, indeed, a patriarchy to be smashed. Finlayson
writes ‘[Y]ou either see patriarchy or you don’t… If you do see it, then …the world convinces you every day,
in the form of innumerable ‘personal’ events and interactions’ (Finlayson 2016, 13). That’s not very reassur-
ing. What if you don’t? (Finlayson has something to say of those who don’t see it; we’ll have occasion to note
her views later.) Likewise, it might seem reasonable to question the hypothesis that gender is entirely so-
cially constructed, and its concomitant rejection of biology. What would gender feminists accept as poten-
tial refutation of this theory?15 But I am not going to investigate either of these questions here. Whether or
not it is true that the patriarchy exists, and thus whether or not the goal of feminist theory is a noble one, is
beside the point. For what is at issue is not whether the agenda that feminist theory promotes—a change in
culture and society culminating in complete equality in a genderless utopia—is agreeable or disagreeable,
from a political point of view,16 but rather the sheer fact that it is political in the first place. For it entails that
the feminist theorist is not interested in disinterested research, but seeks to weaponize each discipline and
all inquiry—whether it be scientific, philosophical, literary, historical—even geographical!17—to the politi-
cal end of opposing the alleged past and present unfair treatment of women. And this means that feminist
theorists are not interested in truth.
This is something that gender feminists are on occasion quite happy to state clearly. In an article en-
titled ‘What is Feminist theory?’, Elizabeth Grosz states unashamedly that feminist theory is a ‘strategy’
aimed at power, not at all an attempt to say something true. ‘[F]eminist theory… is not a true discourse… It
could be appropriately seen, rather, as a strategy, a local, specific intervention with definite political, even if
provisional, aims and goals. …it seeks effective forms of intervention into systems of power in order to sub-
vert them and replace them with others more preferable’ (Grosz 1986, 177). For Grosz, beliefs in truth and
objectivity are simply examples of ‘patriarchal beliefs’ (Grosz 1990, 165-6). Likewise Evelyn Fox Keller says
‘the conception of objectivity is a parochial one, influenced by a particular ideology about gender’ (Keller,
quoted in Levin 1988, 102). Sandra Harding scoffs at the idea of ‘the truth—whatever that is!’ (Harding
1991a, ix). Instead of truth as a goal, instead of honest disinterested inquiry, Harding explicitly urges the
politicisation of science: ‘The model for good science should be research programs that have been explic-
itly directed by liberatory political goals’—liberatory, that is, for gender, race and class (Harding, quoted in

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Haack 2007, 334). Anderson, in a piece purporting to defend feminist epistemology from the charge that
it is politically motivated, seems unaware that she admits precisely that: ‘doing science as a feminist’ she
writes, ‘[means] the pursuit of empirical inquiry… with the aim of discovering knowledge that is useful to
women in liberating them from sexism’ (my emphasis, Anderson 2004, 9). When James Franklin writes that
the ‘unquestioned assumption of Grosz’s work is that everything be evaluated according to whether it is
useful to feminism’ (Franklin 2003, 373), he may be referring specifically to Grosz, but he is making a point
applicable generally to feminist theory.
An instance of this sort of thinking is the hostile attitude towards any research that might not be use-
ful to feminism, for example, research into sex differences. The prominent feminist journalist and public
figure Gloria Steinem famously denounced sex differences research as ‘anti‐American, crazy thinking…
It’s what’s keeping us down, not what’s helping us’ (Young 2013). Academic gender feminists don’t quite rise
to this level of histrionics (or herstrionics?), but their antipathy is evident. Referring to the debate between
‘those proposing innate gender differences (essentialists) and those proposing learned or socially acquired
differences (social constructivists)’, a committee member of the Irish branch of SWIP makes it clear that, as
far as feminists are concerned, the opposed theories must be judged in terms of the political implications
of the research: ‘Given feminist concerns regarding ascriptions of innate gender differences, many feminist
philosophers approach such theories with caution’ (Humphreys 2014). ‘With caution’ is an understatement.
Camille Paglia remembers a 1970 feminist conference where ‘any appeal to biology was denounced as here-
sy’ (Paglia 2017, 215). Alice Eagly recalls the audience at an American Psychological Association meeting in
1995 stamping their feet and ‘glowering’ at her during her presentation that questioned the ‘social construc-
tion’ thesis; other researchers have stories about their investigations in this area being discouraged or de-
nied funding (see Hoff-Sommers 2000, 89-92; Rhoads 2004, 17-22). Again, why is the feminist theorist cau-
tious about such research? For political reasons. What, one might ask, would the feminist say about the huge
2018 study by Greenberg et al that finds that women are on average more empathetic than men, and men
on average more systems-oriented than women? (Greenberg et al 2018). The feminist’s first thought, when
presented with such research, is: does this further the movement or not? Or, to put it in Harding’s words, is
it ‘politically adequate research and scholarship’? (Harding 1991a, 98). If it is, it enters the lists of required
readings.18 And if not, if it is research that goes against feminist values, it can be dismissed as sexist; it pro-
motes ‘negative’ stereotypes of women. But who makes the judgement that a stereotype is negative? And is it
not potentially more harmful to women to reject such research out of hand? Indeed, as its title indicates, the
Greenberg study is intended to make a contribution to the study of autism; should this be rejected too, given
that it involves research into sex differences? Is that ‘politically inadequate scholarship’?
Jean Curthoys explains the sort of ‘political thinking’—as opposed to honest, critical thinking—that
one finds in contemporary academic feminism: ‘it is no longer the content of the ideas which is at issue…
It is only necessary to identify this form of ideas as intellectually and politically pernicious and we have at
hand an easy means for rejecting and denouncing ideas, one which requires no critical engagement at all’
(Curthoys 1997, 70; cf. Haack 2008a, 32-3). For this reason Curthoys as well as Haack have suggested that
feminist theory bears a family resemblance to authoritarian attitudes to science such as were typical of the
Nazi or Stalinist regimes. As Haack puts it, the fact that Nazi science, or Stalinist science, was concerned
with promoting a political agenda means that it is ‘tainted epistemologically’. And so, mutatis mutandis, is
feminist theory. ‘Aryan or proletarian or feminist ‘science’ is not inquiry but advocacy’ (Haack 2007, 340,
341).
It might appear hyperbolic to make such a comparison. Feminists, like most people, don’t like being
called ‘Nazis’. But let’s be clear about the basis of the comparison. Drucilla Cornell complains that a charge
that feminists are ‘totalitarians, hence ‘feminazis’ … [is] deeply disturbing ethically’, and is moved to refute
it by pointing out that there ‘are no feminist death squads, let alone concentration camps’, before pulling
the virtue-signalling trump card that those who make the comparison are trivialising ‘the human devasta-
tion Nazism left in its wake’ (Cornell 2004, 414). This absurd response utterly misses the point. No one is
suggesting that feminists are likely to invade Poland or annex the Sudetenland. Nor is the comparison in-

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tended as an endorsement of the use of the ‘feminazi’ soubriquet.19 The charge Haack and Curthoys are put-
ting forward is based rather on noting the striking similarity between feminism and authoritarian regimes
in their conceptualizing of the scientific project, and uses familiar historical examples of the latter to high-
light the concerns with the former. As Curthoys writes, in justifying her own comparison between Stalinist
science and feminism, the comparison ‘does not imply that all the features of the former are being said to be
analogous to all the features of the latter’; rather it is meant to show that ‘a kind of argumentation which is
found often in contemporary feminist thought [bears comparison to that] which was characteristic of ‘Ly-
senkoism’’ (Curthoys 1997, 59). As we have seen, feminists manifestly do want to make of scientific or phil-
osophical inquiry a tool for promoting their own interests, or the interests of the so-called ‘marginalised’
or ‘oppressed’ groups, into which they rather ridiculously insert themselves.20 By the same token, feminists
seek to undermine science or philosophy as it is being done or as it has been done by identifying it as sim-
ply the promotion by an oppressing class of its own interests. ‘Male scientific investigations’, writes Hard-
ing, ‘were meant to pacify, control, exploit and manipulate women or to glorify males and their domination’
(Harding, unpublished paper, quoted in Levin 1998, 102).
Remarks like these betray feminist theory’s borrowings from Marxism. According to some influential
strains of Marxist theory, the idea of pure or disinterested inquiry, whether scientific or metaphysical, is im-
possible—it is and always has been biased towards the interests of one class, the bourgeoisie, and to the det-
riment of some other, the proletariat. Feminist philosophers of science like Harding just mimic the Marxist
approach: ‘‘feminist ‘theory’’ Fernández-Morera writes, ‘merely replaces the notion of class with that of sex
(or ‘gender’…) …where Marxism spoke of a ‘proletarian science’ with its own peculiar methods and priori-
ties, feminism unoriginally speaks of a ‘feminist science’’. Both the Marxist and the feminist theorist, then,
would dismiss the charge that they seek to politicize inquiry—for they insist that it is always already inher-
ently political. Their aim is to align inquiry with ‘the correct politics’ (Fernández-Morera 1996, 43f.).
But the business of science and philosophy, as Haack writes, ‘is figuring things out, not promoting so-
cial justice’ (Haack 2018, 1). In general, if science or philosophy is appropriated for promoting the interests
of any class or group, and demoting the interests of another, this is to open it up to the same epistemological
objections that we can make towards Fascist or Communist—whether Soviet or Chinese—politicizations of
scientific enquiry. It is dangerous as well as mistaken: it is a live threat to the principle basic to our academic
freedom, to pursue the truth wherever it may lead. It is no longer science—or philosophy—but ‘only politics
in disguise’ (Haack 2007, 341).
Let’s return to the poster purporting to celebrate women in philosophy. It is notable that approximately
40 of the women featured on the CSW poster have, or, at some point in their career, have had, associations
with Women’s Studies, either as affiliates of their university’s Women’s Studies programmes, or holding
joint Professorships in Philosophy and Women’s Studies. A significant number boast the rather unwieldly
title of ‘Professor of Philosophy and Women’s, Genders, and Sexuality Studies’, indicating the direction that
Women’s Studies has undertaken in academia. Such titles are frankly oxymoronic. The notion of a person
who is a Professor of Philosophy and Women’s etc. Studies betokens a sort of schizophrenia, two horses
pulling in different directions. For Women’s Studies is and has been from its beginning an activist disci-
pline, fused with a political agenda (see Paglia 2017, 216; also Patai 2008, 253f., and Patai & Koertge 2003).
This is not a controversial point; one need only peruse these department’s websites to see this is the case.
Take, e.g., Fordham’s ‘Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies’ program: it is ‘an interdisciplinary approach
to a profound social justice goal’, aiming to ‘reshape old axes of power and cultivate new ones’. The program
looks at gender and sexuality as a ‘lens on and a vehicle of social change’; students will be encouraged to
‘use that information to create positive change… to become agents of social change who work for the pub-
lic good’.21 Or UC Davis’ ‘Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies’ program, which, among its five learning
outcomes, cites ‘Advocate for social justice related to gender and sexuality’; and one of the three speciali-
sations majors can choose from is ‘Social Justice, Gender Politics and Activism’.22 The ‘Centre for Gender,
Feminisms and Sexualities’ at my university, UCD, launched in 2017, states that ‘active engagement with ac-

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tivists, social movements and civil society organisations and activities to effect social change will be a cen-
tral principle of the new Centre’.23
A joint professorship in ‘Philosophy and Women’s etc Studies’, then, is as ridiculous as a ‘Professor of
Astronomy and Flat Earth Studies’, taken in the sense that the ‘studies’ actually entails not study, at all, but
activism. It is a title whose constituent parts on each side of the conjunction have goals and methods that
are utterly alien to each other: The first indicates a love of wisdom, a respect for the truth; the second re-
vokes wisdom and truth, and substitutes in their stead an explicit devotion to a shallow, partial, biased ide-
ology that is opposed to the ideals of philosophy. There is here no love of wisdom, but a love of power.
Look again at the philosophers I named earlier whose absence from the poster is so striking. Are we
close, now, to understanding why they are absent? Why their faces don’t fit? Could it possibly be an utter
coincidence that the absentee women are ‘philosophers who also happen to be women’ (Haack’s phrase,
1998b, 176), rather than gender feminists for whom being a woman is inseparable from the content of their
work? Philosophers who take the goal of inquiry to be truth rather than a political agenda? Philosophers
who do not take every philosophical question as yet another opportunity to uncover and oppose the patri-
archy? Philosophers who, in short, are—philosophers?
Warnock, in the introduction to her Women Philosophers, makes this point bluntly: ‘[in this] ‘feminist’
literature written by women…there tends to be too much unexamined dogma… too much ill-concealed
proselytizing, too little objective analysis, to allow them to qualify for inclusion among philosophical writ-
ing proper’. She insists that ‘the truths which philosophers seek must aim to be not merely generally, but ob-
jectively, even universally, true. Essentially they must be gender-indifferent’ (Warnock 1996, xxxiii-xxxiv).
In one of her sharpest quips, Haack has written that a rubric such as ‘feminist epistemology’, a mainstay of
Women’s Studies and the foundation-stone of feminist science, is incongruous on its face, like ‘Republican
epistemology’ (Haack 1998, 124). But perhaps we should go further, and say, with Warnock, that a rubric
like feminist philosophy, in general, is incongruous—that is, feminist philosophy as practised in the acad-
emy today (feminist philosophy ‘in the now more usual sense’, as Haack was putting it as long ago as 1997;
Haack 1998b, 175). To the extent that it is feminist, i.e., gender feminist, it is not philosophy.
Haack and Warnock’s scepticism towards their very raison d’être naturally doesn’t go down well with
the ‘Professors of Philosophy and Women’s Studies’ (see, e.g., Tyson 2019). Could that explain their absence
from the poster? ‘But’, one might object, ‘not all of the absentee women have been so explicitly critical of
feminist theory.’ True—their very silence is sufficient for the opprobrium of the opponents of patriarchy.
Consider Hannah Arendt. The case of Arendt is arresting; a towering intellectual of the 20th c., taken very
seriously by philosophers and political scientists, yet even a decade after her death it was still true to say
that Arendt’s thought was ‘almost totally ignored by feminists’ (Markus 1987, 76-87). Why? Arendt makes
no direct attack on feminism, although there is evidence that she did not consider herself a feminist, and
indeed that she bore an antipathy to the women’s movement, which in any case might have been inferred
from her distaste for single-issue politics and the totalitarian consequences of utopian ideologies (Young-
Bruehl 1982, 96; see also Young-Bruehl 1998, 123, and Elshtain 1986, 24-5). But beyond that, feminist ne-
glect of Arendt is evidently because she offered nothing to the feminist cause. Her famous ‘private/public’
distinction ‘seemed to have no liberation potential whatsoever’; in fact it could be taken to be supportive of
‘sexism and political conservatism’ (Young-Bruehl, 1998, 128). It certainly didn’t synch with the feminist
slogan ‘the personal is political’. A jibe that would be repeated again and again in feminist circles was Adri-
enne Rich’s dismissal of The Human Condition: ‘[it] embodies the tragedy of a female mind nourished on
male ideology’ (quoted in Young-Bruehl 1998, 128). Since the 1980s, however, there have been attempts to
appropriate Arendt for feminism—on which, see below—but perhaps these have not yet been sufficiently
convincing to admit her into the feminist canon alongside contemporaries like, e.g., de Beauvoir or Weil.
Nor, yet, evidently, onto the CSW’s poster.
Were the poster’s purpose to applaud accomplished women philosophers, Arendt’s absence would be
even more inexplicable when one notices that her erstwhile student and teaching assistant, Elizabeth Min-
nich, an incomparably lesser figure, is there. But Minnich is, of course, as we have already noted, a feminist

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theorist. Maria Markus makes a salient point, originally in relation to Arendt, but which has more a general
applicability, about the importance to feminist philosophers of ‘loyalty to the cause’: ‘There is a disturb-
ing tendency in contemporary feminist theory’, she writes, in that ‘[it] persistently ignores the existence
of women thinkers unless they declare openly their interest in feminism’. Women are dismissed by femi-
nists if ‘they have ‘next to nothing’ to say on woman’, that is, little that is specifically relevant to the cause
of feminism; or, if they do say something that is not grist to the feminist mill, they are traitors, accused of
‘sneaking into the men’s club’ (Markus 1987, 76). Consider, in this light, Andrea Nye’s comments about An-
scombe, Foot, and Murdoch. Nye recalls having as a student to read these philosophers, but, rather than
this evidence that women were not, in the late 60s and 70s, being excluded from philosophy syllabi offering
Nye any satisfaction, she complains that ‘none of this work was feminist, nor did it diverge far from estab-
lishment parameters’ (Nye 1995, ix). Now this might seem a rather anodyne reflection—if you are unaware
of Nye’s view of the establishment. For Nye is known, if at all, for her ‘feminist’ criticism of logic as reflect-
ing male modes of thought—and for her advocacy of ‘feminist’ thinking, or ‘reading’, which will be radi-
cally different from the male mainstream, or the establishment (Nye 1990, 184).24 To be accused of remain-
ing within the establishment, then, is effectively to be accused of being in league with the patriarchy (see
Curthoys 1997, 73, and 175, n. 22).
This is a familiar accusation in feminist circles— if you’re not with us, you’re against us. Of women
who dare to criticise gender feminism, Minnich says that they are traitors, collaborators: ‘they have chosen
to walk in step with a patriarchy that knows how to reward those who… attack their more agitating sisters’
(Minnich 1998, 175). At least she credits such women with choice; more typical is the view that equity femi-
nists are too duped to be granted the moral agency to make the choice. Paglia, for instance, notes how, at
a conference in 1973, the academic feminists in attendance ‘unanimously declared that I had been ‘brain-
washed’ and hoodwinked by generations of sexist male scientists’—for saying that there is a hormonal ele-
ment in sex differences (Paglia 2017, 215). Women like Paglia are said to ‘suffer from false consciousness’:
again, Finlayson is quite candid about this. As we saw above, Finlayson defines feminism in terms of the
patriarchy: feminists are ‘united by their opposition to the system of patriarchy’, adding emphatically ‘if it
doesn’t oppose patriarchy, it’s not feminism’ (Finlayson 2016, 8, 9). Before you can ask, ‘what about equity
feminists?’, Finlayson admits that this strict definition of feminism is a ‘political claim’ on her part. ‘There
are, of course, people who label themselves ‘feminists’ but do not believe the patriarchy exists (any longer)’,
she writes. ‘They can call themselves what they like, but we do not have to follow suit’ (Finlayson 2016, 6, n.
7). How inclusive. It gets worse.
If a woman doesn’t agree with the patriarchy hypothesis, Finlayson continues, not merely can she not
call herself a feminist, but she evidently suffers from ‘fairly crude distortions of reality, or simple oblivious-
ness to certain phenomena’. In fact, that there are women that deny the patriarchy is itself proof of the patri-
archy—it shows how pervasive and insidious it is. For this is what systems of oppression, like the patriarchy,
do—they ‘have a way of making themselves invisible… engendering certain ‘blind spots’ or self-under-
mining patterns of thought—that is to say, false consciousness—in those who suffer from the oppression’
(Finlayson 2016, 22). Invisible to ordinary women, perhaps, but not brave souls like Finlayson—she and her
gender feminist friends are the anointed ones who have seen through the Matrix. The woman who believes
in and opposes the patriarchy knows herself, and her social situation, better than other women. Those hap-
less women, like Haack, who oppose feminist theory, do so because they have been effectively hoodwinked.
Just think for a moment about what gender feminists are actually suggesting here. What it entails, ulti-
mately, is that it is not just Haack and other (unfortunately few) equity feminists in academia that have been
brainwashed by the patriarchy; it is at bottom a claim that the vast majority of women, in general, have been
brainwashed. This view goes back to gender feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir who, in conversation with
another icon, Betty Friedan, urged that women not be ‘authorized to stay at home and raise [their] children.
Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a
choice, too many women will make that one’ (de Beauvoir 1975, 18). Alison Jaggar, one of the founders of
SWIP, wrote in a similar vein that women who choose marriage and ‘traditional’ gender roles do not realise

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that they are thereby internalising patriarchal values and thus contributing to the oppression of women
(Jaggar 1986, 115).
Consider also the well-known ‘feminist paradox’—the fact that while most women support equal rights
and opportunities, only a minority identify themselves as ‘feminists’. In a 2016 survey in the UK, for in-
stance, only 7% said they considered themselves ‘feminist’. Yet more than two thirds were supportive of
equality between the sexes (Sanghani 2016). This is a result frequently repeated (see, for instance McCabe
2005, 480–505; Abowitz 2008, 43–63; Scharff 2012). For the gender feminist, the solution to the paradox
is obvious; these women are sleepwalking with the patriarchy. They don’t know how oppressed they really
are. Indeed, one academic seriously suggests that feminist ‘consciousness raising’ is necessary on campuses
to make young women realise that, and how, they are oppressed (Airaksinen 2017). But there really is no
paradox; or at least there wouldn’t be if we retained the term ‘equity feminism’, for this is, after all, what the
majority of women are subscribing to in these surveys. The survey result shows two things; the first, that
Finlayson is right, in a way, when she defines ‘feminism’ as opposition to the patriarchy—and the radical
views of gender that this entails. For it seems that this is in fact how most women, how most people, see
feminism too: people associate the term ‘feminism’ with ‘gender feminism’. The second is that most women
want nothing to do with gender feminism.
The ‘brainwashing’ jibe is a last resort that gender feminists rush to first. Any person’s values can be so
dismissed as due to being brainwashed; as such the charge is ‘operationally meaningless’, as Murray Roth-
bard writes. To appeal to such a charge is itself evidence that gender feminists ‘refuse to accept any evi-
dence, logical or empirical, of whatever kind, that might prove their contentions to be wrong. Show them
a woman who loves domesticity, and they dismiss this as ‘brainwashing’; show them a militant, and they
claim that this proves that women are yearning for ‘liberation’’ (Rothbard 1974, 162). Who strikes you as
the one that has been brainwashed, indoctrinated: the woman who believes sincerely in a vast conspiracy
that distorts everything in life, and, by its very nature, cannot be disproven? Or the woman who doesn’t?
Back to the Poster. There would no doubt be deep irony if a Committee formed ostensibly to assess
the state of women in the profession of philosophy and to promote women’s work, and is premised on the
claim that women have been and continue to be historically silenced and marginalised, should itself mar-
ginalise women for political reasons. But perhaps this might still seem too far a step to take, that is, to think
the omission of Haack and others from the CSW poster is a deliberate, indeed, politically motivated deci-
sion. It is, after all, only a poster! Is it really credible that the CSW deliberately populated the poster only
with those philosophers whose feminist credentials checked out? Am I not, with this lengthy and possibly
unhealthy obsession over portraits of women (oh dear!), setting off on a conspiracy theory of my own? Be-
sides, look here! Isn’t Ayn Rand—hardly a feminist of any sort!—on the poster? And isn’t it possible that
future versions might include those now excluded? Furthermore—and surely this is a killer, to be delivered
with supercilious cross-armed smugness—what of the simple fact that, on the release of this poster in 2012,
then CSW Chair Peggy Des Autels invited anyone who was missing to simply send a head shot for inclu-
sion in future posters—for which the only qualification was a Phd in philosophy—oh, and being a woman,
presumably?25
Whoops. Ok, let’s start with Rand. Admittedly, she does seem an outlier. And as for emendations to the
poster, certainly this is possible; moreover, these won’t necessarily be unexpected. For it seems even clear
antipathy towards the aims of gender feminism doesn’t mean that gender feminists won’t seek to appropri-
ate and colonise—and distort—other women for the cause, whether Rand or anyone else—when these wom-
en are no longer in any position to object to such use. This seems already to have happened to Rand.26 It is
the very process by which historical women philosophers and writers have been co-opted by feminist theo-
rists for use in contemporary socio-political agendas. Such feminist history of philosophy does not have the
laudable aim of adding to our store of knowledge of the thought of the past; its function is to keep the sex—
or the ‘gender’—dominant in the mind of the reader.
Consider Arendt again. She would seem a particularly resistant subject of feminist appropriation, as
noted above. As her biographer puts it, ‘Feminists have said clearly ‘she was not one of us’’ (Young-Bruehl

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1998, 137). But—against her will, one might say—we also noted that there have been feminist reassessments
of Arendt’s work (see, e.g., Honig 1995). Let’s be clear what that means; it means attempts by feminists to
excavate Arendt’s work for anything that will further feminist purposes. For Arendt was a woman, so her
work will be infused with women’s ways of knowing: this is a basic principle of feminist theory. Thus Min-
nich attacked Arendt’s biographer Elisabeth Young-Bruehl for Young-Bruehl’s lack of feminist analysis of
Arendt as a woman-philosopher ‘informed by an understanding of the all-pervasiveness of the patriarchy’
(Minnich 1985, 301-2). That Arendt herself said that all thinking is genderless in her Life of the Mind is
simply ignored, indeed, contradicted. Her thought can and should be understood precisely as gendered, as
framed by her experience as a woman. Markus stresses this point: ‘if being a woman is an experience of the
importance ascribed to it (and I think justly so) by feminism, then it has to have an impact upon theoretical
investigations produced by women, even if they are not related directly to feminist issues’. Failing to realise
this will ‘impoverish… the ‘ways of seeing’ of feminist theory’ (Markus 1987, 76). In other words, forcing
the gendered, patriarchal heuristic onto readings of women like Arendt is not for the purpose of under-
standing their thought, or how their thought is important to the discipline of philosophy, but for the ideo-
logical purpose of promoting gender feminism.27
Another example of this feminist repurposing is the British Academy project that treats Murdoch, An-
scombe, Midgely and Foot as a ‘Female Philosophical School’. A stated aim of this ‘case study’ is, indeed,
‘to examine the barriers women face in philosophy’ (MacCumhail & Wiseman 2019). It’s not hard to imag-
ine the disdain with which these four philosophers would greet this project. Anscombe’s lack of patience
with this kind of feminism hardly needs stating: feminists ‘received no aid or comfort’ from Anscombe;
she ‘never thought of herself as a woman philosopher’ (McInerny 2001). Midgely states in her memoir that,
while the demand for equal opportunities was perfectly understandable, she was ‘puzzled’ by the femi-
nist sisterhood’s excited expressions of ‘male chauvinism and female frustration’, and ‘mystified’ by their
‘frenzy of exasperation towards men’ (Midgely 2007, 37). Murdoch, more than the others, has been getting
increased attention from gender feminists (see, e.g., Wylie 2011), but it is doubtful she would be any more
appreciative. She is on record lamenting ‘cults’ such as ‘Women’s Studies’ that lead young women to waste
their time reading ‘all the latest books on feminism… mediocre or peripheral books by women rather than
the great books… of humanity in general’, and dismisses the ‘dead end’ of feminist attempts to separate
women ‘from the mainstream thinking of the human race’ by claiming space for ‘ female ethics, female
criticism, female knowledge’ (quote from Hoff-Sommers 1994, 78). Or, indeed, for ‘ female philosophy’ (cf.
Sayers 1938, with Haack 2001, 12-14).
The very obvious problem with this sort of approach is precisely the insistence that women who happen
to be philosophers—or, rather, philosophers who happen to be women—are always, in the first instance, to
be identified as women; and any judgement of their philosophy must keep this in mind. They are philoso-
phising—but as women. As a response, I cannot improve upon Young-Bruehl’s own exemplary response to
Minnich’s criticism: ‘[Minnich’s demand] is narrow, almost sectarian, because to me it seems to prescribe
that biographers [or researchers in general] should fit their subject’s lives to a feminist agenda rather than
respecting the way a woman lived her life and understood herself’ (Young-Bruehl 1998, 259, n. 8).
Nevertheless, this sort of approach is endemic in current academic philosophy, and we won’t be rid of it
any time soon. Another species of this approach, in so far as it insists on the sex of the author as a relevant
factor in the work of philosophy, is evident in the demand of the obnoxious gender feminist BPA/SWIP
Good Practice Guide, adopted by Schools of Philosophy throughout the UK, to ensure that a specified min-
imum number of publications by women appear on all course reading lists. At the University of Oxford,
for instance, 40% of recommended works must be by women; moreover, it must be made clear to students
which publications are by women, by spelling out first names rather than using initials (Fish 2018). As Ox-
ford Professor of Philosophy Edward Harcourt explained, ‘one of the greatest philosophers of the post-war
period, Elizabeth Anscombe, published as ‘G.E.M. Anscombe’. If that’s what goes on the reading list, un-
derstandably students won’t know she was female.’ Perhaps she could be listed as ‘Miss Anscombe’, the way

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she was professionally addressed throughout her career—even by her husband! (McInerny 2001)—but to-
day, of course, that would be deemed sexist. Not at all sexist, however, to insist on her sex in the syllabus.
It is hard to chart a sure way out of this morass. It appears pointless, for instance, to point out that An-
scombe would not want attention drawn to her status as a ‘woman philosopher’; or, for instance, to point
out that someone like Susan Stebbing wished to be referred to ‘by the bare surname without academic title
or sex denomination’ (my emphasis, Barth 1992, 1). For this move is not at all to do with Anscombe or Steb-
bing or anyone else as a philosopher; it has no respect for the individuality and independence of women like
Anscombe; it is, like the British Academy project, putting her purely at the service of a political feminist
agenda for which she herself would have had no time. It enacts the ultimate insult—inclusion on a reading
list because she was a woman. And this from Oxford, where she taught for the greater part of her career.
And when you think of all this, the only response one can muster won’t be far from that of Susan Haack’s:
‘Oh, good grief! Oxford, yet! What’s wrong with them?’.28
To the last objection: anyone can send in a head shot to the CSW to be included on the next version
of the poster! The CSW, thus, is not excluding anyone! Well, firstly, this invitation is of no use to absen-
tee women who have passed away, such as Stebbing or Anscombe; it remains the case that they were ei-
ther excluded, or—somehow—forgotten. Secondly, what sort of philosopher would want to be on this post-
er? From what we’ve just said, Stebbing or Anscombe would surely decline; I’d wager Arendt, Murdoch
and Warnock refusing too. And Susan Haack? Would Susan Haack want to be featured on it? Considering
Haack’s attitude to all-women conferences (invitations to which she refuses, on the grounds that they are
(a) a terrible idea, and (b) sexist29), and her dim view of the agenda of the CSW and SWIP to get more wom-
en into philosophy, I’m quite confident she would say ‘no’ (see especially her answer to the fifth question in
Haack (2012); on the general issue of preferential hiring of women, see Haack 1998b, 168-179). Evidently the
people who would seek inclusion on the poster are precisely the sort who are already most represented on
the poster—gender feminists; in other words, the CSW’s target demographic. Moreover, there is undoubt-
edly, as Margarita Levin has noted, a marked ‘penchant of many feminists to praise themselves most ful-
somely’ (Levin 1998, 106). Minnich, for example, makes the extraordinary claim that the work of gender
feminists like herself is ‘as fundamental, as dangerous, as exciting’ as the Copernican or Darwinian revolu-
tions; Nye, in a review of Women’s Studies books, gushingly compares their world shaking insights to those
of Socrates and Descartes (Minnich 1979, 7, quoted in Hoff-Sommers 1994, 280, n. 3; Nye 1998, 107-115).
And all of this without a hint of embarrassment. The poster is a simply another element of this—they are,
frankly, celebrating their own damn selves.
In general, it is not necessary to invoke conspiracies of exclusion to make sense of the CSW’s choices
for the poster. The fact is, even if the exclusions were (somehow!) unintentional, and even if these exclusions
were later to be rectified, as it stands they do, for the most part, match up well with the stated agenda of the
CSW, as is evident from its Newsletter and the other materials on its website. The thing is, it is not so much
that an association such as the CSW ought to be clearer about what it is really about (for it is really quite
clear), but that the philosophy community and academics in general ought to be better informed as to what
the CSW is about. During the heated debates after the poster appeared, overnight, without any consulta-
tion, in my school, I remember well the incredulity with which some of my male colleagues met the simple
objection to the display of the poster, namely, that it was a thoroughly partisan, ideological and political
statement, and as such inappropriate in the workplace.
One CSW poster asks, ‘Where are the Women?’, the other asks ‘Got Women?’. But ‘Got feminists?’ is
the question it is really asking; and what’s more, feminists of a particular stripe. The fact is that the CSW,
and SWIP too, are neither about philosophy, nor about women. They are interested in feminist philoso-
phers, whose claim to be philosophers is, as we have seen, dubious. So while these organisations declare
their deep concern about the ‘under-representation’ of women in philosophy, they don’t actually represent
women in philosophy. Recalling the feminist paradox, we might say indeed that there are low numbers of
women in philosophy, but that feminist philosophers are in fact greatly over-represented in philosophy; and
the sort of lobbying pressure these organisations place on departments of philosophy is indeed more likely

12 VOLUME 8 | ISSUE 6 + 7 2020

 COSMOS + TAXIS

to lead to the appointment of more feminist philosophers (see Haack 1998b, 176). So let’s return to the post-
er the very same question it asks. Where are the women? Too busy doing philosophy, I’d imagine.30

NOTES

1. https://blog.apaonline.org/2018/02/12/celebrate-women-in-philosophy/
2. See, for instance, http://www.apaonlinecsw.org/mission; http://www.apaonlinecsw.org/data-on-women-in-phi-
losophy; http://swipuk.org/notices/2011-09-08/; http://women-in-philosophy.org/about.php. The CSW and SWIP
share their birth in the slew of resolutions presented by Nancy Hartsock and Alison Jaggar to the APA in 1970.
See Love 2006, 220-21.
3. The fictional status of Diotima of Mantinea (not ‘Diotima Mantinea’, as the rather error strewn poster puts it)
ought not to be controversial, but there has been a concerted recent effort to make it so, starting with the tenden-
tious arguments in Waithe 1987, 83 (but note that even Waithe waives judgement on Diotima’s historicity, xiv-xv).
Cf. the entry on Diotima in Nails 2002, 137. Note that d’Angour 2019 revives the case that Diotima is to be identi-
fied with Aspasia, on whom see following note.
4. Henry’s study of Aspasia concedes that we know very little about her (Henry 1995, 3, 127, 128). While sexism is
regularly invoked as the reason why she has been denied major cultural and intellectual influence (Henry 127;
Stadter 1991, 123), sober reflection on the evidence indicates that the claims in, for instance, Plato’s Menexenus
that Aspasia taught rhetoric to Pericles—and Socrates—are not to be taken seriously: as M. Schofield notes drily
‘what she was expert in, no doubt, was the giving of pleasure’, Schofield 2010, 119 n. 8; cf. also xix-xx. See review
of Henry by R. Wallace 1996. Cf. also the entry on Aspasia in Nails 2002, 58f. Even someone as sympathetic to the
subject of rehabilitating historical women philosophers as Peter Adamson remarks that one could include Dioti-
ma and Aspasia among women philosophers ‘only if you are willing to treat Plato’s dialogues as records of histori-
cal fact (which you shouldn’t be)’ (Adamson 2016).
5. Or is this unfair (and sexist)? ‘The category ‘mystic’ allows us to throw someone in that container, shut the lid, and
assume that that person isn’t a thoroughgoing philosopher,’ Christa Mercer remarks, adding: ‘It so happens that a
lot of women have been put in that category’ (Goldhill 2017). One man’s mysticism is another man’s, or woman’s,
philosophy, perhaps.
6. Elizabeth’s different titles confused the poster’s compilers; she appears as Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia at no. 66,
and as Elizabeth Princess Palatine at no. 154 (different portraits are used). Descartes’ other famous female corre-
spondent, Queen Christina of Sweden, is notably absent.
7. Another blunder is the garbling of the name of the last woman on the poster, Hipparchia; she is listed as ‘Hippar-
chia of Marceloneia Villa Farnesina’—the corruption of Maroneia into Marceloneia we might pass over in silence,
but the addition of ‘Villa Farnesina’ is presumably because the editor(s) simply cut and pasted the file name of the
image of Hipparchia in her Wikipedia entry, the image being a detail of a wall painting from the garden of the
Villa Farnesina, Museo delle Terme, Rome—an inauspicious conclusion to the poster.
8. Assuming, that is, that they were given the opportunity to express an opinion on it—which is not a particularly
safe assumption.
9. The ‘equity’ versus ‘gender’ feminism distinction was first introduced by Hoff Sommers, 1994, 22f. See also Pink-
er’s presentation of this distinction, 2002, 341f., to which much of the summary of gender feminism in what fol-
lows is indebted.
10. http://www.apaonlinecsw.org/mission
11. Academic feminists’ disingenuous adoption of a high-functioning autism approach to figures of speech perhaps
behooves me to say that I am not advocating whacking a feminist—no more than I want to actually hit a mole; cf.
Gross & Levitt 1998, 116, 121, on feminist ‘metaphor mongering’.
12. Butler 1990 goes even further, asserting that sex too is constructed; for a shorter and mercifully clearer exposition
of her views, see her 2019.
13. Certainly not every occupation, but the well paid, comfortable, office-environment occupations.

Haack Among the Feminists: Or, Where are the Women? 13

 COSMOS + TAXIS

14. Thus the frequent calls to change the culture: see e.g., Haslanger, 2008. For comment, see Elshtain 1986, 7-14.
15. There is a great and growing number of studies documenting the origin of behavioural sex differences in human
biology. See, e.g., Beltz et al, 2011, 313-7, Cohen-Bendahan et al, 2005, 353–384; Hines 2010, 448–456. This is not,
of course, to rush to the other extreme and claim the differences between men and women are totally a matter of
biology.
16. Although de Beauvoir’s vision of such is, to put it mildly, very concerning: ‘A world where men and women would
be equal is easy to visualize,’ de Beauvoir writes in The Second Sex, ‘for that precisely is what the Soviet Revolution
promised’; de Beauvoir 1952, 806.
17. Yes, feminist geography is a thing, with its own dedicated journals. See, for instance, Richardson 2017.
18. See, e.g., the ‘Recommended Reading’ at the Leverhulme Trust funded Implicit Bias and Philosophy Research Proj-
ect site, upon which SWIP relies for the claim that implicit sexism is rife in Philosophy and the cause of women’s
‘under-representation’. The ‘Psychological’ literature omits all of the many articles sceptical of the effects of im-
plicit bias. Talk about bias, eh? https://www.biasproject.org/2018/11/27/psychology-literature/
19. The meaning of ‘feminazi’ is in any case somewhat ambiguous, having been originally used by Rush Limbaugh
with specific reference to extreme feminists that enthusiastically promote abortion, but now often extended to
feminists in general. See OED, s.v. ‘feminazi’; Rudman 2012.
20. Haack 1998a, 126 remarks on the incongruity of these ‘affluent, well-educated Western women’ identifying with
the marginalized and oppressed.
21. https://www.fordham.edu/info/20526/majors_and_minors/1900/women_gender_and_sexuality_studies
22. https://www.ucdavis.edu/majors/gender-sexuality-and-womens-studies;
https://gsws.ucdavis.edu/program-information
23. https://cgfs.ie/
24. Joan Weiner describes Nye’s ‘readings’ as ‘products, not of scholarship, but of fantasy’, Weiner 1994, 681. Even
worse, Haack finds in Nye’s thesis a ‘disquieting’ revival of sexist stereotypes of women as illogical, Haack 1998a,
125; Nye is indeed reviving very much the same sort of stereotype of women for which Haack took John Lucas to
task, that is, as ‘so woolly-minded and emotional’ that they are not able to understand abstract subjects like math-
ematics or logic; see Haack 1974, 91.
25. https://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/got-women-poster-now-available/
26. ‘Rand's radical individualism has much to offer to modern feminism… it is "radically empowering” for many
women’, Michalson 2001, 161.
27. Honig 1995, 2-3, on one reading, might seem to dispute this point; but, be that as it may, she still ends up identi-
fying as the key question in feminist approaches to Arendt, ‘How does reading Arendt change the way we think
about feminist theory?’.
28. Haack’s reaction, in an e-mail of 13:06 [EST], 19th March 2018; on file with author.
29. In the email cited in note 28, Haack refers to an invitation to such a conference: ‘they seemed amazed when I said
sorry, no, (1) this is a terrible idea, and (2) I don’t accept sexist invitations’.
30. Many thanks to Mark Migotti for his patience, his valuable comments on the penultimate version of this paper,
and, of course, for inviting me to contribute to this Festschrift.

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Following Susan Haack’s philosophical work through the

William James on years has taught me much about feminist theory, episte-
the Meaningful Life mology, philosophy of science, philosophy of language,
and pragmatism. Haack’s pragmatism seems to be most-
ly influenced by that of Charles Sanders Peirce. In this ar-
ticle I focus on another pragmatist, William James, and his
IDDO LANDAU views on meaning in life as they appear in his short paper
“What Makes a Life Significant” (1983 [1899]).1 My discus-
Web: http://philo.haifa.ac.il/index.php/en/ sion touches on points discussed by Haack in “Worthwhile
departmentoffice-2/faculty-staff-reception-
Lives” (2008) and “The Differences that Make a Difference:
hours/senior-academic-staff/70-il
William James on the Importance of Individuals” (2010).

1.

In his discussion of William James’s “What Makes a Life

Significant,” Todd Lekan (2016) argues that James holds
in this essay that meaningful lives must combine, on the
one hand, ideals that are sensed as novel with, on the oth-
er hand, strenuous activity. I should like to add to Lekan’s
account that James also seems to relate meaningfulness to
non-alienation.
James approvingly cites Phillips Brooks, who claims
that “No life like poverty could so get one to the heart of
things and make men know their meaning, could so let us
feel life and the world with all the soft cushions stripped off
and thrown away” (WML 162). According to this claim, one
of the advantages of poverty is that it forces people to ex-
perience reality directly, without the “soft cushions” that,
in more affluent and convenient lifestyles, separate people
from the world. Anticipating Camus (1991 [1942]: 12–13,
14–15, 17–21) many years later, James takes alienation to
militate against meaningfulness.2 The notion “alienation”
is not easy to explain. It is not loneliness, since one can be
alienated even in the close company of friends or family, and
one can be alienated from oneself and from objects in the
world although one is of course not lonely for oneself nor for
objects in the world. One way of describing the feeling meta-
phorically talks about experiencing the world, other people,
or even ourselves as through a transparent film that partly
separates us from what we want to “touch.” When alienated,
we are not quite connecting with or “getting” what is around
us and we are not completely present. James also seems to
be alluding to this feeling when he says, again citing Brooks,
that for the poor, “poverty is a true region” (WML 162; em-
phasis added). Likewise, towards the end of his essay, James
approvingly quotes the jurist Fitzjames Stephen, who com-
pares modern life to the huge modern ships that allow pas-
sengers to cross the sea so safely and conveniently that they

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do not even feel “that they have left the firm land” (WML 166). This is a metaphor for the voyage of life from
cradle to grave, in which “progress and science may, perhaps, enable untold millions to live and die without
a care, without a pang, without an anxiety. They will have a pleasant passage, and plenty of brilliant conver-
sation” (WML 166–167). However, passengers traveling so safely and comfortably may thereby lose some-
thing very important:

It seems unlikely that they will have such a knowledge of the great ocean on which they sail, with
its storms and wrecks, its currents and icebergs, its huge waves and mighty winds, as those who
battled with it for years together in the little craft, which, if they had few other merits, brought
those who navigated them full into the presence of time and eternity, their Maker and themselves,
and forced them to have some definite views of their relations to them and to each other. (WML
167; emphasis added)

Although James’s discussion of alienation is condensed and lacks the detailed elaborations of some later
discussions of the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life, he can be seen as an important anticipator of these
discussions.
Another interesting feature of James’s account is that he seems to believe that meaningfulness must
have to do with endurance, coping with difficulties, or effort. He writes, for example, that “the solid mean-
ing of life is always the same eternal thing, the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however spe-
cial, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man’s or woman’s pains” (WML 166).3 This is
in keeping with Stephen’s sea-voyage metaphor cited above, in which he explains how progress and science
may enable millions “to live and die without a care, without a pang, without an anxiety. They will have a
pleasant passage…” (WML 166–167). The mention of pangs and anxiety, which are presented as opposed to
pleasantness, also suggests that a meaningful life, for James, must involve effort and coping with difficul-
ties.4 In his discussion of the stale life in the Chautauqua community, James also emphasizes the pleasant-
ness of the place and describes it as one in which there is “no suffering and no dark corners” (WML 152),
stating his preference, instead, for “wilderness with all its sins and sufferings” (WML 153). Thus, for James,
effort or coping with difficulties are necessary ingredients of the meaningful life.5
James also holds that there is some kind of eternal meaning of life that is then manifested or expressed
to some degree in various people’s finite lives, perhaps somewhat similarly to the way Spinoza’s modes are
specific modifications of God or Nature (Spinoza 1985 [1677]: 424-425; 430-431; 450-453). He writes:

there are compensations; and no outward changes of condition in life can keep the nightingale of
its eternal meaning from singing in all sorts of different men’s hearts. . . . If the poor and the rich
could look at each other in this way, sub specie æternitatis, how gentle would grow their disputes!
(WML 167)

Unfortunately, James mentions eternal meaning rather cursorily, and does not elaborate his view on it.
The citation above suggests also that, like Viktor Frankl (1985: 86, 154; 1988: 16) many years later,
James holds that all people’s lives are in fact meaningful. James seems to be saying that if certain factors de-
tract meaningfulness from some people’s lives, other factors compensate for these detractions, so that the
metaphorical “nightingale” of eternal meaning cannot be kept from singing in the hearts of “all sorts.” But
since earlier in the essay James does explicitly suggest that the people in the Chautauqua community, and
some poor people he observed, did not have meaningful lives, it is probably correct to read him here as say-
ing not that all people have meaningful lives, but only that the option of having a meaningful life is never
closed, so that there is always a chance to make life meaningful. This reading of James is corroborated by
his claim, after discussing the “marriage” of the factors that make life meaningful (namely, having an ideal
and trying to realize it with effort and pain) that “whatever or wherever life may be, there will always be the
chance for that marriage to take place” (WML 166; emphasis added). James is suggesting here, then, that

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there are no circumstances in which the option of having a meaningful life is closed. This, of course, is a
very radical and optimistic claim.
James claims that the “comparatively deepest significance in life does seem to be its character of prog-
ress” (WML 164). But it is not completely clear what he means by the term. “Progress” is often understood
as a process of change towards a positive goal. But James does not specify whether he is using the term in
this regular sense. He explains progress as “that strange union of reality with ideal novelty which it contin-
ues from one moment to another to present” (WML 164). This is consistent with the common understand-
ing of “progress”: in progress we have, thanks to the constant change towards a positive goal, something
new and dissimilar to what we had earlier (since if we had no novelty, and the situation were similar to
what we had earlier, there would be no progress). Thus, we have here continuous novelty. However, as Le-
kan (2016: 582) helpfully explains, “novelty” in this essay need not be understood as change, but rather as
the opposite of “sodden routine” (WML 163), that is, freshness in attitude, which could be maintained even
if one did not present new content. I think that we have to accept that James is not sufficiently clear on this
point, and that he may or may not be claiming that meaningfulness is deepest when there is progress (in
the regular sense of the term). It is probable, however, that he meant by this term what we usually mean by
it. Otherwise, it is unclear why he would present the term at all and what function it would fulfill; he could
simply have employed “novelty,” “continuous novelty,” “newness,” “freshness,” or the like, instead.
James may appear at first to hold that modernity decreases meaning. His description of the life in the
Chautauqua community, typified by technological comfort and safety, as stale and meaningless seems to
suggest that he takes modernized technology to diminish meaningfulness (WML 152). This is also suggest-
ed by his approval of Stephen’s sea-voyage metaphor: as cited above, the metaphor criticizes the modern,
technological, and convenient way to sail (WML 166–167). In another place in the essay, on the other hand,
he suggests that, at least as far as the number of ideals is concerned, all eras are similar:

The changing conditions of history touch only the surface of the show. The altered equilibriums
and redistributions only diversify our opportunities and open chances to us for new ideals. But
with each new ideal that comes into life, the chance for a life based on some old ideal will vanish.
(WML 167)

According to this claim, although historical changes open opportunities for new ideals, these new ideals
come at the expense of old ideals. Hence, the modern age is not typified by more ideals than earlier ages,
and in this respect, modern life does not increase meaningfulness. The argument seems problematic, since
new ideals may be added to old ideals rather than replace them; the number of ideals may change from era
to era.
But James’s expressed view on the topic is not that life is less meaningful in the modern era, nor that all
eras are alike; it is, rather, that we should adopt an agnostic stance on this issue: “he would needs be a pre-
sumptuous calculator who should with confidence say that the total sum of significances is positively and
absolutely greater at any one epoch than at any other of the world” (WML 167).

2.

Lekan (2016: 589; 592n.5) claims that James’s view of meaningfulness in “What Makes a Life Significant” is
best understood as contextualist rather than as subjectivist relativist. I suggest that what James says in this
essay is consistent with seeing him both as a contextualist relativist and as a subjectivist relativist as regards
the meaning of life. James writes, for example, that “there is nothing absolutely ideal: ideals are relative to
the lives that entertain them” (WML 163). Likewise, he talks approvingly about the “simple faithfulness to
his light or darkness which any common unintellectual man can show” (WML 164; emphasis added). But
this suggests that individual unintellectual people, who may be more or less in the same circumstances
and contexts, can have different types of light and of darkness. Further, when discussing ideals, James does

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not at all allude to any contexts. The ideals necessary for a meaningful life should fulfill only the following
three conditions: (a) they should be conscious, that is, should not be followed unawares; (b) they should be
carried out with “uplift” or “brightness,” that is, should be understood positively by their bearers; (c) they
should not be carried out as a habitual “sodden routine” but be experienced as a novelty or in their “fresh-
ness” (WML 163). None of these three conditions refers to context; it seems that ideals, for James, can be
contextual (e.g., related to social, economic, religious, etc. conditions or groups) but can also be subjective
(e.g., related to specific individual emotional makeup).
James’s contextualist and subjectivist relativism may seem to be in tension with his view, mentioned
above, that there is also an eternal, and probably objective, general meaningfulness that can be manifested
differently in different people’s lives. Perhaps, then, it would be more correct to typify him as an objectivist
about the general, eternal meaning, and a relativist as regards its many possible manifestations.

3.

I have so far described some features of James’s view of the meaning of life in his essay “What Makes a Life
Significant.” In the way of evaluation, I should also note some difficulties I find in his views.
I doubt that effort or coping with difficulties are indeed necessary conditions for meaningfulness. Sup-
pose we were to find out that Shakespeare and Mozart did not, as a matter of fact, invest efforts or cope
with difficulties when writing and composing. Their work was not at all demanding for them. It required
no endurance, and did not involve coping with any difficulties. It was effortless, intuitive and fun for them
to just let the plays and symphonies “flow” from their minds to the paper. Perhaps the true effort, for them,
would have been in trying not to create, since their creativity just wanted to burst out of them. (Such people
are sometimes referred to as “naturals” in their field.) Even if all this turned out to be the case, I suggest, we
would (and should) still take Mozart, Shakespeare and Picasso to have had meaningful lives thanks to their
valuable creations. Perhaps such “naturals” could even be taken to have lives that are more meaningful than
the lives of those who have to make an effort and cope with difficulties in order to produce what they do.6
What has been said here about effort seems true also of courage and endurance that James mentions
(WML 166). The examples above suggest that courage and endurance, too, may be helpful in some circum-
stances, but unnecessary in others (and perhaps even in some cases distract from or otherwise impede the
creative process). I am not certain what precisely James meant by “fidelity,” but if it refers to something close
to endurance or effort, then again I do not think that it is a necessary condition for meaningfulness.
James, as already noted, has some very negative things to say about the safe, convenient life in the
Chautauqua community, taking it to represent safe, convenient ways of life in general. He may or may not
be correctly describing the degree of meaningfulness in that community; I have no basis for an opinion
about that. However, because of the difficulties I have with James’s views on the necessity of effort, endur-
ance, etc. for meaningfulness, I also disagree that, in principle, inhabitants of communities in which life is
safe and convenient need have nonmeaningful lives. Experience seems to show that one can lead a mean-
ingless life in a comfortable community, but one can also lead a meaningful life in such a place.
I will not argue here against James’s Spinozistic notion of an eternal meaning that seems to be at least
partly independent of the meaningfulness in specific lives. I am a nominalist about meaningfulness: I see it
as always being a quality of lives, deeds, events, artworks, etc., and never existing independently of them. I
am also uncertain that there is anything that is eternal. But James does not argue for his claim, and entering
into the metaphysical pros and cons of his view is beyond the scope of this paper. I will only point out that
I do not think that the pragmatist considerations for believing in God, which James presents in The Will to
Believe (1979), also apply to believing in an independent, eternal meaning.
I also doubt the claim that the option of having a meaningful life is never closed, so that there is always
a chance to make life meaningful. Those who have cared for severely depressed people know that, unfor-
tunately, they often simply cannot form ideals such as those James talks about, much less strive and suffer
for them. Severely depressed people frequently do not have the mental or emotional power needed for what

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James envisages. They often find it hard or even impossible just to gather the strength needed to get out of
bed. Many others who are not severely depressed are still so emotionally broken, despairing, or disappoint-
ed by various events in life that they cannot form or hold to ideals or, at least, cannot do so without profes-
sional help, which unfortunately is unavailable for many. There are also many people who, in some or many
circumstances in life, cannot fight, focus, or suffer—James’s other conditions for meaningfulness—because
they lack the determination or emotional, mental, and sometimes the intellectual powers necessary for that.
James’s trusting view about the ability of all people to make their lives meaningful is heartwarming, and we
would of course very much like it to be the case. But it seems overly optimistic.7
As pointed out above, James connects meaning to progress. I have to differ here too. I suggest that the
intensity of the feeling of meaningfulness, and the objective value of what one relates to, each affects the
depth or degree of meaningfulness no less than progress does. Meaningfulness can be very high, or deep,
when these two other factors are present even if there is no progress; that is, even if one is stable in one’s
meaningful activity or in one’s relation to what is meaningful. Even a state of affairs in which, notwith-
standing work or effort, one slowly, and perhaps heroically, regresses may well be highly or deeply mean-
ingful. On the other hand, progress without one or both of the two other factors (intensity and objective
value) seems empty. Progress, then, may well be one of the factors of the depth of meaningfulness, but it is
probably not the most important or main factor.
I suggested above that James is not completely clear on what he means by “progress”: he may be refer-
ring not to a development towards a positive end but to a state in which one continues to relate to one’s ide-
als in a fresh, non-habituated way rather than mechanically and routinely. But in this second sense of the
term, too, progress does not seem to be more critical to the depth or degree of meaningfulness than are the
intensity of the feeling or the objective value of what one relates to. Intensity is distinct from “freshness”: a
feeling of meaningfulness that is “fresh” but weak or non-intense, does not seem very deep or of very high
quality. Likewise, a “fresh” feeling of meaningfulness that relates to an objectively unimportant or worth-
less issue seems empty and shallow, while a non-fresh, routine commitment to a valuable issue (e.g., con-
tinuing one’s volunteer work as a medical assistant among the poor in a third world country) seems to be
deeper and of a higher quality. Thus, when progress is taken to mean “freshness,” again, progress does not
seem to be the factor that most importantly affects the depth or degree of meaningfulness.
I have suggested above that James is not only a contextualist but also a subjectivist relativist as regards
the meaning of life. If that is indeed the case, then, following many others who have written on the topic,
I too find this position difficult to uphold. Various writers on the meaning of life have argued that subjec-
tivism regarding the meaning of life leads to conclusions that are too implausible to accept. Irving Singer
(1996, 113), for example, points out that if this subjectivism is upheld, we have to accept that collecting
bottle caps can make life meaningful. Susan Wolf (1997, 218) presents the example of counting tiles on a
bathroom floor, Charles Taylor (1992, 36) the example of maintaining precisely 3,732 hairs on one’s head,
and Eric Wielenberg (2005, 18–23) that of eating one’s own excrement. These authors present such cases as
counterexamples to the view that relativist or subjectivist conditions are sufficient for taking someone to
have a meaningful life. But according to James’s criteria for ideals, if Singer’s eccentric bottle cap collector
does hold that collecting many, many bottle caps is very important and treats it as an ideal, it can make his
life meaningful. Of course, following James’s criteria, the bottle cap collector would also have to be con-
scious of his or her ideal, to carry out this ideal with “uplift” and “brightness,” and to experience the ideal in
its novelty rather than as a “sodden routine.” But if all these formal criteria are fulfilled, the bottle cap col-
lector’s life would be meaningful. James also holds that the ideals should be followed with determination,
courage, etc. But this condition, too, does not exclude the examples above. The bottle cap collector may fol-
low that ideal through great discomfort and suffering, be quite determined, and add more bottle caps to the
collection under dangerous conditions, thus also showing courage.
James’s account is also problematic if he is understood not as a subjectivist relativist but only as a con-
textualist relativist. In some economic, social, religious, and cultural contexts, people adopt and try to re-
alize ideals that are very implausible to most of the rest of us, and accepting that their lives are meaningful

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thanks to their investment in these ideals would be very counterintuitive. As Lekan points out (2016, 578,
581–82), the ideals people adopt can even be highly immoral. Some people embrace racist ideals. In some
religious groups, persecuting, subjugating, or killing people of other faiths has been considered an ideal.
Even if James’s account of meaningfulness were only a contextualist relativist account, it would be prob-
lematic.
It might be objected at this point that this criticism is unfair, since James is discussing in this essay not
the meaning of life itself, but only the sensation of the meaning of life. According to this objection, James is
focusing in this essay only on the psychological phenomenon of sensing life as meaningful, not on mean-
ingfulness itself. And insofar as James presents merely psychological claims, it might be argued, he is right:
the bottle cap collector, the devout Nazi, etc. do, as a matter of fact, have the sensation that their lives are
meaningful, even if their lives are not objectively meaningful.
But James seems to be discussing in this essay meaningfulness as well, not only the sensation of mean-
ingfulness. We can see this when James points out that he is also dealing with “a life objectively and thor-
oughly significant” (WML 165). Likewise, following and quoting Fitzjames Stephen, he recommends not
just the feeling of meaningfulness but, rather, that which would bring people “full into the presence of time
and eternity, their Maker and themselves, and [force] them to have some definite views of their relations to
them and to each other” (WML 167). Since James is not presenting a merely psychological discussion, then,
the relativist aspects in his account remain problematic.
I have focused in this last section on what I take to be some weaknesses in James’s account of mean-
ingfulness in his “What Makes a Life Significant.” But these critical remarks should not overshadow the
importance and the many interesting aspects of this essay. We have here, sometimes in embryonic form
(which also has to do with the essay’s intended audience, namely, students), an example of an early nonre-
ligious discussion of some of the main issues that were to come up later, in more modern research on the
meaning of life. Like many of the philosophical discussions of the meaning of life that have developed only
decades later, including the two pieces by Haack cited above, James’s discussion notes examples in the real
world, relies on common intuitions, presents the pros and cons of various positions, and—notwithstand-
ing his vagueness on some issues—aims at clarity. His discussion anticipates work on topics that have been
treated in more detail and precision in recent and contemporary analytic research on the meaning of life.8

NOTES

1. From now on this text will be cited as WML followed by page numbers in the Burkhardt and Skrupskelis edition.
2. For a sharp literary portrayal of the experience see also Camus (1988 [1942]).
3. By “pains” James probably does not mean “suffering” but, rather the effort needed to cope with a difficulty.
4. James also mentions care here, but the term as he uses it here likely means worry rather than good-willed attention.
5. Interestingly, a central theme in Jack London’s highly successful The Call of the Wild (1990 [1903]) and The Sea-
Wolf (2011 [1904]), which were originally published 4 and 5 years, respectively, after this essay of James’s, is the
one discussed here. In The Call of the Wild, Buck, a dog who lives comfortably as the pet of a middle-class judge in
Santa Clara Valley, is stolen and eventually finds himself as a sled dog, suffering many hardships in the process,
learning the “law of the club,” and having to fight the lead dog to death. Eventually he escapes to the wilderness,
joins a pack of wolves, and thus answers “the call of the wild.” But his new life of hardship, pain, and danger is
represented as better for Buck than his previous comfortable life. The same theme is central to The Sea-Wolf, in
which the domesticated intellectual Humphrey van Weyden, whose ferry has sunk, is rescued by a seal-hunting
schooner where he is forced to work hard, cope with pain and brutality, toughen up, and become self-reliant. But
that, too, in the end, is described as all the better for van Weyden. His life, like Buck’s, is represented as having be-
come more significant and authentic.
6. For a similar claim from another angle see Landau (2017, 43–48).
7. For a similar criticism of Viktor Frankl’s view on this issue see Landau (2019).
8. I am grateful to Mark Migotti and Saul Smilansky for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

William James on the Meaningful Life 23

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REFERENCES
Camus, Albert. 1988 [1942]. The Stranger. Trans. Matthew Ward. New York: Vintage.
. 1991 [1942]. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Trans. Justin O’Brien. New York: Vintage.
Frankl, Viktor E. 1985. Man’s Search for Meaning. New York: Washington Square Press.
. 1988. The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy. New York: Meridian.
Haack, Susan. 2008. Worthwhile Lives. In: Putting Philosophy to Work. Amherst: Prometheus, pp. 217­–220.
. 2010. The Differences that Make a Difference: William James on the Importance of Individuals. European Journal of
Pragmatism and American Philosophy 2(1): 1–10.
James, William. 1979 [1896]. The Will To Believe: The Works of William James. Eds. F. H. Burkhardt and I. K. Skrupskelis.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
. 1983 [1899]. What Makes a Life Significant. In: Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s
Ideals: The Works of William James. Eds. F.H. Burkhardt and I. K. Skrupskelis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, pp. 150–167.
Landau, Iddo. 2017. Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World. New York: Oxford University Press.
. 2019. Viktor Frankl on All People’s Freedom to Find Their Lives Meaningful. Human Affairs 29: 379–386.
Lekan, Todd. 2016. The Marriage of Ideals and Strenuous Actions: Exploring William James’ Account of Significant Life.
Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 52(4): 576–597.
London, Jack. 1990 [1903]. The Call of the Wild. New York: Dover.
. 2011 [1904]. The Sea-Wolf. West Berlin, NJ: Townsend.
Singer, Irving. 1996. Meaning of Life, Volume 1: The Creation of Value. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Spinoza, Baruch. 1985 [1677]. Ethics, in The Collected Works of Spinoza. Ed. and trans. Edwin Curley. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, vol. 1: pp. 408–617.
Taylor, Charles.1992. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wielenberg, Eric. 2005. Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wolf, Susan. 1997. Happiness and Meaning: Two Aspects of the Good Life. Social Philosophy and Policy 14: 207–225.

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To Susan Haack, with gratitude and admiration.

Susan Haack on How
to Regain the Faith
[I]t is difficult to understand the uneasiness which
to do Philosophy inevitably pursues anyone who dedicates himself
to an intellectual profession. Despite so much sci-
ence, so true, so fertile and so central to our life, to
which so much human toil has been consecrated,
RUBÉN SAMPIERI CÁBAL the intellectual of today, if he is sincere, finds him-
self surrounded by confusion, disoriented, and inti-
Web: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/
Ruben_Sampieri_Cabal
mately discontent with himself.1

In my University I found various men interested

(or uninterested) in their subjects, but, I think, no
man with a view of literature as a whole, or with
any idea whatsoever of the relation of the part he
himself taught to any other part. [ ] Those profes-
sors who regarded their ‘subject’ as a drill manual
rose most rapidly to position of executive respon-
sibility (one case is now provost). Those professors
who had some natural aptitude for comprehend-
ing their authors and for communicating a general
sense of comfort in the presence of literary master-
work remained obscurely in their less exalted po-
sitions.2

1. THE INFLUENCE ENDURES

I became interested in philosophy after I was taught that

philosophical efforts were directed at fundamental ques-
tions about the nature of art and science, and that phi-
losophy was the best way to grasp the essence of these en-
deavours, to which I was dedicated at the time. Not that I
knew much about Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel or
whomever, but—I now count it not much more than a glim-
mering, not real knowledge—I had learned some interesting
and moving things: that Aristotle had written a majestic Po-
etics and Aratus a beautiful astronomical poem; that Des-
cartes had invented the analytical geometry and Leibniz the
calculus at the same time as Newton; that Newton had spo-
ken about some subtle magnetic spirit and Goethe had com-
posed a theory of colour contrary to that of Newton, and all
of these opera represented for me achievements of truth and
beauty.
For me, this was a sort of melting pot of literature, sci-
ence, and philosophy, and what was there of truth and beau-
ty in it, and in what proportion, was what I wanted to know.

Susan Haack on How to Regain the Faith to do Philosophy 25

 COSMOS + TAXIS

Like many young philosophy students, I was intrigued by what I’d later discover to be the correlated prob-
lems of truth in art and aesthetics in science. Marcel Proust´s time and constitution of experience, James
Joyce´s epiphanies, Ezra Pound´s imagist poems, Faulkner’s monologues and the problem of the stream of
consciousness counted for me as problems of truth and knowledge, as well as Descartes’ analytical geom-
etry, Newton’s ether, Faraday´s lines of forces and Maxwell’s electromagnetic field counted too, besides their
rational construction, as aesthetic insights, results of imagination, or simply as beautiful creations like Des-
cartes’ geometry.
It was precisely the consideration of theories as a kind of insightful but not entirely confirmed experi-
ence in which imagination, intuition, and even invention were on display that led me to became interested
in the philosophy and history of science. But as soon as I began my MA studies, I found in my courses that
history of science, philosophy of science, logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and even modern and classic
philosophy were disconnected from each other. And this was not even the biggest problem, which was that
each subject had its own specialized agenda that occluded the domains of the others, making intercon-
nected paths hard to find and requiring a lot of time and effort just to understand each particular agenda. I
found some solace in some works and ideas—of Alexandre Koyré, Irving B. Cohen, Peter Medawar; Mary
Hesse and Larry Laudan for example—which leave room for the relation between science and its history,
and even for imagination and creativity in the case of Medawar, but I lacked the ability to connect them to
a “relevant” present issue in the philosophy of science.
So, in 2012, as a recently graduated student from a Philosophy of Science programme, with a brand-
new PhD—if I´m honest, I was deeply confused, disoriented and intimately discontent with myself; I had
sadly abandoned all those uncategorizable unspecific philosophical inclinations. Paradoxically, the big
thing is that I didn’t know it yet—I would discover it gradually, after meeting Susan Haack. Her guid-
ance and teaching opened my eyes to what I´m going to say next; namely that I was terrifically fortunate
to meet Professor Haack at a time when my professional academic life was about to begin, in disorienta-
tion, and with blurred goals and confused expectations, and I was anxious about my own capacities: was I
skilled enough to meet the challenges that my discipline demanded of me? These daunting challenges were
mainly that of specialized publishing and research, and had—as far as I can see now if I’m sincere—nothing
to do with values, at least not with conscious values, those that you keep in mind in every step of the way,
as I would later understand, after reading “Out of Step: Academic Ethics in a Preposterous Environment”
(Haack 2013, 251-267).
Through Professor Haack’s living example, and without her saying a single word, I eventually found
the why, the reason for my malaise: though I had been trained to read, interpret, understand, this had been
done mainly through imitation, both of highly specialized scholars and classic authors, those who had con-
structed and were presently constructing the philosophy of science. Although our training did include the
reading of primary texts, the imitation I’m talking of was not supposed to be at first hand, but via interpre-
tations of interpretations of interpretations that came up to us in the form of ultra-specialized vicarious
messages that eventually seeded in me the honest and respectful although disoriented desire of “I want to
talk, to write and to act like them”—like a specialized scholar, I mean—making me perceive my first incli-
nations as illusory chimeras.
Well, now the career I was pursuing demanded that I become one of those scholars, an original, inno-
vative, creative, serious one; but I didn´t know how to do that other than enlisting myself in a specialized
group and follow their credo, their inner figures and their method, and this included thinking, acting and
behaving in certain ways. You simply cannot “not do it,” as I painfully learnt sometimes by own experience.
You could say I was quite naive or easily swayed so as not to resist this influence, you could object that
I was seeing the things too narrowly. Okay: perhaps I was impressionable, maybe, innocent, but the fact is
that I really was being faithful to what I considered to be “THE philosophical way” which implied a cer-
tain kind of conduct and manners, even though I didn’t know how to continue my philosophical develop-
ment or even what else to do with my recent work. Granted, there were and still are colleagues and teachers
whom I admired and still admire, but what now was expected from me, if I wished to make a living from
philosophy, was original and audacious work.

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There is certainly no one to blame for these professional limitations of mine; it wasn’t my teachers´
fault, or my institution’s, or my advisor’s—perhaps it was my fault, but most likely it was just the after-
math of the institutionalized philosophy atmosphere, where apparently the logic of education states that
you must as soon as possible join up with a scholarly faction where one of the first things you start doing
is respecting fallacious hierarchies, deferring to certain persons and showing admiration. I am not saying
that we must not respect to any institutional authorities, not admire and respect inspiring and honest pro-
fessors and even less I´m not inciting us to rise up against our mentors. But as I had the occasion to confess
to Professor Catherine Lutz—precisely at a congress about Culture and Affectivity to which I was invited by
one of these encouraging teachers—I have always thought that when you are a student and choose a tradi-
tion to follow you are choosing aesthetically or emotionally, not simply rationally, because you don´t have
enough theoretical background, knowledge and experience to see if your authors or tradition in fact have
the philosophical merits you´ll later be defending. This is a time when the student mostly needs to study the
history of philosophy patiently and carefully, to exercise abilities, capacities and virtues to understand the
discipline and its nature instead of pledging his work too early and becoming a paladin. This is a very subtle
dynamic, the existence of which is hard to prove and the nature of which not easy to grasp, but I strongly
believe that this common feeling exists between students and young professors and I appeal to this.
Of course there have always been students who maintain their independence and intellectual freedom
as well as professors and groups that encourage their students, but the fact is that, if you want to make a liv-
ing at this, your institutional environment encourages you to become as renowned a specialist as you can
in as short a period of time as you can, and pushes you to prove this with productions, results, and recogni-
tion. The most natural way to do this is to follow a group where the opportunities to publish, attend confer-
ences abroad, obtain scholarships and win a name flow, and all this usually requires joining a project where
some personal and intellectual commitments have to be made. I´m not saying that we students deliberately
and opportunistically choose the best platform to succeed in the task, I am just trying to show that this is
the steam that drives the engines of the machinery.
For Haack, the problem arises mainly from a distorted academic dynamic, which, as “Out of Step”
points out, gradually and systematically pushes students and professors in the direction of productivity,
research grants, publications, specialization, prestige and recognition, turning the need for values into the
convenience of abilities to achieve these sorts of results and shaping the original philosophical aims into a
mixture of economic-philosophical marketing.
“Out of Step,” the centre of my attention, is a vivid, intense, brave and yet passionate document full of
verve—whereby my intention here is not to do a provide a bad paraphrase or a poor imitation in my dull
English. I consider this piece a must-read for any philosophy student or professional—not a text to ex-
cerpt—so I strongly recommend reading it in full. In what follows, I just want to make clear how it soon be-
came a milestone in my academic life, and in doing this, I seek neither to justify my own mistakes and limi-
tations, nor blame others for what I was doing wrong; I’m just trying gratefully to acknowledge that it was
through Professor Haack that I began to recognize the superfluous and unnecessary conditions that make
the “academic virtues” go dimmer. In every step of the picture I´m about to draw she is revealed as the op-
posite sort of spirit, as a philosopher educating you in the virtues philosophy demands.

2. BAD NEWS FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD: J’ACCUSE!?

Certainly for a newbie graduate student, the philosophy he learnt through classic or contemporary-but-
fundamental works is in some way different from the institutional philosophy he is meant to carry out. It
seems to me that irrespective of whether such a one is a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, young
fellowship holder or on the tenure track, he is expected to do professional philosophy, which, institutionally
speaking, means (at least) publishing, doing research, speaking at conferences and lecturing classes, orga-
nizing specialized academic events, attending group sessions, seminars, supervising students, keeping in

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regular touch with the central figures in the field, and on top of this an ever-growing list of administrative
tasks: all this displayed as the original results of his own research.
This kind of “productivity” requires at least time, effort, and too much hard patient work, but, in an ac-
ademic environment where prestige is related to funded projects, money grants, selected scholarships, post-
doctoral fellowships—since it´s extremely difficult to get a permanent job right away—and where we, the
students or young professors, feel the constant pressure to publish and gain renown, these products soon
become the habitual fuel for instant recognition and a possible subsequent position. But the corresponding
values have scarcely been taught.
In Latin America perhaps everything is twice as hard, because we are not instilling our students the
confidence to write their own ideas, not training them from the very first in the “art” and praxis of philoso-
phy, as Tugendhat pointed out to be the case for Anglo-Saxons students (Hernández and Pinzón 2007, 91).
Instead here in Mexico there is the common fear that we are inculcating wrong attitudes that soon or later
conduct us towards the false idea than philosophy is more a posture than the outcome of real hard work.
This situation is nourished by at least two conditions: the first, mentioned above, is the need to be a part of
a specialized group, and the other is that each of these groups is trying to show itself to be the uppermost,
most celebrated, cutting-edge coterie of philosophers, and this is very often accompanied by a correspond-
ing training.
The structure within these groups is more a top-down hierarchical structure or a concentric circle
where power emanates from than a real educational net: the top or the centre being some specialized figure
or scholar (we love those who studied abroad—sometimes an administrator or an influential professor is
enough) authorized to represent an important philosopher, a tradition, or simply an agenda, the inner lines
being the closest colleagues (a cluster of some local but many international colleagues—we have some spe-
cial predilection for Europeans), the next line being PhD or graduate students (we prefer those who speak
another language and have already published something) and the outsiders line being undergraduates stu-
dents and other enthusiasts (those that we need to be “forged” as one of my early professors put it). The vi-
sion of philosophy presupposed here seems more a matter of assimilation than education, and its logic is
that of hierarchical instructions pouring down from the top or central figures into the students—in a time
when the main contribution of we the students is imitation. These imitations commonly include impolite
belittling of those below and other indications of “how to seem to know it when you don’t” (Pound 1954,15).
One usual discourtesy among the top or central figures is the response “over the next months I’ll be very
busy, but eventually I will…”—for whatever you have asked—or attitudes like “Stay away. I am a different
person when I´m with important colleagues.” There are honourable exceptions of course.
Soon enough, we students are looking for quickly gratifying kudos rather than serious and gradual,
distilled and slowly aged academic recognition. At least that was one of the general conclusions of the sym-
posium “Philosophy as a Profession in Mexico and Iberoamerica” at the 18th International Congress of Phi-
losophy held In San Cristóbal de las Casas in 2016 and organized by the Mexican Association of Philosophy.
I was elected the secretary of the symposium’s plenary session on the challenges of the social commitments
of philosophy. Among the concerns expressed was what kind of students we were forming and among the
conclusions reached was that we need to reassess and even readdress the values that we are (or we aren’t!)
inculcating. There was a general concern about fomenting a kind of arrogance in students, training them
in intellectual gymnastics or fencing, focused on defeating and knocking down the opponent, without any
engagement in the history of philosophy or the social world; whatever tradition they are interested in, in
principle we teach them to dismiss the others as not worth it—as, in my own experience, analytic philoso-
phers adhered to the motto “beyond here lies nothing.” This calls to mind Carnap´s and Quine´s supposed
personal attitudes to their discipline taken as a philosophical principle.3
In consequence, seminars or courses bringing two distinct traditions together are extremely rare, since
we are “the peak of the ultimate reasoning,” and notwithstanding that such interactions have occurred in
the history of philosophy. Even Carnap in the Aufbau turned to Husserl and Nietzsche for their investi-
gations about the constitution of experience and the problem of the self.4 Gadamer acknowledges Witt-

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genstein’s Philosophical Investigations as sharing his positive disposition towards the notion of “language
games” (Gadamer 1998. xxxvii, n.13). It´s difficult to find courses in which these interesting connections are
addressed or even mentioned, although they are signs of intellectual modesty and philosophical honesty.
Mary Hesse also has turned to Ricoeur and Gadamer in order to support her cognitive claims for metaphor,
partly from a hermeneutical perspective (Hesse 1998, 9, 11-14). La Métaphore Vive of Paul Ricoeur is itself
a philosophical investigation where philosophy of science and analytic and hermeneutic traditions coexist.
If not completely frozen, the free, reflective, critical philosophical spirit, when trapped within these
faddish, specialised groups, is somehow paralysed, fenced-in by barriers in a sort of high walled enclosure;
or it has no home at all, but passes from group to group and trend to trend in quick succession. As a Mas-
ters’ student, I was an enthusiast of science and technology studies, but simply couldn´t handle the enor-
mous number of options for a thesis topic: from Husserlian “Lebenswelt” to the social impacts of mobile
phone base-stations! Sometimes I wonder where those spectacular, massive congresses have gone, orga-
nized with grants and huge amounts of money in which it was hard to say if one was doing philosophy, soci-
ology, history, anthropology; developing an economical programme or a humanistic engineering or what-
ever? Trends and fashions pass quickly, but students under their influence remain the same for decades.
I have seen the theses of most of my teachers, and it has been brought to my attention that they were the
result of philosophical issues diametrically opposed to what they´re doing right now. This is not necessarily
wrong, since intellectual direction is a matter of free choice, but my teachers´ themes, I fear, were not par-
ticular cases of free choice in their young academic life. Instead, they were following an implicit academic
rule; for my teachers’ themes reflect religiously the interests of their teachers, just as we reflect our teachers’
latest interests—so, depending to whom they were following they have in common theses on their teachers’
contemporary enthusiasm: Marxism, Existentialism, Foucault, or Analytic Philosophy, or whatever. Natu-
rally, the problem here lies neither in Marxism, Existentialism, Foucault, Analytic Philosophy nor in the
Zeitgeist, the problem lies in a kind of intellectual imposition and innocent reception. As far as groups are
concerned, the problem is accentuated: what “matters” and what is “worth writing” is passed on to students
immediately, automatically, almost affectively, as I said before. It seems to me that this dynamics of teach-
ing and learning is more psychological or sociological than philosophical.
These fallacious hierarchies, of groups versus groups and somebodies versus nobodies, threaten the
student’s education far too early, eroding his freedom and creativity, and ability to exercise critical atti-
tudes. Students start by asserting themselves over others, sometimes by defending and promoting one tra-
dition over the others based on a figure of authority, some other times under the form of protected technical
language, defending the superiority of some language for its technicality and difficulty, and then transmit-
ting this to their respective students when they become professors.
One of the criticisms that recently struck me in a particularly acute way was that of Nancy Cartwright,
Roman Frigg, Mauricio Suárez and others at the London School of Economics against the semantic as well
as structuralist programmes in the philosophy of science. Their criticism, was straightforward, expressing
one of the basic concerns we philosophy of science students have when are being taught this conception.
They expressed philosophical reservations against the semantic-structuralist views of theories by noting
that structuralists “cannot account for [the fact] that models represent” (Frigg 2002, 2). In other words, they
have raised philosophical doubts about how the formal structures (set-theoretical models) can effectively
be related to the empirical phenomena they are supposed to stand for, since structures cannot represent.
The most important thing for my purpose here is that this is criticism that goes no further—the core of this
assessment is pure philosophical criticism that doesn´t need the highly specialized technicism of set-theo-
retical semi formalism structuralists love to use. But it is a philosophical objection we the students would
be afraid to advance, if I can speak on behalf those schoolmates and colleagues with whom I´ve been ac-
quainted.
I wonder how many graduate dissertations or professional papers deal with this sort of intuitive fertile
criticism. I suspect not many here in Mexico, at least not my own. The fact is that this philosophical oppo-

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sition under authoritative voices made the structuralists burst into a flood of defensive arguments (Suárez
and Cartwright 2008, 62-63).
Why are we so afraid? So reluctant to learn from these philosophical examples? I think that´s because
hyper-specialization one way or another tells you that “you have to learn either my technical language or
tools and methods before you can criticize me.” As far as I can tell from my own experience here in Mexico,
this happens among Husserlians, metaphysicians, Heideggerians, and yes structuralists. It seems that the
object or the problem—be it theories, knowledge or being—is captured and you have no longer access to it,
unless you learn and master the language they speak and use and master the tools they use. The philosophi-
cal object is now a product of their own views and not a general problem. These languages, methods, and
tools usually take many years of training to understand, undergone at a time you are more a bonded dis-
ciple than a free, convinced member of the profession. I remember in passing, I was once invited to a book
presentation about one of the present turns in the philosophy of science; it surprised me that the author was
a well-known member of a group having an entirely different conception about theories to that he was de-
fending in his book. I asked him if he was abandoned his former allegiance and he replied: “sort of,” and
continued, “after so many years it took me to learn the language, I simply cannot abandon the programme.”
I believe specialization threatens first intellectual freedom, embracing very soon personal and intellec-
tual engagements that instead of reinforcing the values that underpin philosophical reflection, undermine
creativity and induces us to stray from our personal abilities and interests. How many of our theses and pa-
pers are just thickening the bulk of scholarly bibliographies without adding anything original?—unless we
think original is to apply the group specialized views or treatment to a “new” phenomenon, i.e. a phenom-
enon to which that specialized treatment hasn´t been applied yet.
The LSE’s philosophers of science objections that made some structuralists uncomfortable embrace one
of the basic concerns many students have in the introductory structuralism courses. Why don´t they crys-
tallize into PhD theses or papers for example? They´re not a matter of common sense naturally, but usually,
an authoritative voice is needed to point out deficiencies, limitations and excesses of an established pro-
gramme. These hyper-specialized programmes require many years of complex training in which our criti-
cal capacities increasingly diminish, and their basic philosophical assumptions are eclipsed for formulas
and jargon.
This all along made me think of Hume’s warnings against abstruse philosophy in his first inquiry
(Hume 1748/1996, 3-16)—one of the most basic limitations of the semantic-structuralist view was in front
of us all the time and we couldn´t notice it because we were thoroughly imbued with the false idea that we
must be an utmost logician-mathematician to find philosophical deficiencies into the programme. To be
fair, on the other side of course is always the pernicious dilettantism—In my University some of our philo-
sophical luminaries convey the best of Hellenic philosophy: like Socrates, they write nothing, but spend
their time dialoguing like Plato, and walking through the University corridors like Aristotle.
As Susan Haack would happily accept, when she welcomes the label of “Neologistic Typographical” for
her style of philosophy and adopts it “as an accurate self-description” (Haack 1993, preface x), there’s noth-
ing wrong with technical languages per se! Problems arise when technical details overshadow everything
else. In “The Fragmentation of Philosophy: The Road to Reintegration” (Haack 2016, 3-32),5 Haack argues
that the best and most ground-breaking work has come, not from hyper-specialized work on “X’s and Y’s
interpretation of Z’s W,” but as a result of hard and serious reflection about philosophical problems and
their interconnections, from engagement with the philosophical past, and from attention to the real world.
Illustrated with the examples of Plato, Peirce, James, and Dewey among many others and with John Locke’s
magnificent metaphor urging philosophers to venture into the “great ocean of knowledge,” the advice of
“The Fragmentation of Philosophy” is that our philosophical spirit should be inspired by the example of
these great thinkers instead of by cliques, fads, and fashions.
The linguistic excesses of groups whose slogans impose a heavy emotional and psychological burden
also function, it seems to me, as affective conditions that deactivate the critical reflection of students from
the very beginning. What happens is that certain phrases, used to identify the colossal objectives or the sup-

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posed achievements of certain schools—“strict science,” “apodictic principles,” “ultimate foundations” in

the case of phenomenology, or “first philosophy,” “first principles,” “metascientific,” just to mention a few
salient examples—are in effect abused, turned into weapons. To say for example that anything that is not
metaphysical is “second philosophy” is a strong emotional invitation to think that what one does is the most
important and the most difficult thing, that one dwells in the realms of being and knowing.
All this reminds me of an appearance of George Bernard Shaw on film, where he satirically denounc-
es—acting himself, staring into space, looking nowhere with a hint of sadness of gravity—that seriousness,
solemnity and genius can always be acted and that it happens that sometimes the knowledge is being acted.6
Supposedly, he also advised to be aware that false knowledge is worse than ignorance.

3. BAD NEWS FROM MY OWN TRENCH. HAACK’S CALL FOR REAPPRAISAL

Of course, many of us are tempted to believe that we are capable at any time of turning to the Ionians, Ar-
istotle, St. Augustine and whoever, with enough intellectual ease, but I am here referring to that inability
genuinely to connect to tradition through a problem—as Peirce does regarding the problem of the univer-
sals and connecting it to his scientific realism, or as Carnap respect to the constitution of experience—and
not considering tradition just as a scholarly preamble to our school. I once thought, I confess it with blush
now, that St. Thomas Aquinas would have nothing interesting to say about metaphor—it had to be a col-
league who brought me out of my mistake. Now I find the little relevance of St. Thomas in cognitive stud-
ies on metaphorical thinking surprising. One reads the great philosophers of all time, but presumptuously
thinking that truth is not in the past.
Now I must say that all I have just related found parallels in my own development, and that my first en-
counter with Susan Haack revealed to me what an exemplary echo I was. That first encounter with Profes-
sor Haack was prompted by my sending her my book Science and Metaphor with a request for her opinion
on Black’s and Hesse’s approaches to metaphor. I had formed the belief that metaphor announces new en-
tities, possible worlds that could crystallize within the ontology of theories, and Haack simply replied, if I
remember correctly, that hers was “a pragmatic approach not a semantic one.” As a “budding” scholar I in
subsequent emails tried unsuccessfully to insist that she ought to engage with Hesse and Black, since they
were seminal after all! Haack did, of course, know the traditional tests about metaphor and its philosophi-
cal significance, but what I wasn’t able fully to grasp was that she was defending her own view about the
role, function, scope and force of metaphor, not engaging in, or untangling, specialized problems—it took
me some time to understand this philosophical shift. And yes, the scholar starter pack usually includes this
kind of naive arrogance.
As for my work, there was another thing I ignored at the time. Not only was my student work only
tenuously connected with the main branches of philosophy—epistemology, ontology, semantics—it didn’t
seriously consider other traditions in the history of philosophy, and in particular pragmatism. My efforts
were connected only to current views of views in metaphor, these were all I was concerned with. I could un-
derstand the principal authors and their interpreters correctly; I could argue and I could quote and make
reference to a massive list of authors, views, conceptions, and concepts, just like the scholars I was taught to
quote and to admire—and of course most of them do deserve admiration—but what I am pointing to here
is that we scarcely are taught about the values, the efforts, the virtues and hard work it takes to be like them,
and, most importantly, about the real purpose of original philosophical research. For me it was only the un-
conscious need to show that I could write in a sound and eloquently manner, hence only few things in my
research were of real value.
I don’t want to be misunderstood, I had a genuine concern about what metaphor was and what its na-
ture and powers in many respects: discovery, creativity, theoretical explanation and the construal of sci-
entific concepts. I did quote Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, Richards, Black, Hesse, Davidson, Quine, Rorty,
Haack; and I discussed Black’s semantic interaction view on metaphor and cognitive perspectives. But I had
been seeing only a small part of what these intellectual telescopes were showing me; I saw it all as a homog-

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enous mass, and took everybody to be in the business of disclosing the essence of metaphor, I hadn’t see the
metaphor problem yet. In other words: my resources were correctly interpreted, but my research aim was
wrongly oriented. My need to become an expert, to discover only original stuff was taking its first victim:
my own work. And I still was looking for a group to join.
Surprisingly, Professor Haack continued our email conversation for almost a month, despite the fact
that I was probably talking nonsense most of the time. In the meantime, and with laconic warnings, she
saved me from wrong conceptions on metaphor, theories, concepts, propositions, ontology, epistemology,
etc., etc. This was the very first lesson I got from Haack: she teaches much by saying little. Later I would
learn that she encourages without making concessions, and, without flattering, but recognizing your ca-
pacities, pushes you to improve. Haack’s conduct towards you is the best example of her ethical behaviour.
She educates in philosophy in a vivid passionate way, inculcating in you at the time the values to do the job.
Why was I so disoriented? What was I missing? Reading of “Out of Step” alerted me to my aforesaid
situation and showed me that it was indeed an extended situation. Immediately, I could see the problem in
a broader and clearer way, and I saw myself as a part of it—first as a former student, later as a Faculty pro-
fessor.
In “Out of Step” Haack declares that the present academic environment mostly generated by perverse
incentives (publish—but quickly! or perish! Don’t think twice—produce!) is eroding the very virtues that
serious academic life demands, which she lists as: industry, patience, judgement, integrity, focus, realism,
impartiality, independence, consideration, and courage. But Haack is inspirational to young professors, en-
couraging us to reinforce these virtues, so contrary to this “preposterous” environment in which self-pro-
motion, prestige, money grants, production targets, fads, cliques, fashions, pseudo-technique language of
highly specialization fuel the engines of “fast philosophy” and fast recognition and are creating a state of
confusion. And the core of her own work is a call for the return of a sense of vocation, and the values and
character necessary for any patient, solid, hard work.
No need to say that most likely I wouldn’t have been able to see these problems by myself—yet, besides
them, I pointed out and added above what I consider to be the specific challenge to Mexican philosophical
institutions: to fight against these fallacious hierarchies, usually the companion of specialized philosophy
groups, that in the form of technical language, baroque problems, principles of authority and even pow-
er figures, dim critical minds and diminish philosophical scope, instead of allowing students’ creativity
and self-confidence to unfold through common philosophical virtues, not through science-like specialized
training.
You could still call all this an outrageous embittered j’accuse, but this is a call to accentuate the positive,
I would call it Haack’s cri de coeur in defence of serious philosophy, a plea for a return to basic values best
suited to bring us peace of mind and many other advantages, to do our jobs better and to outdo our weaker
selves. And I think this includes an appreciation of your own errors and mistakes. But is this possible in a
scenario where they teach you the worst you can do is to be wrong?
From the very moment I met Susan Haack, I felt pushed, and pushed towards both an effort to clarify
what I was saying and a subsequent responsibility of make its consequences mine. Last September I asked
her to please correct the abstract of a paper of mine about metaphor in science. In my email I explained that
I believed that the cognitive power of metaphors lies in their being able to generate new entities, and allow
a certain access to them. She simply replied—“Still don´t know how anything metaphorical or verbal can
CREATE AN ENTITY!” Once again, I was struck by this sudden inquisitor light that highlighted my pre-
suppositions. I agreed, words cannot create physical things, maybe what I was trying to say was something
different, that metaphors show us possible ways to unknown entities, explanations, etc.
Yes one of the most valued things I have learned from Professor Haack is that, if we’re serious about
what we’re doing, everything you say or write has consequences, and they go beyond our little group of col-
leagues’ approval or disapproval; every idea, concept, etc. has its proper meaning that has much to do with
its proper place in the history of philosophy and the development of thinking and less with groups, fads or
fashions. Philosophy is not in the fast lane of science trying to accelerate ever faster.

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All that I said supposed commitments and had immediate implications and effects on all my discourse
and on that whole universe called philosophy, as she continuously showed me in her relevant responses. My
first striking impression? “Susan Haack takes seriously every single word that I, a recently graduated phi-
losophy student, writes or says!” My first reaction? Respect and admiration for that modesty and intellec-
tual generosity. Susan Haack taking her time to read, reply, ask, argue, and only after that correct my ques-
tions and my ideas, and yet in a gentle but serious and rigorous manner? That was a thing I wasn’t prepared
for! My first desire? to imitate that way of working first and, perhaps later!—still waiting though—that way
of thinking. I was making mine the first lesson in philosophy: imitate patient, honest and responsible work,
consider the real implications of ideas, perspectives, views, and avoid the blurred vision that comes with the
rush for writing and the need to adopt labels. Along with that, respect for others’ work, consideration for
their efforts, industry, and a whole lot of other things.
I had had this idea of positive imitation for a long time, I learnt it from Pound’s credo that the young
writer, like the young painter, must begin imitating the masterpieces—let’s say his major influences, those
he admires the most: “As for ‘adaptations’; one finds that all the old masters of painting recommend to their
pupils that they begin copying masterwork, and proceed to their own composition” (Pound 1954, 10) and
from E. C. Riley theory on “Don Quixote” as well: “There is nothing notably unusual in his seeking to imi-
tate some exemplary hero in life, or, like a courtier, to emulate the best in previous models. But what is note-
worthy is that he is also behaving like an artist” (Riley 1996, 64), which in philosophy should mean to ex-
ercise freedom, creativity, criticism within responsibility, judgement and prudence. But it seems to me that
unlike poetry and painting, we young philosophers here in Latin America keep imitating techniques and
manners without never sail by ourselves to conquer our theme. Look, the most modest of our writers have
been translated into many languages, the most conspicuous of our philosophers into none.

4. A GRATEFUL TESTIMONIAL

I want to dedicate these last words to Susan Haack’s honesty and integrity by just saying one thing. Con-
stantly, continuously, what I saw in living examples first, I read it in her texts later and vice versa. Several
years ago, I wrote to tell her that I had the idea of writing a paper showing that it was Edgar Allan Poe who
first proposed a third way of inference that later Peirce would call it abduction. I hadn´t gathered up enough
courage and this was crucial for me—she not only sent me material urging me to continue, she encouraged
me by saying “you have something very interesting in mind” and she even corrected my first inefficient
drafts transforming them in the more decent text it is now (Sampieri Cábal 2017).
Along with her honesty, integrity and serious philosophy, even there´s enough room for humour—
should I say British humour?: when I confessed her I learned by myself my poor English by mostly listening
blues, she replied: “—oh, that´s very sad!”. And once we were travelling from Veracruz to Xalapa city some-
thing caught her attention: it was this highways side sign that here in Mexico warns you to “obey the sig-
nals!”, with her characteristically humour—now with epistemological emphasis—she suddenly asked what
was the difference between this and the other signs in case you are not obeying them!? Why should you
obey this one?
This is a grateful testimonial to how Susan Haack has transformed my philosophical world and my
conception about what was right and wrong in doing philosophy. I may have not succeeded yet, but my in-
tention here was this: to say that Haack is a living example of rectitude, integrity, honesty, seriousness, and
yet humour. Do I really need to say that? What I still cannot thank enough is that she considers me her stu-
dent, a real and encouraging honour I wish to deserve.*

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NOTES

1. Zubiri 1981, 7.
2. Pound 1954, 15-16.
3. Professor Irving Bernard Cohen’s testimony says that in two remarkable encounters he could observe the null dis-
position they both had to the history of science and history of philosophy: Carnap by replying to the Prof. Cohen´s
invitation to speak to a graduate-student history of science club that “[h]e had nothing whatever to say, […] about
the study of the history of scientific ideas that could possibly be of interest to historians!” and Quine by supporting
the attributed judgement that “[t]here are two reasons why a person is attracted to philosophy: one is because he is
interested in philosophy—and the other is because he is interested in the history of philosophy” and by remarking
that “he was not at all drawn to ideas solely because they were expressed by even the greatest of men; he was only
concerned with statements that are true” (Cohen 1977, 310).
4. Carnap 1928: §§ 3, 64, 65, 124, 164, for Husserl; §§ 65, 67, 163 for Nietzsche.
5. I’m using here an author´s copy though.
6. I could only find two links that approximate George Bernard Shaw’s visit to America that I first saw. The two links
below come closest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEESoO7cN_g (minute 2:00) and https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=c60b8gORtTc (minute 18:43).
* I wish to thank Mark Migotti for his helpful comments on a previous draft and for his patience and kind help to
improve my English version.

REFERENCES
Carnap, Rudolf. 1928. Der Logische Aufbau der Welt. Hamburg: Felix Meiner. (Spanish edition: México, UNAM, 1988.
Translated into Spanish by Laura Mues de Schrenk).
Cohen, Irving B. 1977. History and the Philosopher of Science. In: Frederick Suppe (ed.), The Structure of Scientific Theories.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
de Armas, Alfred. (ed.) 2004, ed.). Writing for the Eyes in the Spanish Golden Age. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.
Eliot, T. S. 1954. Literary Essays of Ezra Pound. London: Faber and Faber.
Frigg, Roman. 2002. Models and Representation: Why Structures Are Not Enough. Measurement in Physics and Economics
Discussion Papers. Peter Dietsch (2002 ed.). London: LSE. Retrieved from http://www.romanfrigg.org/writings/
Models_and_Representation.pdf
Gadamer, Hans Georg. 1960. Truth and Method. New York: Bloomsbury, 1998.
Haack, Susan. 1993. Evidence and Inquiry. Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology. Cambridge: Blackwell.
. 2016. The Fragmentation of Philosophy. The Road to Reintegration. Author’s text. In: Julia F. Göhner and Eva-
Maria Jung. Susan Haack: Reintegrating Philosophy. Cham: Springer.
. 2013. Out of Step: Academic Ethics in a Preposterous Environment. In: Putting Philosophy to Work: Inquiry and
Its Place in Culture—Essays on Science, Religion, Law, Literature, and Life. New York: Prometheus Books.
Hernández, Catalina and Pinzón, Anderson (2007): “Entrevista a Tugendhat,” Saga: Revista de Estudiantes de Filosofía Vol.
8, N. 15: 91-95.
Hesse, Mary.1988. The Cognitive Claims of Metaphor. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 2 N. 1:1-16.
Hume, David. 1748/1996. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. In: The Philosophical Works of David Hume vol. 4.
London: Thoemmes Continuum.
Pound, Ezra. 1954. The Art of Poetry. In: T. S. Eliot (ed.) Literary Essays of Ezra Pound. London: Faber and Faber, pp. 15-16.
Riley, E. C. 1996. Cervantes’ Theory of Novel (Documentación Cervantina Series, 13), Juan de la Cuesta-Hispanic
Monographs; cited in Christopher B. Weimer, The Quixotic Art [63-84]. In: Frederick Alfred de Armas (ed.), Writing
for the Eyes in the Spanish Golden Age. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2004.
Sampieri Cábal, Rubén. 2017. Edgar Allan Poe y los orígenes de la abducción. In: Ana Rosa Pérez Ransanz and Ana Luisa
Ponce Miotti (eds.), Creatividad e Innovación en Ciencia y Tecnología, México: UNAM, pp. 223-237.
Suárez, Mauricio and Cartwright, Nancy. 2008. Theories: Tools versus Models. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern
Physics 39:62-81.
Suppe, Frederick (ed.). 1977. The Structure of Scientific Theories. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Zubiri, Xavier. 1944/1981. Our Intellectual Situation. In: Nature, History, God. Trans. Thomas B. Fauler. Washington:
University Press of America.

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Reflections on PREFACE

Truth in Law I have been a fan of Prof. Susan Haack’s work for a very
long time.1 I have especially learned a great deal from her
clarification and defense of the pragmatist tradition.2 And
I have long aspired to emulate the approach to philosophy
BRIAN H. BIX (and to life) she has perfected: “passionate moderation,”3 ex-
emplified in relation to theoretical topics by a rejection of
Web:
ungrounded extreme positions and false dichotomies.4 Ad-
https://www.law.umn.edu/profiles/brian-bix
ditionally, of course, she has been a central figure in many
fields, some far away from my limited areas of expertise:
E.g., epistemology, the nature of logic, evidence and proof
in science and law, and the use of scientific evidence in the
courts. In 2017, I had the good fortune to be part of the same
conference with Prof. Haack, commenting on Brian Tama-
naha’s most recent book on socio-legal theory.5 It is great to
have this opportunity to be part of a Festschrift in her honor.

INTRODUCTION

Throughout her academic career, Susan Haack has been one

of the most important scholars on how best to understand
claims of truth within and about science, philosophy, and
law. She has been the voice of both sophistication and good
sense. (In academia these days, those two virtues are only
rarely combined—the scholars who purport to be sophisti-
cated are too often peddling post-modern, post-structural-
ist, post-truth views, views which Prof. Haack has shown to
be thoroughly untenable: as often as not, self-contradictory,
and, overall, not able to withstand direct scrutiny.) Her work
has consistently been the careful and important response to
extreme claims and misunderstandings of all kind.
I support and applaud Prof. Haack’s work, and, in this
article, I will elaborate and clarify, and perhaps amend
slightly, her analysis in one small sub-topic within her works
on truth: the difficult question of truth within and about law.
In what follows, Part I introduces some of the complications
of speaking about truth in and about law. Part II takes up
and elaborates Prof. Haack’s observation regarding the way
that legal truth is—and is not—relative. Part III elaborates
and clarifies a small but important point in Prof. Haack’s
discussion of truth in law, relating to a problem of gaps in
the law. Part IV discusses problems raised for legal truth by
official error and fiat; and is followed by a brief Conclusion.

Reflections on Truth in Law 35

 COSMOS + TAXIS

I. LEGAL TRUTH—INITIAL COMPLEXITIES

When one speaks about legal truth, one could be referring to one of a number of different things. To be
more precise, one can make true (or false) propositions of very different kinds and at quite different levels of
generality or abstraction, all having some connection to law. There are specific propositions regarding indi-
viduals’ legal rights and duties at a given time (e.g., “Valerie and I have a valid contract law under American
federal and state law6 for the purchase and sale of a 2012 Volvo”). There are “doctrinal” (legal science) prop-
ositions about a particular legal system at a particular time (e.g., “consideration is required for a valid con-
tract under Minnesota law”). At a higher level of generality, one can make claims about particular legal sys-
tems as a whole (e.g., “the Law and England and Wales gives greater priority to form relative to substance,
especially compared to the law of many Continental European countries” or “the American legal system
in the early 21st century remains pervasively sexist and racist”). At a higher level of generality or abstrac-
tion, one can also make claims about law in general7 (e.g., “all legal systems make a ‘claim to correctness’”8).
Though all of the above propositions are within or about the law, they differ very much in type, with some
claims more internal to the (legal) discourse, and others more in line with other types of discourse, e.g., so-
ciology.
What types of things make these different categories of propositions true or false varies—sometimes
significantly—from one to the next. In the present article, I will be focusing primarily on the truth status
and truth-making grounds of relatively specific propositions within or relating to law: e.g., “X currently has
a legal duty [under Minnesota state law] to pay Y ten dollars” and “capital punishment is an acceptable form
of legal punishment under American federal constitutional law in 2020.” Questions regarding other levels
or types of legal truth—e.g., whether theories of (the nature of) law or of particular doctrinal areas can be
said to be true9—are of significant interest, but must be left to another time and place.
One additional complication should be noted. Adjudication often involves what appear to be proposi-
tions of a non-legal nature: factual or moral claims. In a trial, a judge or a jury may be required to make
“findings” regarding what happened in some matter relevant to civil or criminal liability: How fast was A
going?, Did B shoot C?, Were the goods delivered by the deadline?, and so on. These are findings that ap-
pear to be statements about facts in the world. Additionally, the judge or jury may make findings that are
“mixed questions of law and fact”: Was A negligent? Did B use “best efforts” in distributing C’s product?,
Did D act “recklessly”? There are other contexts still where courts are required to make what appear to be
purely moral judgments: Does the statute give different groups “equal protection of the laws”? Was A given
“due process”? And so on.
Prof. Haack resolves—or, perhaps “dissolves”—the complication apparently raised by court findings
of seemingly factual truth by noting that “the task of the ‘fact-finder’ is not to discover whether the cru-
cial factual claims are true, but to give a verdict as to whether or not they have been established by the evi-
dence presented (to whatever degree of proof is required, and under whatever procedural rules apply).”10
One might be tempted to put the same point slightly differently. Under that alternative characterization, the
court is making a claim about the world, about what really happened, but it is a modified claim: “Given the
evidence the court was allowed to consider, and the burdens of proof and standards of evidence imposed by
the legal system, this is what we think happened.” However, in the end, I do not think that this second, al-
ternative characterization is satisfactory, for it does not ultimately make sense to say that one is describing
the world while simultaneously admitting that certain otherwise relevant information has been excluded
and certain (legally imposed) presumptions and burdens have been inserted.
One might think that a similar re-characterization (that a proposition is not about the world but about
the meeting of legally imposed burdens) might work for the moral-sounding claims embedded in some le-
gal judgments; however, the question here is more complicated. Sometimes, courts adjudicating what pro-
cess is due or which punishments are “cruel and unusual,”11 etc., state that they are merely applying the
standard as it has been explicated in relevant precedent—equality for the purpose of the 14th Amendment,
as interpreted, rather than “equality,” full stop. At other times, though, the arguments offered by judges for

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their conclusions make it clear that the court is making a claim about “equality” or “cruelty” or “due pro-
cess” full stop (or at least full stop, subject to relevant precedent—if a higher court had decided that the
death penalty is not per se “cruel and unusual,” then it is not open for a lower court to say otherwise, though
it might be open to the lower court to conclude that the death penalty is “cruel and unusual” if applied to a
minor or to someone with significant mental disabilities12). Whether, in cases interpreting moral-sounding
terms of the United States Constitution, judges should apply their best understanding of the moral value
in question, the country’s conventional understanding of that moral value, the moral views of those who
drafted or ratified the provision, or some other standard, is far beyond the scope of the present work.

II. HAACK ON TRUTH (AND LAW)

Prof. Haack has properly insisted that “true” does not change its meaning across different areas of study or
areas of discourse: “whatever the subject-matter of a proposition, what it means to say that it is true is the
same.”13 This is a subtle but important point. Some people might wonder how “truth” could be the same, if
the criteria of “truth” vary. If in one area of discourse, truth is grounded on empirical investigation, while
in another area truth is a matter of agreement among an elite, it would at first seem like “truth” in those
two areas must be very different things. If quite different sorts of facts ground truth, it might seem like what
they ground could have no more than a family resemblance.
However, as Prof. Haack properly insists, it is not “truth” that changes from one context to another, but
only the means by which truth is shown. As she states, “what distinguishes logical from historical truth …
is just what distinguishes logic from history: namely, what the propositions are about—and so, what makes
them true.”14 This is correct also in regards with law: it is not that we mean anything different by “true”
when speaking either within or about legal discourse, but the grounds of assertion are, or can be, distinc-
tive.
As Prof. Haack points out, legal truth is, in one important sense, relative to time and place, and relative
to a particular legal system.15 What was allowed by American law in 1860 may be legally prohibited under
American law in 2020. Of course, this does not make truth in law “relativist” in the philosophical sense,
where relativism is an alternative to objective moral truth.16 The sort of relativism at work here is not signifi-
cantly different from statements like “I am in my office” (which is true this morning, while writing this, but
will not be true tomorrow afternoon) and “it is below freezing outside” (which is true in some locations on
some dates, but false for other locations and other dates). What counts as a true statement of American law
changes over time, because the state and federal legislatures (and some other legal officials) have the power
to add to the law, as well as, expressly or implicitly, to revoke or alter what had earlier been the law, courts
have the power to invalidate statutes on constitutional grounds and executive and agency actions for ex-
ceeding delegated powers, federal law can override judicial common law rulings and agency actions, federal
laws can preempt state laws, etc. What is true in law changes all the time through the intentional actions
of officials delegated the power to do just that: change the law in a particular legal system. However, as dis-
cussed, this does not raise any significant philosophical issues.

III. GAPS, PREDICTION, AND REASONING

At one point, Prof. Haack states the following regarding judicial interpretation and legal truth:

To say … that legal truths are in part constructed by judicial interpretations is not to say, simplic-
iter, that legal truths are made, and not, like natural-scientific truths, discovered. … The point is
… that unlike natural-scientific truths, legal truths become true only when some person or body
made them so; but of course, once they have been made true, that they are true is something to be
discovered.17

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 COSMOS + TAXIS

In speaking of “some person of body” making legal truths, it is clear from context that Prof. Haack here
means a judicial decision.18
The implications of this comment is that where a particular issue is not covered by the clear language of
a statute (or other authoritative legal text) or a court decision applying that legal text, then there is no legally
true propositions regarding that issue, and this will continue until a judge or other officer makes an official
pronouncement as part of a court or agency decision. However, this understanding, at least if read narrow-
ly, is in tension with our normal practice within the American legal system, and also the other legal systems
with which I am aware. It is conventional to argue that legal truth applies to a wider range of disputes than
those on which there is some direct authoritative pronouncement. It is both common and perfectly sensible
to say: “The courts have not given a decision directly on point, but it is clear that activity X is [not] allowed
under the statute.” Lawyers and legal scholars use standard tools of legal interpretation and doctrinal anal-
ysis to fill in some of the “gaps” not expressly covered by the clear language of statute or court decision. This
is what we take three years learning in law school (and, for some of us, many years trying to teach in law
school). And this is what lawyers are (highly) paid by clients to do: to state whether a certain action is legal
or illegal, where the answer is not immediately obvious under the relevant legal texts.
Consider the alternative: if ever a factual situation varied in a small way from a binding precedent (in
a Common Law country) or if the application of a statute to facts involving any sort of judgment, then one
would be forced to say that there was no law. (Hans Kelsen, at one point, seemed to be making just such
a claim: that each act of law application, however apparently straightforward, was also an act of law cre-
ation.19) This seems untenable, or at least insufficiently grounded either in our practices or in our normal
understanding of practical reasoning.
Of course, there are well-known dangers at the other extreme, in being too loose in equating “what the
law is” with “what conclusions might be argued from the premises of authoritative texts.” There are ongo-
ing disputes regarding how far the process of extrapolation can go and still be considered a declaration of
existing law (rather than the creation of new law). Ronald Dworkin famously argued that there was a right
answer to all, or nearly all, legal disputes, asserting there were sufficient legal materials (taking into account
legal rules, legal principles, and other legal standards) from which to construct possible theories of what the
law requires in each case, with the right answer being the theory which best combined fit and moral value.20
I do not mean to be sidetracked here into the extensive debate about Dworkin and his right-answer thesis.21
Suffice it to say for present purposes that there is ample room for a middle position, believing that there are
right answers to legal disputes in many situations where the statutory language and court decisions have
not yet given a clear response, without necessarily believing that this is the case for all (or nearly all) such
situations. In other words, one can still believe that there are right answers for most legal disputes, but for
a significant number of legal questions (in this, or any other, legal system) there may be no right answer, no
legal truth.
Let us return for a moment to the possible skeptical view, that there is no truth of the matter regard-
ing a legal dispute unless there is clear language in a statute or prior court decision directly on point. The
argument would be that law depends on social sources,22 and where no social source—no statutory text, ju-
dicial decision, or agency declaration—can be found, then there is no law (yet). As already noted, it is part
of our current practices (in the American legal system and in many other legal systems) to speak as if there
is a truth of the matter, at least some of the time, even prior to a court decision expressly on the topic. (As
Dworkin points out, if one goes by the rhetoric used by advocates and judges in discussing legal disputes,
the parties seem always to imply that there is an existing legal answer available to be found, even if reason-
able lawyers and judges might disagree on what that answer is23). The question still remains: how are we to
understand a truth claim here?
There are, broadly, two different directions one could take in filling in the gaps in the legal materials.
One approach would be an argument about objective right answers using the doctrinal reasoning and other
acceptable forms of reasoning within the legal system in question. The second approach would be a predic-
tion of how the courts will resolve the matter, even if that prediction varies from what one considers the

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objectively best answer based on the legal materials and acceptable forms of legal inference. Obviously, the
two approaches should converge for most cases (we predict that courts will reach the decision that is best
under current rules and standards of legal reasoning), but might diverge in cases involving high-profile po-
litical or moral issues, where judges might be more guided by outcomes than by what doctrinal reasoning
would require.24
As Prof. Haack points out, the prediction approach is associated with Oliver Wendell Holmes25 and lat-
er with the American legal realists26 (like Prof. Haack, I do not make the mistake of believing that Holmes’
talk of predicting court action was meant as a general or conceptual theory of law27). The prediction ap-
proach and purely doctrinal approach are in obvious tension,28 and this is not the occasion to attempt to
choose between them.
One should note that the claim that there might be a right answer to an open interpretive question
within a legal system is entirely consistent with Prof. Haack’s interesting and important point that the law
in general, and legal texts (including constitutional provisions) in particular, can change and grow in mean-
ing over time.29 Just as the fluidity of meaning of language over time does not foreclose the possibility that
a term may have a clear meaning at a particular time, so the fluidity of legal meanings over time is consis-
tent with there being a right answer to a legal question at a certain moment. At the same time, the possibil-
ity of (e.g.) a “living constitution”30 (Canadian legal scholars speak of a “living tree constitution”31), or other
changing legal meanings, does open the possibility that any given moment might be a moment of transition,
where the old meaning is starting to give way to the new. As standards change regarding, for example, what
is meant by “freedom of speech,” “freedom of religion,” “privacy,” or “cruel and unusual punishment”32—
perhaps in response to changing technology or changing social practices, or perhaps reflecting changing
social norms—then at the period when the change is under way but not yet complete, there may be uncer-
tainty as to the application of the legal standard.
As Connie Rosati points out, in trying to work out the intricacies of legal truth (and its objectivity), one
might choose between two standard philosophical analytical moves, which parallel the idea about respons-
es to legal gaps mentioned earlier.33 First, one might argue—broadly in line with a prediction approach—
that law is simply what a majority of judges say it is; second, one might argue that the law is what an judge
in an ideal epistemic situation would decide (basically a sophisticated restatement of the doctrinal argu-
ment approach).34 Each approach has distinct advantages and disadvantages. If law is just what a majority of
judges (on the highest court) says that it is, it is hard to make sense of judicial dissenting opinions or courts
reversing themselves in later cases (on such occasions, the courts do not say that they are simply “making
new law”; they say that the original decision was “mistaken”).35 However, if the law is what a judge would
decide under ideal conditions, then one must be able to articulate what “ideal conditions” might be, as this
has been shown to be surprisingly difficult.36

IV. ERROR AND FIAT

However we respond to the problem of “gaps” (where a legal official has not spoken but one can make
claims based on past decisions, justified either on doctrinal reasoning or prediction grounded in part on
non-doctrinal reasons), the complexity is that courts can end up deciding cases that are contrary to how we
think they should have come out, as a matter of doctrinal reasoning, and/or contrary to how we predicted
that they would decide. Especially for outcomes contrary to what we believe that the legal materials and le-
gal reasoning require, commentators might describe the decision as a “mistake,” as “wrongly decided.” And
this possibility adds layers and intricacies to the analysis of legal truth.
To me, the questions about legal truth after an apparently (allegedly) wrong judicial decision are both
more difficult and more central than the questions when the courts have not yet spoken. When the court
makes the mistaken decision—say, the “separate but equal” race equality decision of Plessy v. Ferguson37 —at
the time of the decision, there is a sense in which that court’s decision both is and is not a correct statement

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of the law.38 There are, it seems, two inconsistent legal truths, each with grounding in the authoritative legal
materials.
Of course, Plessy was eventually overturned,39 and this may simplify the analysis. Many lower court
decisions that are generally considered mistaken are reversed on appeal, and occasionally, decisions are re-
jected by a later decision by the same court (the only option for “correction” if the original decision was by
the highest court). One should, however, here also note that this same fate—“correction” by a higher or later
court—could also occur when the original decision was considered to have been correct.
If the mistaken decision is quickly reversed or overruled, then there may not appear to be a philosophi-
cal problem. The prior court was simply mistaken, and there was one legal truth all along, even if a court
give an erroneous declaration that confused matters for a while. However, there are other Supreme Court
decisions that commentators consider to have been mistaken (which decisions those are will vary by which
commentator one consults, of course), but which have not been “corrected” (and keep in mind that Plessy
was “good law” for almost 60 years).
The philosophical problems do not go away easily, even for “corrected” decisions. What shall we say
about the truth-value of the legal proposition(s) announced by a court while it is being appealed? What
should we say about those propositions after the “correction”—that they were true for a time but are no
longer (like legislation that is changed), or that they were never true, even though they were treated as true
for a period of time? In all such cases, the temptation to say that there is either multiple, inconsistent truths
about what the law requires (at least for a period of time) is strong.
To be clear: I am not here advocating any sort of postmodern doubt about truth, or, for that matter, any
classical form of skepticism about truth.40 The analysis in this article assumes conventional understandings
of truth, but asserts that within the domain of law generally—and known legal systems (for the present dis-
cussion, the United States legal system) in particular—there are some significant complications in certain
types of instances of asserting what is legally true.
In a prior work, I emphasized a traditional binary when thinking about truth in morality, law, and
other, comparable discourses: will and reason41 (Lon Fuller called it “fiat and reason”42). Truth in law is
always a product of a combination of reason—doctrinal/practical reasoning from the authoritative legal
texts—and will: the choices of officials who have the authority to make choices for the community. Some-
times these choices are what John Finnis (following Aquinas) call “determinatio”: making choices among
equally legitimate alternatives.43 At other times, though, the choice can be one made contrary to “reason,”
in the sense of being doctrinally wrong. The court decision may be the law because the court said so (and
reaffirmed that interpretation of the law consistently over time). What is legally true is inevitably a mixture
of reason and will; on occasion, though, reason and will point in different directions, and we are simply left
uncertain (as in those occasions where Plessy both was and was not a true statement of American law).

CONCLUSION

Throughout her long, very productive, and very influential career, Prof. Susan Haack has been a reliable—
and necessary—guide to the intricacies of understanding truth in many forums: truth in science, eviden-
tial truth, and truth in law generally. This article has tried to dive into the intricacies of statements of truth
within and about law, in ways that are consistent with Prof. Haack’s writings, but which push on some mat-
ters further than she had occasion to discuss.
As this article elaborated, truth about particular legal propositions often turns on some combination of
“will” and “reason”: the decisions made by officials authorized to make choices for the community, on one
hand, and what follows from those decisions, as a matter of the distinct form of practical reasoning known
as “doctrinal reasoning.” And where will and reason conflict, sometimes there may be, if only temporarily,
more than one legal truth.44

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NOTES

1 Among the works of hers that have helped me the most in developing my own ideas are Haack 1998, 2003, 2004,
2005, 2006, 2008, 2014, 2016, 2018a, and 2018b.
2 E.g. Haack 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2018a, 2018b.
3 Haack 1998.
4 E.g., Haack 2018a.
5 We were commenting on Tamanaha 2017. Our contributions were Haack 2018b and Bix 2018.
6 In the United States, individuals are subject to both federal and state law. Contract law, the example given in the
text, is primarily a matter of state law.
7 There are scholars who claim that one cannot speak abstractly or conceptually about law in general,
8 This refers to part of Robert Alexy’s theory of law. Alexy 2002.
9 See, e.g., Moore 2000.
10 Haack 2014: 305 (emphasis added).
11 U.S. Constitution, 8th Amendment.
12 In fact, the United States Supreme Court has held the death penalty unconstitutional as applied both to the men-
tally disabled, Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), and to persons who committed their crime while a juvenile,
Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005).
13 Haack 2014: 304. She offers Aristotle’s summary: “‘to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is
true.’” Haack 2003: 17 (quoting Aristotle 1933: 201). In another article, she paraphrases Peirce: “to say that some-
thing is true is say that it is SO, whether you, or I, or anybody believes it is so or not.” Haack 2019: 268.
14 Haack 2014: 304-305 (emphasis omitted).
15 Haack 2014: 308.
16 See, e.g., Baghramian and Carter 2015.
17 Haack 2014: 317; cf. Haack 2018b: 1072-1073.
18 In a parenthetical in the same paragraph, Prof. Haack writes about a judicial decision, “Daubert III” (Daubert v.
Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), see Haack 2014: 306 n. 51): “after Daubert III, that Frye had been
superseded federally was a true proposition that could be discovered by legal research.” Haack 2014: 317. It is thus
clear that for Prof. Haack—at least in the view presented in Haack 2014—where the court has not yet spoken on
some issue, there is no legal truth to be discovered.
19 See, e.g., Kelsen 1992: §31(e), at 70. Karl Llewellyn also seemed to flirt with a similar idea. Lllewellyn 1933: 72-74,
quoted (in translation) in Fuller 1934: 445.
20 Dworkin 1985: 119-145 (“Is There Really No Right Answer In Hard Cases?”).
21 I have written on those topics at some length before. See, e.g., Bix 1993: 77-132; Bix 2019: 93-107.
22 E.g., Raz 2009: 37-52.
23 E.g. Dworkin 1985: 144.
24 See, e.g., Segal and Spaeth 2002.
25 Holmes 1897: 460-461.
26 E.g., Llewellyn 1930: 437-438, 447-449.
27 Haack 2005: 79-80; Haack 2018b: 1059.
28 Rosati writes: “[C]laims about what the law really is are often offered precisely to support decisions that run con-
trary to what we would reasonably predict.” Rosati 2004: 294-295.
29 E.g., Haack 2008: 461-467.
30 E.g., Ackerman 2007.
31 E.g., Waluchow 2011.
32 E.g. Haack 2008: 469-470 (on the changing constitutional rules and principles regarding freedom of religion).
33 The analysis also raises issues surrounding the question of “global error”—whether all legal officials (at a given
time, in a given legal system) could be wrong about some legal question. See, e.g., Kramer 2008, Bix 2009.

Reflections on Truth in Law 41

 COSMOS + TAXIS

34 Rosati 2004: 306-322

35 Rosati 2004: 308-310.
36 Rosati 2004: 317-322.
37 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
38 Rosati 2004: 291.
39 See Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
40 Comesaña and Klein 2019.
41 Bix 2010.
42 Fuller 1946.
43 E.g., Finnis 2012: 284-289.
44 An earlier version of this work was written for the 2020 University of Girona Seminar in Connection with the In-
ternational Prize on Legal Culture given to Susan Haack (a Seminar which was ultimately cancelled due to the
Coronavirus Pandemic).

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Ackerman, Bruce. 2007. The Living Constitution. Harvard Law Review 120: 1737-1812.
Alexy, Robert. 2002. The Argument from Injustice: A Reply to Legal Positivism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Baghramian, Maria and Carter, J. Adam. 2015. Relativism. In: Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/.
Bix, Brian. 1993. Law, Language, and Legal Determinacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
. 2009. Global Error and Legal Truth. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 29: 535-547.
. 2010. Will versus Reason: Truth in Natural Law, Positive Law, and Legal Theory. In: Kurt Pritzl (ed.), Truth:
Studies of a Robust Presence. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, pp. 208-231.
. 2018. A New Historical Jurisprudence? Washington University Law Review 95: 1035-1047.
. 2019. Jurisprudence: Theory and Context, 8th ed. London: Sweet & Maxwell.
Comesaña, Juan and Klein, Peter. 2019. Skepticism. In: Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/.
Dworkin, Ronald. 1985. A Matter of Principle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Finnis, John. 2012. Natural Law and Natural Rights, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fuller, Lon L. 1934. American Legal Realism. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 82: 429-462.
. 1946. Reason and Fiat in Case Law. Harvard Law Review 59: 376-395.
Haack, Susan. 1998. Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
. 2003. Truth, Truths, ‘Truth,’ and ‘Truths’ in the Law. Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 26: 17-22.
. 2004. Epistemology Legalized: Or, Truth, Justice, and the American Way. American Journal of Jurisprudence 49:
43-61.
. 2005. On Legal Pragmatism: Where Does ‘The Path of the Law’ Lead Us? American Journal of Jurisprudence 50:
71-106.
. 2006. Pragmatism Old & New: Selected Writings. Amherst: Prometheus Books.
. 2008. The Pluralist University of Law: Towards a Neo-Classical Legal Pragmatism. Ratio Juris 21: 453-480.
. 2009. The Meaning of Pragmatism: The Ethics of Terminology and the Language of Philosophy. Teorema 28(3):
9-29.
. 2014. Evidence Matters: Science, Proof, and Truth in the Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. 2016. The Evolution of Legal Systems: Response to Helena Baldina, Andreas Bruns, and Johannes Müller-Salo.
In: Susan Haack: Reintegrating Philosophy, pp. 195-202.
. 2018a. Five Answers on Pragmatism. Journal of Philosophical Investigations [University of Tabriz-Iran] 12 (24):
1-14, available at https://www.academia.edu/37642898/Five_Answers_on_Pragmatism_2018_.
. 2018b. The Pragmatist Tradition: Lessons for Legal Theorists. Washington University Law Review 95: 1049-1082.
. 2019. Post ‘Post-Truth’: Are We There Yet?” Theoria 85: 258-275.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. 1897. The Path of the Law. Harvard Law Review 10: 457-478.
Kelsen, Hans. 1992. Introduction to the Problems of Legal Theory. Bonnie Litschewski Paulson and Stanley L. Paulson, trans.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kramer, Matthew H. 2008. Is Law’s Conventionality Consistent with Law’s Objectivity? Res Publica 14: 241-252.
Llewellyn, Karl N. 1930. A Realistic Jurisprudence—The Next Step. Columbia Law Review 30: 431-465.

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. 1933. Präjudizienrecht und Rechtsprechung in Amerika, Eine Spruchauswahl mit Besprechung. Leipzig: J. Weicher.
Moore, Michael S.2000. Theories of Areas of Law. San Diego Law Review 37: 731-741.
Raz, Joseph. 2009. The Authority of Law, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rosati, Connie S. 2004. Some Puzzles About the Objectivity of Law. Law and Philosophy 23: 273–323.
Segal, Jeffrey A. and Spaeth, Harold J. 2002. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model, Revisited. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Tamanaha, Brian Z. 2017. A Realistic Theory of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Waluchow, W. J. 2011. Democracy and the Living Tree Constitution. Drake Law Review 59: 1001-1046.

Reflections on Truth in Law 43

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What is Foundherentism, 1. THREE ANECDOTES ABOUT SUSAN

HAACK
and what can it
When I call to mind how I met Susan Haack, three memo-
contribute to the Theory ries from three different places come to mind, although the
contexts are similar. The first is of an encounter after a lec-
of Evidence in The Law? ture I gave in Lima on some problems raised by evidentiary
argument. Susan Haack was in the audience (she was giv-
ing a lecture later) and when I had finished she came up to
me, apologised for not being able to express herself better
DANIEL GONZÁLEZ LAGIER
in Spanish (although her Spanish was a lot better than my
Web: https://cvnet.cpd.ua.es/Directorio/ English) and gave me a copy of her book Evidence Matters
Home/FichaPersona/67747?depende=B152 (Haack 2014). The second memory is from Girona, at a con-
gress paying tribute to Michele Taruffo. I gave a lecture on
the philosophical problems raised by the possibility of us-
ing progress in neuroscience to provide evidence of mental
states. Once again, she came up to me afterwards, and of-
fered me her opinion of the importance of language for the
emergence of mental states and activities. Then, Larry Lau-
dan called her because they were going to lunch. She replied
along these lines: “Just a minute, I’m talking to my friend
Daniel.” You cannot imagine how honoured I felt at that
moment. The third memory is from Alicante, where Susan
Haack had come to give a lecture as part of the master’s de-
gree course in legal argument. Quite some time had passed
since our previous meetings, so I had serious doubts about
whether she would recognise me, but she had no soon-
er caught sight of me than she smiled broadly and opened
her arms in recognition. When people ask me about Susan
Haack, I tend to recount these stories because they so nice-
ly demonstrate her serious and permanent commitment to
philosophy and, at the same time, her affable, open nature
and easy manner.
Susan Haack has published widely on questions of le-
gal evidence, always with reference to specific themes (the
role of probability as a criterion for evaluating evidence,
truth in Law, evidence of causality, scientific evidence,
etc.) rather than as a general topic. However, each of these
works demonstrates that her conception of epistemology
can contribute to the subject of legal evidence. In these pag-
es, I am going to try to suggest that foundherentism—pre-
sented fundamentally but not exclusively in Evidence and
Inquiry (Haack 1993)—can provide a good framework for
constructing a theory of legal evidence and for rethinking
certain issues which legal philosophers have perhaps con-
sidered to be closed. So, I have two aims: firstly, to present
the main features of foundherentism, and secondly to link
some of these features to important discussions of the theo-
ry of evidence in Law.

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2. WHAT IS FOUNDHERENTISM?

“Foundherentism” is the neologism used by Susan Haack (a keen creator of neologisms) to refer to her the-
ory of epistemic justification. According to Susan Haack, epistemology must try to answer two basic ques-
tions: first, what reasons or evidence justify our beliefs; and, secondly, how are such criteria themselves
justified. In other words, what is the relationship between those criteria and truth of those beliefs. Found-
herentism tries to answer both questions, overcoming the problems that have arisen for foundationalist and
coherentist epistemologists by integrating elements of both approaches.
Foundationalism considers that a belief is justified when it is supported by another belief, which is sup-
ported by another, and so on, establishing a chain of justification (in a single direction) ending with basic
beliefs (foundations of knowledge). These would be defined as those beliefs for which justification does not
depend on other beliefs. In empirical foundationalism, which is what interests us here, these basic ideas
are directly justified by the subject’s experience.1 In this way, foundationalism has to distinguish between
two types of belief (and justification): those justified by other beliefs and those justified by the subject’s ex-
periences. But this raises several problems, including two important ones: the first arises because beliefs
based on experience also seem to be loaded with theory—any observational statement refers to other ideas
or knowledge. For example, my belief that there is a glass full of water in front of me refers to concepts like
“glass” and “water” (which suggests that justification cannot depend only on experience unless this is sup-
ported by other ideas). A second problem is that although the foundationalists maintain that the justifi-
cation relation is a logical relation between propositions, it is not easy to explain how there can be logic
relations between experiences (which are facts) and the content of beliefs (which are propositions). Founda-
tionalism may, therefore, explain how experience can justify the fact that people have beliefs, but not how it
can justify the content of those same beliefs.
Meanwhile, coherentism maintains that beliefs are always justified by other beliefs in a kind of network
rather than in a linear structure. The justification of a belief depends on this conception that it is coherently
integrated into a network of beliefs that support one another. This raises the problem, however, that there
may be a lack of connection with experience and reality, so that two incompatible beliefs inserted into dif-
ferent coherent systems can simultaneously be justified. Borrowing an image from C. I. Lewis, Haack ar-
gues that, without any connection with experience, empirical knowledge would be like two drunken sailors
holding each other up so they did not fall over, both of them in a vacuum.
Foundherentism is an attempt to overcome these and other objections. To do this, it takes from foun-
dationalism the idea that experience is important for justifying beliefs (but without requiring that beliefs
should be exclusively justified by experience) and from coherentism the idea of mutual support between
those beliefs. Susan Haack offers the following minimum characterisation of foundherentism:
a) “A subject’s experience is relevant to the justification of his empirical beliefs, but there need be no
privileged class of empirical beliefs justified exclusively by the support of experience, indepen-
dently of the support of other beliefs.
b) “Justification is not exclusively one-directional but involves pervasive relations of mutual sup-
port” (Haack 1993, p. 19).

The best way of intuitively comprehending foundherentism is an image or metaphor that Haack fre-
quently uses: instead of the inverted pyramid of foundationalism or the network of coherentism, her model
is the crossword. Justifying a belief is like filling in a crossword in which each of the solutions depends on
certain initial clues (perceptions, experience) and on the solutions provided by other solutions already filled
in (mutual support between beliefs).

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3. PRAGMATISM AND NATURALISM

To complete this initial, sketch of foundherentism, two more characteristic features must be taken into ac-
count: pragmatism and moderate naturalism.
Pragmatism is a philosophical attitude, not a developed philosophical conception articulated and it in-
cludes shared material commitments. Some of the features of this attitude pointed out by Susan Haack are:
“• An approach to meaning in terms of consequences (...) a conception of meaning as in constant evo-
lution, shifting and growing in use and in experience.
• A disinclination to philosophize in an a priori way and an understanding of philosophy as about the
world and not exclusively about concepts or language.
• A distaste for dogmatism and, correspondingly, a robust and thorough-going fallibilism.
• A repudiation of false dichotomies and a corresponding stress on (to borrow Peirce’s word) syn-
echism.
• A concern with the social character both of language and inquiry.
• An acknowledgement of contingency, of the role of chance, both in the cosmos and in human af-
fairs.
• A willingness to draw on results from the sciences and, in particular, to take evolution seriously.
• An inclination to look to the future and a distinctive way of knitting future and past” (Haack 2018,
1055).2

All these features can be detected in Susan Haack epistemology, but the aversion to dogmatisms, the
rejection of dichotomies, the conception of philosophy as being about the world, and the attention to results
from science seem particularly clear. And it is this last idea that connects with the second feature of found-
herentism: moderate naturalism.
Philosophical naturalism is the tendency to reconstruct philosophical concepts and theories based on
concepts admitted, or at least admissible, by natural or empirical sciences (frequently identified in the strict
sense of science with physics, chemistry and biology). This broad (and minimalist) characterisation can
cover both what we might call the “thesis of replacement” of philosophy by science and what we might call
the “thesis of complementarity” or “continuity” (Martínez and Olivé, 1997, 16). While Quine, who at times
suggested the replacement of epistemology by cognitive psychology, can be seen as leaning towards the first
thesis, Haack aheres to the the second, or at least some versions of it.
Susan Haack distinguishes three main types of naturalism in epistemology:
a) A posteriori reformist naturalism, which maintains that epistemology is not an entirely a priori
task but rather operates in continuity with the cognitive sciences, accepting that these could be
relevant for solving epistemological problems.
b) Scientific reformist naturalism which maintains that the cognitive sciences by themselves can
provide responses to some epistemological problems.
c) Revolutionary scientific naturalism which takes the view that traditional epistemology should be
replaced by the cognitive sciences.

The position adopted in Evidence and Inquiry to develop foundherentism conforms to the first of these.
This has various consequences in Susan Haack’s epistemology, as shown by the criteria for justifying our
beliefs with human capacities; the continuity between scientific forms of knowledge and other areas and the
rejection of the possibility of an epistemology without a knowing subject. We will examine this thesis and
its relevance for a theory of evidence in Law.

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4. THE UNITY OF EPISTEMOLOGY

One of the theses accepted by foundherentism which is important for a theory of legal evidence is uphold-
ing the continuity between the scientific method and other cognitive activities in other spheres. We might
call it the thesis of the unity of empirical argument or evidentiary argument. For Susan Haack, what counts
as evidence, and as criteria for confirming our beliefs, is not something exclusive or internal to scientific ac-
tivity. Faced with the excessive deference towards the scientific method, which often results in disillusioned
scepticism, the author suggests an approach which says that the criteria used by all those who investigate
are the same (Haack 1998, 45). (Ultimately a “critical common sense”, which recalls the jurists’ reference to
“healthy criticism”). Scientists are not, she writes, “in possession of a uniquely rational and objective meth-
od of inquiry, unavailable to historians, detectives, and the rest of us, and guaranteed to produce true, or
probably true, or progressively more nearly true, or progressively more empirically adequate, etc., results”
(Haack 2009, 26). This does not mean that a layman can easily understand what scientists do. Despite the
fact that ultimately the criteria (the way the evidence is weighed) are the same, knowledge of the underlying
scientific theories, experimentation methods, technical terminology, the use of statistics and specific for-
malisms increase the complexity of science. Nor does this mean denying that science has had considerable
success that must be recognised. However, this is the result of more accurate measurement methods and
observation instruments, statistical methods and complex formalisation as well as, especially, the sustained
cooperation of many researchers over generations gradually filling in the puzzle of knowledge. A crucial el-
ement that accounts for the success of the natural sciences is their social nature; they are not in possession
of a specific, privileged method ensuring objectivity and the knowledge of reality (Haack 1998, 46).
This can be applied to the case of legal argument about facts. Although this is subject to special insti-
tutional restrictions and although there are important limitations on the methods of collecting evidence
aimed fundamentally at safeguarding values other than the discovery of the truth, which can come into
conflict with them, there is no valid legal epistemology exclusive to this sphere. When—in a radical inter-
pretation of the “free evaluation of evidence”—jurists considered that a belief has to be accepted as justified
if the judge feels intimately convinced of it, without no further requirement, or when they over-estimate the
role of immediacy as intuitive access to the credibility of a statement,3 they are simply wrong, assuming ir-
rational criteria, not criteria validated by the peculiar circumstances of the context. If we are looking for ra-
tional criteria for legal argument about facts, we must look for guidelines to evaluation that are valid in any
sphere concerned with investigating facts.
Susan Haack distinguishes between criteria for justifying beliefs and guidelines for the conduct of in-
quiry. The former are like the criteria for judging whether or not a meal is nutritious and the latter are like
instructions for cooking it (Haack 1993, 279). The procedural guidelines attempt to determine the strategy
that should be followed to carry out a good investigation, but it is possible that there may be a plurality of
methods (and it is even desirable that the same investigation should be carried out using diverse methods).
These methods are subject to the investigator’s discretion and it can only be “regulated” using broad guide-
lines. This distinction could serve to help understand what is peculiar about legal evidence. The peculiar
thing about evidentiary activity in Law lies not in the argument about facts in the strict sense (how the
weight of evidence is evaluated) but in the procedural rules (the rules of evidence) which establish, in this
case, unlike other contexts, a rigid method of carrying out the investigation, determining which evidence
can and cannot be accepted; who has the burden of proof; and even sometimes which conclusions we must
accept as proven. And they do so not only considering truth as a purpose of the process but also bearing in
mind the protection of other values. This regulation of procedure has an important impact on argument,
but not enough so that we can say there is a different epistemology for Law.

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5. EPISTEMOLOGY WITHOUT SUBJECTS AND OBJECTIVITY

As theorists of judicial evidence, we have been concerned to reduce the possibility that decisions on proven
facts should be arbitrary or wrong. One of the dangers we have warned of is the subjectivity of judicial deci-
sions, which would lead to a lack of control over them. In general, it would seem that some of the formula-
tions of procedural rules determining the evaluation criteria and standards of sufficiency of evidence refer
to mental states. As such, they do not ensure a minimum level of objectivity and should be reformulated.
For this purpose, it has been stressed that the purpose of evidence cannot be merely to convince the judge,
and that if a judge states that he or she is (or genuinely is) intimately convinced that something is a fact, it
says nothing about the justification for stating that the fact has been proven. What we might call “the le-
gal philosophers’ theory of evidence” is presented as an objectivist conception, while “the proceduralists’
theory of evidence” is labelled a conception rooted in subjectivism.4 It is beginning to be commonplace to
assume that only an objectivist conception of evidence can be rational, so we need to release judicial evi-
dence from its psychological bonds, avoiding, as far as possible, its references to mental states. Following
Jordi Ferrer, for example, it has been assumed that “p has been proven” must be understood as “There are
sufficient elements of judgement in favour of p”, and not as “The judge believes that p” or “The judge is con-
vinced of p” (Ferrer 2005, p. 28 and ff). The distinction between “It is proven” and “It has been held to be
proven” has also been stressed (Ferrer 2005, 96). Concerning standards of proof, it has been maintained
that one of the requirements that must be met is to “avoid linking evidence with the deciding subject’s be-
liefs, convictions or doubts concerning the facts” (Ferrer 2008, 146). To this is added the thesis that beliefs
(the fact of having a belief) are not voluntary, from which the conclusion can be drawn that they may not be
considered as justified or unjustified. In fact, what may or may not be justified is the proposition believed,
but not the fact of having beliefs—belief as a mental state. For this reason, insisting on linking evidence
with beliefs makes the former arbitrary.
This process of “de-psychologisation” is strongly reminiscent of Popper’s epistemology without
knowing subject. As Haack points out, Popper is apparently “an atheist about beliefs—an objectivist atheist,
one might say, since he seems to assume that any epistemological theory acknowledging a role to beliefs is
thereby bound to be objectionably subjectivist” (Haack 2010, 73), which leads him to see epistemology as a
question of “propositions and their logical relations” (Haack 2010, 73). For Popper, traditional epistemol-
ogy is a philosophy of belief but it is not genuine epistemology. He sees epistemology as relating to scientific
knowledge; it belongs to what he calls world 3, the world of theories, and constitutes objective knowledge.
On the other hand, knowledge understood as a subjective mental state belongs to world 2—to psychology
(Haack 1979, 310).
On the other hand, Susan Haack’s epistemology revolves around the issue of when a belief (not merely
the proposition that is believed but its being believed) is justified. This is in keeping with her pragmatism
and her moderate naturalism. Her aim is to give content to the idea that “A is more/less justified, at time t,
in believe that p, depending on …” (Haack 1993, 117), where the ellipsis is intially filled in by “how good his
evidence is”. In her conception, justification of a belief is something personal, relating to a subject, and not
impersonal. One person, therefore, may be more or less justified in believing p than another in as far as they
have more or less evidence in favour of p and depending on the quality of that evidence. But the fact that it
is personal does not mean that it is arbitrary, because its justification depends on the evidence the person
really has and the reasoning he really undertakes, not on those they think they have (Haack 1999, 41). The
rejection of psychologism is the result of confusion between the two meanings of “subjective”: subjective as
“personal” and subjective as “arbitrary”. But the first meaning of subjective does not necessarily imply the
second.
Haack goes beyond denying that an epistemology that can include beliefs must therefore be irrational
and also offers an argument in favour of an epistemology that takes the subject into account. Her argu-
ment is that an epistemology without a subject cannot take account of the role of experience in justification.
However, it would be entirely counterintuitive to think that what we see, hear, etc. should have nothing to

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do with the justification of our beliefs. Beliefs (some beliefs) form the bridge between perceptions and sen-
sations (experience) on one hand, and propositions, on the other.
By eliminating beliefs understood as mental states, Popper’s epistemology ends up losing its grip on
empirical reality. As we know, for Popper there is no undoubted knowledge—in other words, there is no
room for the absolute confirmation of theories. This is a result of his rejection—linked to his anti-psychol-
ogism—of induction as a valid type of inference. The characteristic feature of scientific theories, which al-
lows us to continue talking about rationality in science, is that they can be either partially corroborated
or refuted by science. A theory is partially corroborated when a singular statement can be deduced from
it which is confirmed as true, and it is refuted when such a singular statement is proved false. But how can
we know if such a singular statement is true or false? For Popper, the provability of basic statements does
not come from experience, because the relationship between this and the decision to accept a statement
can only be causal and not logical (deductive). The acceptance of basic statements is a matter of convention.
But, if this is the case, it is not appropriate to empirically corroborate or refute any theory because every-
thing ultimately depends on a convention of the scientific community. Popper’s project collapses. Ultimate-
ly, “any plausible account of the epistemic relevance of experience will have to throw off the Popperian con-
straints of extreme deductivism and extreme anti-psychologism” (Haack 1993, 108). The failure of projects
like Popper’s demonstrates that justification cannot merely be a relation of inference between propositions
and that a “double aspect” notion of justification is required: causal and logical. For a belief to be justified
by an experience, it must be possible to infer (not necessarily by deduction) the content of the belief from
the content of the experience, and having had this experience must have caused the state consistent with
having that belief.
In any case, before wrapping up this point, a conclusion could be drawn for the theory of judicial evi-
dence: an appeal to psychological states, such as belief, knowledge, etc. as part of a theory of evidence, even
as part of the meaning of “p is proven”, does not necessarily lead to arbitrariness or irrationality, nor to any
objectionable meaning of the term “subjective”. “P is proven” can mean that “The judge justifiably believes
p” (where p can mean the fact subject to the evidence or the fact that there are reasons for accepting this as a
premise of judicial syllogism). The error of the “proceduralists’ (and judges’) theory of evidence” is not that
it relies on the judge’s mental states but rather that, sometimes (even recently, although probably now only
in exceptional cases) there is an attempt to infer from this that judges do not therefore have to give reasons
for their convictions. This is what should be criticised, not the reference to mental states.

6. THE CRITERIA FOR JUSTIFYING BELIEFS AND THE EVALUATION OF EVIDENCE

One of the central problems of the theory of evidence is that of providing criteria for evaluating evidence
—criteria to support the hypothesis that the judge considers proven. Legal systems are quite vague when it
comes to indicating these criteria and usually restrict themselves to referring to common sense or “healthy
criticism”. Case law in our countries has made some progress, suggesting some of these criteria, especially
concerning circumstantial evidence (given the particular difficulty it presents). And, if we assume the the-
sis of the unity of epistemology or evidentiary argument, then we can find more clues drawing on criteria
proposed in other areas (and realise that, except in terminology and frequently in precision, they do not
differ from those established by case law). Foundherentism can also be useful for understanding the crite-
ria we need to use to support our hypotheses. But before seeing the criteria we should remind ourselves of
some ideas:
a) As we have seen, what interests Susan Haack is the degree of justification of a belief of a particular
subject at a particular time. For example, the degree of justification of a judge at the time of mak-
ing a decision. Justification is gradational (this is something that was not always mentioned in the
proceduralists’ theory of evidence, at least with respect to so-called direct evidence); personal (the
same belief can be justified for one person but not for another); and temporary (a belief may be
justified for a subject at a particular time but not at another).

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 COSMOS + TAXIS

b) The justification of beliefs is an objective matter (in the sense of not being arbitrary or entirely
discretionary): what matters in order to justify a belief is not what the subject thinks about wheth-
er the reasons for this belief are correct but on how good they, in fact, are.
c) The justification of a belief depends on experience and on the support it receives from other be-
liefs. The degree to which the two elements combine can vary from one belief to another, but there
is no belief that is not ultimately partly justified by experience (Haack 1993/1997, 76).
d) The criteria for whether beliefs are correct are different from procedural guidelines or strategies
for carrying out an investigation.
e) There are two aspects to the justification of a belief: a causal aspect and a logical aspect. Two di-
mensions of beliefs must be distinguished: belief as a mental state (state beliefs) and what is be-
lieved, its content and its propositional aspect (content beliefs). The two dimensions of beliefs are
interlinked with the two corresponding dimensions of proof or evidence: their dimension as a
mental state (state evidence) and their content (content evidence). The causal relations arising be-
tween state evidence and state beliefs and logic (or evaluational) relations arise between content
evidence and content beliefs. State evidence causes me to have certain state beliefs, but those state
beliefs have a particular content. Causality forms part of justification because a belief is justified
when its content is inferred from the evidence that causes it and not from any other. In the au-
thor’s words: “The degree of justification will depend on the quality of the evidence that, in fact,
causes the belief in question” (Haack 1999, 41; my italics).

What are the criteria on which the degree of justification of a subject’s belief, p, at a particular time de-
pend? Let us return to the crossword example: The correctness of a solution in the crossword depends (a) on
the clues and the other solutions already filled in that cross it, (b) on the correctness of these other solutions
(regardless of the one we are evaluating and (c) how complete the crossword is. In a parallel way, the justifi-
cation of a belief B1 depends on:
(1) the level of support provided by other beliefs B2, B3, Bn etc. for belief B1 (support);
(2) how justified the other beliefs B2, B3, Bn are, regardless of belief B1 (independent security);
(3) how complete the subject’s set of evidence is with respect to the set of relevant evidence for belief
B1 (Haack 1993/1997, 117; 46 and ff). (comprehensiveness).

In previous work, I have suggested analysing a judge’s argument about facts as an inference connect-
ing the evidence with the hypothesis to be proven through empirical regularity (maxims of experience). I
have suggested the following criteria for the solidity of this inference (and I have also suggested that what
jurists call evidence evaluation criteria can be understood as criteria for the solidity of evidentiary infer-
ence). With respect to evidence, this means how much we have in favour of the hypothesis, its variety, its
reliability and its relevance. With respect to empirical regularity, this refers to its inductive foundation and
the probability that the correlation it establishes is fulfilled. And, with respect to the hypothesis, it concerns
its corroboration, its preference compared to alternative refuting hypotheses, its narrative coherence, its
capacity to explain the evidence, etc. The criteria I have suggested are parallel to those the courts have sug-
gested in case law in various judgements, particularly in relation to circumstantial evidence. They are more
specific than those suggested by Susan Haack, but that does not mean they contradict hers. Rather the con-
trary, they can be seen as making her criteria more specific and they can be seen as being based on her cri-
teria. So, requirement (1) (support) is related to the relevance, quantity and diversity of the evidence or the
greater weight of the hypothesis that is finally accepted compared to the refuting hypotheses or the degree
of probability expressed in the maxim of experience; requirement (2) (independent security) relates to the
reliability of the evidence and the solidity of the empirical regularity (maxims of experience); requirement
(3) (comprehensiveness), meanwhile, has been put forward by Jordi Ferrer, following Keynes, under the no-
tion of “weight of evidence” (Ferrer 2014, 227).

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The result of assessing the justification of a belief in accordance with these criteria offers a certain high-
er or lower degree of justification, and this raises the problem of deciding whether that degree of justifica-
tion is sufficient for the judge to make the decision. This—the degree of sufficiency of the evidence—is an
important matter that has been the centre of many arguments and works on the theory of evidence. Phi-
losophers and legal philosophers, such as Larry Laudan and Jordi Ferrer, have demanded more precise for-
mulations of standards of proof than those we normally find in Law (such as “beyond all reasonable doubt”,
“sufficient conviction”, “clear and convincing evidence”, etc.). The purpose of these standards would no
longer be to evaluate the justification of a belief (although, unfortunately, standards of proof are often con-
fused with evidence evaluation criteria), but rather whether the level of justification achieved is sufficient
for making the corresponding juridical decision. The ultimate aim is to eliminate the judge’s discretion in
determining the sufficiency of evidence and to increase juridical certainty, but I would venture to say that,
within the framework of foundherentism, this objective (a sufficiently precise standard of proof to reduce
discretion concerning the sufficiency of evidence) is impossible to achieve. In Haack’s words: “Because the
quality of evidence is multidimensional, we should not necessarily expect a linear order of degrees of jus-
tification; e.g. the evidence for A with respect to p may be strongly supportive (support) but weak in terms
of comprehensiveness (amplitude), while its evidence with respect to q may be strongly comprehensive but
only weakly supportive. A fortiori, it does not seem possible to aspire to something as ambitious of a nu-
merical scale of degrees of justification” (Haack 1999, 49). Those who maintain the need for a standard of
proof do not aspire as highly as a numerical scale of justification. Nevertheless, if it is not possible to have
a linear order of degrees of justification, it does not seem possible to meet these lesser expectations either. I
believe foundherentism does not support the possibility of precise, general standards of proof determined a
priori. Nor do I, as I have tried to argue on other occasions (González Lagier, 2020a, 90 and ff). All we can
do is clarify the justification criteria and require judges to use them in giving reasons for their decisions.
We can also indicate what makes for lack of justification. In an approximate way, and without being able to
avoid gradual expressions such as “good fit”, “high degree of support”, etc., we can elucidate what makes for
reasonably well justified belief; much more than this we can’t do.

7. RATIFYING CRITERIA

We began by pointing out that foundherentism attempts to answer two basic, related questions: what are the
criteria justifying our beliefs? And what makes these criteria valid? In other words, why are these the right
criteria for justifying beliefs? Susan Haack’s answer is that the criteria of support, independent reliability
and comprehensiveness are truth-indicative. The aim of investigation processes is to achieve a knowledge of
the world, so it is fundamental that our beliefs aspire to be true. Therefore, if the aim of judicial evidence is
to try to ensure, as far as possible, the truth of statements declared to be proven, the criteria used must be
truth-indicative.
What can be said to support the idea that these criteria are really truth-indicative? This is one of the
points where Haack, together with other arguments, makes use of a resource drawn from a naturalistic
conception of epistemology. Criteria of justification are closely related to the capacities of human beings
needed to ensure their survival. Anchoring our beliefs in experience (perceived through the senses and
through introspection) on one hand, and the way they fit into the network of beliefs that explain the world
(on the other) serves to guide us in a reality independent of ourselves. These are fallible capacities, but the
fact that they have allowed our survival to date supports their approximate reliability, which is all we can
aspire to (Haack 1999, 52). It is a version of the best explanation argument: the best explanation we have
that our cognitive capacities have allowed us to adapt to the natural world and “ride the wave of evolution”
is that such capacities are reliable when it comes to showing us what this world is really like. Meanwhile, the
fact that these are our cognitive capacities is, in turn, also based on what cognitive sciences and the theory
of evolution tell us. So, the different entries in the crossword of the problem of ratifying the justification cri-
teria fit together and the crossword is filled in.

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In order to be suitably linked to the human capacities that allow us to adapt to our environment and
survive, criteria of justification must be persistent over different cultures and communities. Susan Haack’s
position is that apparent divergences of opinion about when a belief is justified are not, as relativists would
maintain, due to the fact that different justification criteria are used in each community, but rather to the
“deep beliefs” providing these criteria with content. Communities may differ with respect to what counts
as good evidence, but we do not differ over the fact that the justification of our believes depends on hav-
ing good evidence. To use one of Susan Haack’s examples: “Now suppose you and I are on an appoint-
ments committee. You believe that a certain candidate should be ruled out on the grounds his handwrit-
ing indicates that he is not to be trusted; I think graphology is bunk and scoff at your ‘evidence’ (...) Here
we disagree not only about p, but also, as we might say, about ‘what counts as a reason’ for doubting the
candidate’s honesty. But I don’t think anyone would be much inclined to think that this kind of common-
place disagreement suggests that you and I have ‘different standars of evidence’ in any deep or interesting
sense. We simply disagree about what evidence is relevant because we disagree in some background beliefs”
(Haack 1993, 206).

8. EPISTEMIC VIRTUES AND ETHICS OF INVESTIGATORS

If epistemology has to take into account the role of the subject; if it is not a merely a question of deductive
relations between propositions; if what matters is how we can expand our knowledge and that our beliefs
point to the true; and if it is not possible to design precise methodological rules that tell us, implacably, how
to conduct the investigation so that will be infallible—ultimately if the investigator’s discretion and good
practice are necessary for the success of their investigations—we need to think about the characteristics
and abilities the investigator must have. That means considering their virtues.
Susan Haack has concerned herself with this point in various works, as well as reflecting on the aspects
of organisation of science and universities that could make investigative activity difficult. As virtues of an
investigator, we should mention capacity for imagination, necessary, for example, for formulating hypoth-
eses; skill and persistence in seeking evidence; rigorous argument for deciphering the consequences of con-
jectures; and good judgement for evaluating evidence (Haack 2003, 97). These would be epistemic virtues.
But the most important of these would be at once an epistemic and an ethical virtue (Haack 2003, 305): in-
tellectual honesty and integrity, which Haack defines as respect for evidence “the moral fiber to resist the
temptation to stay out of the way of evidence that might undermine their conjectures, or to manipulate un-
favorable evidence they can’t avoid” (Haack 2003, 97). Intellectual honesty is an attitude towards oneself
and towards others: “Being honest with yourself means avoiding self-deception, both about where the evi-
dence you have leads and whether you have the evidence you need to draw any conclusion at all. It doesn’t
require that you abandon a promising idea in the face of any and every piece of apparently contrary evi-
dence; but it does require that, recognizing how complex and confusing evidence can be, you are ready to
follow in good faith wherever it takes you. Being honest with others requires, obviously, that you not pres-
ent fabricated, fraudulent or massaged data, but also that when you report all your work you report all the
relevant evidence” (Haack 2007, 9-10).
This virtue follows from the aim of pursuing the truth and is the criterion for distinguishing a genuine
investigator from a false investigator (who does not pursue the truth, whatever it is, but rather seeks argu-
ments to support preconceived theses at all costs) and a pseudo-investigator (who seeks arguments to sup-
port the truth of a proposition to which they are indifferent but that allows them to promote themselves in
some respect) (Haack 1996, 1,415).
It is clear that these virtues are also judicial virtues (to which could be added others deriving from the
specific function of the judge and the fact judges are subject to the Law)5 in as far as these also seek truth
as an objective. Respect for evidence is also an assumption of the rational evaluation of evidence and a re-
quirement imposed by the judge’s duties of independence and impartiality. As Josep Aguiló points out,
“while independence refers to control over the judge’s motives with respect to extra-legal influences coming

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from the social system, impartiality concerns the judge’s motives with regard to extra-legal influences from
the proceedings” (Aguiló 1997, 77). The best way of avoiding these influences is making the judge subject
to the law and, it should be added, respect for evidence (Muñoz Conde 1999, 67) in the sense indicated by
Susan Haack.
So what is the relevance of these virtues? Of course, it is possible to make good discoveries without in-
tellectual honesty, and it is possible to be the most honest investigator and not make them. They are, in all
cases, contributory conditions, and the need for them must be measured in overall rather than individu-
al terms. Intellectual honesty is a condition for excellence in investigation and intellectual dishonesty de-
grades investigation. In the same way, a judge’s dishonesty when evaluating evidence makes that judge, of
course, a terrible one, even though in a particular case the same judge may have made a correct decision. A
lesson for the theory of evidence in Law which can be drawn from this is that we must pay more attention
to the theory of epistemic virtues (and ethics). However, in my opinion, we do not need to concede that the
justification of decisions depends exclusively on them having been made by a “virtuous” judge (González
Lagier, 2020b, 99 and ff).
Finally, we might wonder, how are virtues learned? For Aristotle they are learned through habit, de-
veloped through effort and the imitation of good examples. Scientists must imitate model scientists; judges
must imitate exemplary judges; and philosophers must imitate philosophers like Susan Haack.

NOTES

1. I will consider only empirical foundationalism, which says that justification of basic beliefs depends on (sensory
or introspective) experience. However, foundationalism can also consider that basic beliefs are logical or mathe-
matical rather than empirical, or that they are self-evident, or that they are directly justified (via some causal rela-
tion) by a state of things that makes them true.
2. For an analysis of Susan Haack’s legal pragmatism see Atienza, 2018, 467-489.
3. A critique of both issues can be seen in Ibáñez, 2015, 251 and ff.
4. For example, de Paula 2019, Chap. I.
5. Amalia Amaya considers that judicial virtues are a specification or concrete expression of general moral virtues
and lists the following: impartiality, sobriety, courage, wisdom and justice. In her opinion, these are simultane-
ously moral virtues (they tell us how to act correctly) and intellectual virtues (they help us form justified beliefs
(Amaya 2009, 24). Meanwhile, Manuel Atienza, proposes “good judgement, prudence, broad-mindedness, sense
of justice, humanity, compassion and courage”, to which he adds temperance or self-control in the use of their
power (Atienza 2001, 140).

REFERENCES
Aguiló, Josep. 1997. Independencia e imparcialidad de los jueces y argumentación jurídica. Isonomía, no. 6.
Amaya, Amalia. 2009. Virtudes judiciales y argumentación. Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación, Mexico.
Andrés Ibáñez, Perfecto. 2015. El juez y la cuestión de hecho: Formación de la convicción judicial. In: Tercero en discordia:
Jurisdicción y juez en el Estado constitucional. Madrid: Trotta.
Atienza, Manuel. 2001. Cuestiones judiciales. Mexico: Fontamara.
. 2018: Pragmatismo jurídico. La propuesta de Susan Haack. In: Estudios filosóficos, Vol. 67, No. 196.
Ferrer, Jordi. 2008. La valoración racional de la prueba. Madrid: Marcial Pons.
. 2005 Prueba y verdad en el Derecho. Madrid: Marcial Pons.
. 2014. La prueba de la causalidad en la responsabilidad civil. In: Diego M. Papayanis, Causalidad y atribución de
responsabilidad. Madrid: Marcial Pons, p. 227.
González Lagier, Daniel 2020a. Emociones sin sentimentalismo. Las emociones y las decisiones judiciales. Lima: Palestra.
. 2020b ¿Es posible un estándar de prueba preciso y objetivo? Algunas dudas desde un enfoque argumentativo de
la prueba in Revista Telemática de Filosofía del Derecho, No. 23. http://www.rtfd.es/numero23/04-23.pdf
Haack, Susan. 1979. Epistemology with a Knowing Subject. The Review of Metaphysics, vol. XXXIII, no. 2.

What is Foundherentism, and what can it contribute to the Theory of Evidence in The Law? 53
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. 1993. Evidence and Inquiry. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993. (Evidencia e investigación. Hacia la reconstrucción en
epistemología, Tecnos, 1997).
. 1996. La ética del intelecto: Un acercamiento pierciano. Anuario filosófico, no. 29.
. 1998. Defendiendo la ciencia, dentro de la razón. In: Pascual F. Martínez-Freire, Filosofía de la ciencia actual,
Contrastes. Revista interdisciplinar de filosofía, Suplemento 3.
. 1999. Una teoría fundaherentista de la justificación empírica. In: Ágora, 18/1: 41.
. 2003. Defending Science—Within Reason. Between Scientism and Cynicism. Buffalo: Prometheus Books.
. 2007. La integridad en la ciencia: Significado e importancia. En: Contrastes. Revista internacional de filosofía, vol.
XII.
. 2009. Esperando una respuesta: El desordenado proceso de buscar la verdad. In: Cuadernos de Neuropsicología,
no. 3.
. 2010. Belief in Naturalism. an Epistemologist’s Philosophy of Mind. Logos & Episteme, vol. I.
. 2014 Evidence Matters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. 2018. The Pragmatism Tradition: Lessons for Legal Theorists. 95th Wash. U. L. Rev.
Martínez, S. F. and Olivé, L. 1997. Introducción. In: Sergio F. Martínez and L. Olivé (comp.) Epistemología naturalizada.
Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Muñoz Conde, Francisco. 1999. La búsqueda de la verdad en el proceso penal. Revista de Proceso y Derecho Penal, no. 1.
Paula, Vitor de 2019. La prueba testifical. Del subjetivismo al objetivismo, del aislamiento científico al diálogo con la psicología
y epistemología. Madrid: Marcial Pons.

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Proof Beyond Any PROLOGUE

Reasonable Doubt? Susan Haack’s work does a marvelous job of restoring the
humanity of scientists by arguing that their methods and
Or Beyond Some thought processes are the same as those used by careful
thinkers in any discipline. She makes her case in a way that
Reasonable Doubt? will leave no reader feeling left behind in the discussions
about the use of evidence.
In recent work, she has sought to defend science against
ORIÓN VAGAS VELÉZ a variety of charges, launched by proponents of extreme
positions. On the one hand, she rejects what she calls ‘sci-
Web: https://investigaciones-pure.udem.edu. entism’, the exaggerated showing of deference towards sci-
co/en/persons/orión-vargas-vélez ence and the acceptance of any claim made by science as
being authoritative, as if scientists are epistemologically
privileged. On the other hand, she rejects the many current
cynical postmodern critics of science who have said that
scientists’ stated concerns for honest inquiry, respect for
evidence and a search for truth are illusions being used as
a cover for their other agenda relating to power, politics or
rhetoric.
Indeed, I have relied on Haack’s work in my claim that
a science of evidence excludes no one interested in honest
inquiry, a respect for evidence and a search for truth. As
Haack (2003, 23) says:

The core standards of good evidence and well-con-

ducted inquiry are not internal to the sciences, but
common to empirical inquiry of every kind… re-
spect for evidence, care in weighing it, and persis-
tence in seeking it out, so far from being exclusive-
ly scientific desiderata, are the standards by which
we judge all inquirers, detectives, historians, in-
vestigative journalists, etc., as well as scientists. In
short, the sciences are not epistemologically privi-
leged.

In my account of the science of evidence as a study of

the properties, uses, discovery and marshaling of evidence,
I will claim that it involves everyone having the characteris-
tics Susan Haack has just described (Schum 2009, 204-205).
My title is related to the notion of a benefit of the doubt,
which stands in opposition to good faith (in the sense of hu-
man “credulity”), and indicates that if any reasonable doubt
is introduced in judicial proceedings it may be used as a fa-
voring (f) or disfavoring (d) factor in relation to the claims
or hypothesis that the parties argue in those judicial pro-
ceedings.

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A standard of proof that required judges to exclude each and every (possible) reasonable doubt would
be useless in courts of law. The employment of such a standard of proof would require the use of a “con-
ceptual microscope” that allowed judges to have a “magnifying lens” in relation to any reasonable doubt(s)
that may be observed and resolved in the adjudicative fact-finding process, specifically in the stages of the
examination of evidence and the assessment of proof. But the focus of judges’ magnifying lenses should not
be directed towards all reasonable doubts, but only those that can be observed in relation to the structural
issues or properties of evidence (E*): credibility, relevance and weight or evidential force.
The approach to standards of proof just indicated must allow that, in legal proceedings and in daily
life, they can be understood in a way that conceives the notion of being probable from the perspective of in-
ductive logic and, and with regard to the structural issues or properties of evidence (credibility, relevance
and weight or evidential force) (Tecuci, Schum, Marcu, & Boicu 2016, 62-68). This approach resonates with
Haack’s epistemology, with its focus on degrees of warrant (Haack 2014, 47), and its integration of consider-
ations drawn from philosophy, psychology and law.
In the first section of this paper, I will argue that it is in the stage of the evidentiary activity called the
examination of evidence when the judge manages to establish the standard of proof required by the Fed-
eral Rules of Evidence (Vargas 2019, 19-20). Next, I will argue that it is in the second stage of the eviden-
tiary activity called the assessment of proof when the judge, after establishing the credibility of the evidence
(Schum 2001, 92-108), or the quality of the evidence (Haack 2014, 53), can make a connection (relevance of
evidence), in terms of inductive and diffuse probabilities or degrees of warrant (Haack 2014, 47), between the
said evidence and the claims or hypotheses of the parties, in accordance to the provisions of the FRE-401.1
Finally, I will show that, in this same second stage, the judge may assign a weight or evidential force to
individual and combined evidence (body of evidence items) through the assistance of 1) the combinations of
evidence (corroboration, convergence, contradiction, conflict and evidentiary redundancy, 2) the methods
of support (+) or reduction (-) of the value of evidence, 3) the properly supported generalizations and 4) the
ancillary evidence (Schum 2001, 109-126).

1. FIRST ROUND OF DOUBTS: THE EXAMINATION OF EVIDENCE

Doubts that must be resolved in the stage of examination of evidence in the judicial proceedings are related
to its credibility. These doubts are translated into questions that can be asked in relation to the attributes
of the credibility of evidence (E*), which, for the testimonial evidence, are veracity, objectivity and obser-
vational sensitivity. These questions, regarding the attributes of the credibility of evidence (E*), constitute
ancillary evidence (A*) used to support (+) or challenge (-) the credibility of evidence (E*). For the tangible
evidence, such as the documentary evidence or demonstrative evidence, those attributes are authenticity,
reliability and accuracy (Schum 2001, 92-108).
A first question, which allows the judge to settle this first doubt, is related to the credibility of evidence
(E*) that a party brings to the judicial proceedings (Tecuci, Schum, Marcu, & Boicu 2016, 68):

How likely is it that what is stated in evidence (E*) is true, i.e. is it credible?
or
How likely is it that E* is true?
or
How likely is it that the event E reported in E* occurred?

This first question allows the judge to determine whether the evidence presented makes controver-
sial facts credible to the degree required for the judicial proceedings at hand; in Haack’s epistemological
vocabulary, the judge is to determine whether the evidence presented warrants to the required degree the
proposition(s) at issue (Haack 2014, 57).2

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Figure 1 illustrates what is related to this first question, referring to the credibility of evidence (E*). This first
doubt concerns to how seriously the judge should consider evidence (E*) that is offered or produced in the
examination stage. It is healthy to consider this first “doubt”. It is reasonable.

A judge may follow one or other of two generalizations in relation to the credibility of testimonial evi-
dence (E*t):

If a person affirms a fact, then, generally, this fact has occurred (“good faith”).

Such a judge would be very gullible:

If a person affirms a fact, then, in general, he believes it (veracity), he has perceived it through his senses
(objectivity), and he has correctly perceived it (observational sensitivity).

Such a judge would not be behaving so credulously, but would be instead “atomizing” good faith attri-
butes of credibility for testimonial evidence (E*t) – (Schum 2001, 109). Attributes of credibility pertinent to
testimonial evidence are: veracity, objectivity and observational sensitivity.
A person’s veracity is associated with his honesty; that is, with his believing what he claims to believe.
In empirical matters, objectivity is related to whether or not what the person affirmed has been perceived
through his senses. Observational sensitivity is related to the quality of the perception in question–condi-
tions of mode, time and place and the way in which the person got knowledge of the facts (Schum 2001,
110-111).
Figures 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4a and 4b illustrate “good faith” in relation to the credibility of testimonial evi-
dence (E*t) and how it can be decomposed, atomized or questioned as such, considering these three attri-
butes of credibility of testimonial evidence (E*t): veracity, objectivity and observational sensitivity (Vargas
2019, 35-41).

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Figure 5 illustrates the increase (+) or the reduction (-) in support which can raise or lower the credibil-
ity of testimonial evidence (E*t) through the use of ancillary evidence (A*).
Note how these pieces of ancillary evidence (A*1, A*2, and A*3) act to reduce (-) the attributes of verac-
ity, objectivity, and observational sensitivity of testimonial evidence (E*t) (Schum 2001, 112-114, 153-160).

Each question asked in the examination constitutes ancillary evidence (A*1, A*2, and A*3) that allows
judges to establish the credibility (Schum, 2001, 92-108) or quality (Haack 2014, 53) of testimonial evidence
(E*t).
The questions are tests for each of the attributes of credibility (veracity, objectivity and observational
sensitivity) of the testimonial evidence (E*t); and each one constitutes a reasonable doubt whose answer, if
credible, allows the judge to have a better knowledge of the controversial facts in the judicial proceedings.
The answers to these questions and doubts allow the judge to make a decision that can be considered as
“reasonable,” “best possible” or “best adjusted to justice.”

2. SECOND ROUND OF DOUBTS: THE ASSESSMENT OF PROOF

The doubts that must be resolved at the stage of the assessment of proof are related to the relevance of evi-
dence. This concept is closely related to the burden of proof, which the parties bear as their responsibility
and it is as well the legal basis for the rule of judgment used by the judge in his decision, which is only prob-
able (Vargas 2019, 89-96).
A second question that allows the judge to settle a subsequent doubt is related to the relevance of evi-
dence (E*t) that a party brings to the judicial proceedings (Tecuci, Schum, et al. 2016, 68):

How likely is the hypothesis (H) of the party that produces the evidence (E*t) to the judicial pro-
ceedings, assuming that what is stated by the evidence (E*t) is true (E)?
or
Assuming that E is true, how likely is it that H is true?

Figure 6 illustrates what is related to this second level of doubt, in reference to the relevance of evidence
(E*t). This second doubt concerns the judge’s belief about how evidence (E* t) bears upon the possible con-
clusions he entertains. It is healthy to consider this second variety of doubt. It is reasonable.

Proof Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt? Or Beyond Some Reasonable Doubt? 59

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3. THIRD ROUND OF DOUBTS: THE EVIDENTIAL FORCE OF EVIDENCE

A third question, based on the previous two, allows the judge to settle another range of doubts, related to
the weight or evidential force of the evidence (E*t) (Tecuci, Schum, et al. 2016, 68):

How likely is it the hypothesis (H) of the party that brings such evidence (E*t) to the judicial proceed-
ings is true, based only on the truth of (E*t)?
or
How likely is it that H is true, given only E* t?

Evidential weight or force, like weight or force as vector quantities in physics, has a direction and a measure
(magnitude). Direction illustrates whether an evidence (E*t) favors (f) or disfavors (d) a certain claim or
hypothesis (H, not-H). Magnitude is a probability that is assigned to the conjunction of credibility and rele-
vance. This magnitude is gradational, as indicated by verbal expressions of inductive probability and diffuse
probabilities (Tecuci, Schum, et al. 2016, 69), according to, for example, the ordering below:

No support <Likely < Very likely < Almost certain < Certain

This approach to the weighing of evidence combines elements of Baconian3 (Cohen 1977, 229-244; Eells
1991, 115-131) and fuzzy probabilities (Tecuci, Schum, et al. 2016, 69).
A judge has to assess a claim or hypothesis (H) based only on E*t; and for the first question above (the
credibility question) “certain” means that we are sure that the event E reported in E*t did indeed happen;
and “no support” means that E*t provides no reason for us to believe that the event E reported in E*t did
happen.
For the second question above (relevance question), “no support” is the probability assigned when E*t is
not relevant to H, and “No support” is the answer when E*t tends to disfavor H.
For the third question above (the question of weight), the answer is the minimum of the relevance and
credibility answers. To believe that H is true, based only on E*t, E*t should be both relevant to H ( favoring
or disfavoring) and credible (Tecuci, Schum, et al. 2016, 69).

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Figure 8 illustrates what is related to this third doubt, in reference to the weight or evidential force of
the evidence (E*t) (Tecuci, Schum, et al. 2016, 70-73).

The judge who assesses a hypothesis (H) has several items of evidence, not just one. Let’s assume that
the judge has a second piece of testimonial evidence (E*t2) that points to a different fact E2 and favors H. So,
if the inferential force of E*t2 is “very likely”, determined to be by the same procedure discussed for E*t, then
the judge determines the inferential force of both testimonial evidences E*t and E*t2 on the hypothesis H as
the maximum4 of their inferential force (“very likely”). It is enough to have a very relevant and credible item
of evidence to convince the judge that the hypothesis H is true (Tecuci, Schum, et al. 2016, 70-73).
Figure 9 illustrates what is related to this third level of doubt, in reference to the weight or evidential
force of both testimonial favoring evidence E*t and E*t2 (Tecuci, Schum, et al. 2016, 70-73).

Proof Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt? Or Beyond Some Reasonable Doubt? 61

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These three questions are raised in an effort to support the thesis that not everything is necessary in the
decision-making process. It is not necessary to have a knowledge beyond reasonable doubt to make a deci-
sion. Only a few doubts govern our knowledge in the decision-making process: “Tell me with what stan-
dard of proof you are going to measure me, and I will tell you how I will behave in the judicial proceedings.
If you measure me with the wrong standard, don’t complain about my behavior.” A judge of the year 2020
would measure with verbal expressions, typical of inductive probability (Cohen 1977, 217-244) and diffuse
probabilities (Schum 2001, 243-266; Tecuci, Schum, et al. 2016, 69), rather than with numbers, typical of
mathematical logic (Haack 2014, 58).
“Tell me how you are going to put your questions to me, and I will tell you how I am going to answer
you. If you ask me about everything, don’t complain about the evasiveness of my answers. I do not know all
the answers to all the questions you are imagining, especially with the ‘vague and ambiguous’ language that
you use when you ask such questions in the judicial proceedings.” A judge in 2020 would not ask about ev-
erything. This judge would recognize that only a few questions would bring him closer to a more appropriate
decision, in terms of inductive and fuzzy probabilities; that is, a probable decision: something more reason-
able within the judicial proceedings.
Placing a magnifying lens in the wrong place (or beyond reasonable doubt) may not allow focusing eas-
ily on what you want to observe or what you want to clear; that is, the doubt, which does not allow you to
make a decision in any way. To the extent that a magnifying lens is placed closer to an appropriate distance,
or beyond some doubt(s), it will focus on what you want to observe; that is, on any doubt(s) that allow(s) a de-
cision somehow to be made, a decision which will be probable only.5

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NOTES

1. Rule 401—Test for Relevant Evidence. Evidence is relevant if: (a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less
probable than it would be without the evidence; and (b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.
2. Haack notes that, as Bertrand Russell (1948) had pointed out, it is important to begin with how warranted a claim
is for a person at a time, and cites.
3. In the Baconian view of probability proposed by L. J. Cohen, the probability of a hypothesis depends on 1) how
much relevant evidence the subject (in this case the judge) has; 2) how much believable evidence he has; and
3) how complete the coverage of existing evidence on matters being relevant in the analysis made by the subject/
judge is. In this vision, the probability of a conjunction is never less than the smallest Baconian probability of ei-
ther of its conjuncts. Baconian conjunction can be referred as a minimization rule (Min) (Cohen 1977, 217-244).
4. In the Baconian system proposed by L. J. Cohen (Cohen, 1977), the probability of a disjunction is never less than
the greatest Baconian probability of either of its disjuncts. Baconian disjunction can be referred as a maximiza-
tion rule (Max) (Cohen, 1977, 217-244).
5. I want to express my thanks to Mark Migotti for all his helpful advice on this text. Any imperfections that remain
are the result of my ignorance and lack of undestanding.

REFERENCES
Cohen, L. J. 1977. The Probable and the Provable. Oxford. Clarendon Press.
Eells, E. 1991. Probability and Rationality. Studies on L. Jonathan Cohen’s philosophy of science. (Poznan Studies in the
Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities): Rodopi Bv Editions.
Haack, S. 2003. Defending Science within Reason : Between Scientism and Cynicism. Amherst: Prometheus Books.
. 2004. Epistemology Legalized: or, Truth, Justice, and the American Way. American Journal of Jurisprudence 49:
43-61.
. 2014. Legal Probabilism. In: Evidence Matters: Science, Proof, and Truth in the Law (47-77). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Schum, D. A. 2001. The Evidential Foundations of Probabilistic Reasoning: Evaston: Northwestern University Press.
. 2009. A Science of Evidence: Contributions from Law and Probability. Law, Probability & Risk, Vol. 8, Issue 3:
197-231.
Tecuci, G., Schum, D. A., Marcu, D., & Boicu, M. 2016. Intelligence Analysis as Discovery of Evidence, Hypotheses, and
Arguments: Connecting the Dots. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vargas, O. 2019. El razonamiento inductivo en la valoración de la prueba judicial. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de
Salamanca.
Russell, B. 1948. Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. New York: Simon Schuster.

Proof Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt? Or Beyond Some Reasonable Doubt? 63

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The Relevance of 1. FOREWORD

the Susan Haack’s The tireless and world renowned epistemologist Susan
Haack is also a beautiful, inspirational person deserving of
Epistemology to Evidence great admiration.
We met Professor Haack in Cartagena de Indias (Co-
Law in Latin America lombia) at an International Congress on Procedural Law
organized by the University of Medellín in 2013. At that
time we were amazed by her lucidity and the fine irony she
ANDREA A. MEROI weaves with constant puns, images and metaphors. In many
AND ways, all of them remarkable, we met someone still so Brit-
MARIO CHAUMET ish, despite living in the United States of America for a long
time.
Since then, we have enjoyed the invaluable gift of
Web: Haack’s friendship and have met with her on various occa-
https://rosario.academia.edu/AndreaMeroi sions, in Colombia, at her office at the University of Miami
https://Bdp.academia.edu/Marioechaumet School of Law, and in Argentina.
Towards the end of August 2017, she gave an unforget-
table lecture on Justice, Truth, and Proof: not so simple, af-
ter all (Haack 2016, 311-340) to participants of the Master’s
Degree Program in Procedural Law at the National Univer-
sity of Rosario, Argentina. The title of her talk is very much
related to the extensive contributions her epistemology can
make to our understanding of evidence law.

2. EVIDENCE LAW AND THE

EPISTEMOLOGICAL TURN

From a perspective we share, we turn to epistemology in

search of “science as a process,” that is, a discipline interest-
ed in understanding the nature of its product, the function
of its procedures, and the conditions under which it takes
place (Samaja 2004). We agree that “the question of doing
is deeper than that of being. In particular, Epistemology has
been leaving aside the question of ‘the being of Science’ to
ask about ‘’what Science does’ (‘what does the scientist do
when he does science’ or ‘what kind of act is the act of ex-
plaining scientifically’)” (Ibid., 15). Trying to narrow down
the sense in which he will use the term, the great Argentine
mathematician and philosopher Gregorio Klimovsky main-
tained that “the epistemologist asks a question of crucial
importance to understand and analyze the cultural signifi-
cance of science today: why should we believe in what the
scientists affirm” (Klimovsky 2001, 28).
One of the fundamental tasks of epistemology is the
attempt to answer questions about the ways in which the
synthesis between factual and theoretical components in
scientific knowledge relate to each other. Different episte-

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mological theses will respond differently to these opposite pairs of “empeiria/theory” and “discovery/vali-
dation.”
Ever since the modern age, the great Latin question Quid iuris?—expressed eloquently with the ques-
tion: “How do we have the right to be safe? Or with this even more explicit question: What circumstances
authorize us to be sure?” (Ibid., 58, citing Ayer 1956)—was answered in terms of contradiction by rational-
ism and empiricism (and by its unwanted derivations… dogmatism and skepticism) (Ibid., 59). Based on the
Kantian criticism and the construction of the concept of action as praxis, various “middle ways” that try
to get out of these extremes (contemporary empiricism, pragmatism, dialectical-genetic theses) were devel-
oped (Ibid., 77).

2.1. Nowadays it is not surprising that legal theorists and philosophers of law undertake studies on
aspects of the quæstio facti. A few decades ago this was not the case, when the dominant legal theory1 be-
gan, gradually, to become strongly concerned with the facts in law (in general), and for the facts in the deci-
sive legal context of process in particular, and, consequently, for the proof of facts. The outstanding work of
Twining (1994), Damaška (1997a, 1997b, 1998), Ferrajoli (1998), Taruffo (2002, 2008, 2010), Andrés Ibáñez
(1992, 1994, 2010), Gascón Abellán (1999), González Lagier (2000, 2003, 2005), and Ferrer Beltrán (2005),
amply testify to this in the Spanish-speaking world.
So thoroughly indebted as we are to the teachings of Daniel González Lagier and Perfecto Andrés
Ibáñez2 in 2004 we published a paper intended to report on these doctrinal efforts, and from there raise
questions and open new lines of research around this important topic (Chaumet and Meroi 2004). Clearly,
differences between epistemological perspectives in relation to the very possibility of knowing and the ways
of knowing also materialize in different perspectives on evidence in the legal process.

2.2. A legal process can be seen as an epistemic instrument: a means of discovering facts (usually past,
but also present and future) necessary for making a decision on a controversy to which they are relevant.
As González Lagier points out, the extreme epistemological positions of objectivism and skepticism are re-
flected in the procedural conception of evidence.
Indeed, on the one hand, objectivist traits (or, at least, naive objectivists) can be found in positions that
rely—tout-court—on the “immediacy” of a judge’s direct contact with the parties to the case and the eviden-
tiary material. Similarly, difficulties in or lack of evidence are taken to be problems of lack of information.
On the other hand, we can find skeptical traits in those procedural positions for which the purpose of evi-
dence is conviction, with total disregard of the truth (unattainable) of the facts alleged, or merely formal or
procedural truth (material truth is unreachable) (c.f. González Lagier 2003, 19).

2.3. In a good part of Argentinean procedural dogmatics—certainly, not strange or distant from a
good part of the procedural dogmatics of European continental law, to which it is heir—there is a common-
place in the studies of evidentiary law that basically consists of: 1) the distinction between “formal truth” or
“procedural truth” on the one hand, and “real truth,” “material truth” or “objective truth,” on the other; 2)
the primacy of “objective truth” over “procedural truth” and, therefore, the claimed triumph of the former
over the latter, often “at any cost.” These doctrines are present yet more strongly in judicial practice.
In Latin America in recent decades, this panorama has been augmented by an influence of postulates
from the so-called “constitutional rule of law,” also by a strong impact on the proof of the facts of a case (or,
perhaps, we should say, on the frequent “no proof” of the facts).

3. HAACK’S FRAMEWORK AND THE LAW

Our honoree’s biography tells us about her transatlantic move from the University of Warwick’s Depart-
ment of Philosophy (converted almost entirely to “postmodernism”) to the University of Miami in the
1990s. In a very interesting interview she reveals how surprised she was to learn that Terence Anderson—

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professor in the University of Miami School of Law—used her Evidence and Inquiry as a textbook (Vázquez
2013). From then on, Haack has been pleased to see a vast and rich field of research growing out of her
work, initiating an invaluable academic contribution to evidence law, both from her publications and for
her courses at the University of Miami School of Law.
What is Susan Haack’s theoretical framework? In the introduction to her book-length contribution to
the philosophy of law (2014, xvi), she states that her work is imbued with:

a) the spirit of the classical pragmatist tradition-influenced, that is, not only by Oliver Wendell
Holmes’s writings on the law, but also by the classical pragmatists’ thinking about inquiry generally,
and about scientific inquiry in particular;
b) her understanding of the evolution of legal concepts and legal systems and her stress on the limits
of formalism, align with Holmes’s;
c) her objective conception of truth is in the spirit of Charles S. Peirce’s observation that “truth is so,
whether you or I or anybody thinks it is so or not”;
d) her distinction between genuine inquiry and advocacy research runs parallel to Peirce’s distinction
between real inquiry and sham reasoning;
e) her crossword analogy (one of her “trademarks”) is inspired in part by Peirce’s critique of Descartes’
metaphor of a chain of reasons;
f) her conception of scientific inquiry as a human enterprise, thoroughly fallible but nevertheless ca-
pable of real advance, with its echoes, not only of Peirce but of other classical pragmatists;
g) her conceptions of law, morality and the relations between them, shaped, in part, by William
James’s and John Dewey’s ethical writings.

From Haack’s perspective, a “two-way traffic” between legal practice and epistemological theory could
greatly benefit not only legal thinking about evidence, but also the increasingly self-referential and narrow-
ly-focused “niche” epistemology that, sadly, predominates today (Ibid. xvii).
Haack gives us multiple occasions to rethink evidence law: specifically, her work on truth (2016, 312),
her foundherentist epistemology—formulated by González Lagier’s formulation as “the aversion to dogma-
tisms, the rejection of dichotomies, the conception of philosophy as being about the world, and the atten-
tion to results from science” (González Lagier 2020)—the intersection of her epistemology with evidence
law (Haack 2014), her rescue of the “knowing subject” (see, Haack 2009; 2013, 21), the differences between
inquiry and advocacy3, her theses on “degrees” and “standards” of proof (Haack 2014, 47), among many
others, provide many very valuable insights pertinent to analyzing the regulation of evidence in different
legal systems.

4. PECULIARITIES OF CERTAIN DEBATES IN LATIN AMERICAN EVIDENCE LAW

Latin America—so often visited by our honoree—is heir to the legal tradition of civil law, of “continental
law.” In this tradition, evidence law has been mostly associated with the so-called inquisitorial system, as
opposed to the accusatory system (in criminal matters) or “dispositive” (in civil matters) (adversarial, in the
common law tradition).
More than half a century ago, Piero Calamandrei summarized the differences between the conceptions
of legal process by highlighting that

the one that entrusts the inquiry of the truth to the judge’s responsibility and discretion, before
whom the parties appear as the passive object of investigations at the mercy of the public interest,
and the one that entrusts the development of the process above all to the incentive of the conflict-
ing interests of the part, and that counts, for the success of justice, with the contenders’ collabora-

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tion and responsibility, considered as free people to behave according to their interest, but aware of
the consequences to which their behavior may expose them” (Calamandrei 1951, 159-160).

These are the two ways of conceiving the administration of justice: the inquisitorial process and the accu-
satorial process.
Beyond the attempt to sharpen the differences between both conceptions of the process, reality refuses
to classify itself in either of these two “pure” forms. As the great comparatist Damaška has shown, “only
the core meaning of the opposition remains reasonably certain” (1986, p. 3). Continental procedural schol-
ars have long debated the canonical distinction between a criminal process whose purpose is the search for
“material truth” (and is therefore mostly under the rules of the inquisitorial system), and a civil process that
pursues the “formal truth” (and is therefore related to the accusatory system).4
In recent decades we have witnessed a change in this direction: under the influence of the Anglo-Saxon
model, many countries have converted their criminal proceedings to the adversarial system; at the same
time, the civil process is adding even more inquisitorial and state driven traits, among which it is worth
highlighting the objective of seeking the truth and the greater powers of judges to achieve it.5
This topic, with its multiple edges and variants, far exceeds the scope of the present work.6 Neverthe-
less, within this framework, we would like to highlight two current trends in evidence law in Latin Ameri-
can civil procedure, in particular their risks and what help foundherentist epistemology may provide.

5. “OBJECTIVE LEGAL TRUTH” AND FOUNDHERENTISM

As part of the debates about the purpose of the legal process and the concepts of “procedural truth” and
“material truth,” of “formal truth” and “real truth,” Argentine civil procedural dogmatics began to recite a
kind of mantra: “the conscious renunciation of the truth is incompatible with the service of justice.”
This last phrase is taken from a famous, endlessly quoted ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice of Ar-
gentina issued in 1957. The construction “objective legal truth” had a very high impact on procedural stud-
ies7 and, above all, on jurisprudence. It has served, very especially, to give a stamp of authority to the in-
corporation of evidence that, by the application of certain rules of evidential procedure, would not count.
Thus, means of proof with expired deadlines for their offer or production, evidentiary negligence of the
parties, judge’s private knowledge about certain circumstances and a long etcetera, benefit from this “ex-
ceptional argument” and its great rhetorical force.8
As has been correctly asserted, the dictum in “Colalillo” commits the courts to the epic mission of
finding “objective legal truth” (Salgado and Trionfetti 2012). Of course, none of the modern epistemologies
would embrace a universal, necessary and definitive idea of ​​infallible truth, which this procedural doctrine
seems to demand. So the trite phrase “objective legal truth” amounts to “an absurd negative because it re-
fers to a situation in which the subject is absent, which means a crazy adventure of the mind and a mirage of
language: someone verifies that something is objective (!)” (Ibid).
Obviously, Haack’s teachings come immediately to mind: on the one hand, her warnings about the
search for a Truth (that is with capital T, almost holy) and truths, i.e., particular true propositions, some of
which are relative, subjective, partial, etcetera (Haack 2016, 313), on the other, her alertness to the condi-
tions that the law imposes on that knowledge of “the true” (Haack 2014, 92). How astonishing that an epis-
temologist should be needed to remind us that a legal system is not a scientific research laboratory and that,
rather, it should be thought of as a set of rules and machinery for resolving disputes and making it possible
for people to live together in some kind of order!
Moving away—once again!—from false dichotomies, Haack does not believe in a legal system that
aims only to resolve disputes or only to discover the truth: “The goal is to resolve disputes on the basis of
evidence, in the hope that this it will, often enough, uncover the truth” (2016, 325).
As Haack would say, while a legal process is about determining the truth of a proposition regarding
facts, “what determining the truth means [in this context] is arriving at a conclusion as to the facts in a

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legally-correct way; which is by no means the same as seeking, let alone discovering, the truth” (Ibid., 325-
326). And as González Lagier aptly points out:

[t]he peculiar thing about evidentiary activity in Law lies not in the argument about facts in the
strict sense (how the weight of the evidence is evaluated) but in the procedural rules (the rules of
evidence) which establish, in this case, unlike other contexts, a rigid method of carrying out the
investigation, determining which evidence can and cannot be accepted; who has the burden of
proof; and even sometimes which conclusions we must accept as proven. And they do so not only
considering truth as a purpose of the process but also bearing in mind the protection of other val-
ues (2020).

Unmasking the cliché that the civil law process is intrinsically better than the common law process in respect
of the “search for truth,” Haack reminds us that

a civil-law judge’s factual determinations are constrained by standards of proof; and the whole
process, like a common-law trial, is subject to real constraints of time and resources, not continu-
ing indefinitely or waiting for every conceivably-relevant bit of evidence to come in. So it looks to
me as if a civil-law judge, like a common-law ‘fact-finder’, is asked to determine whether guilt or
liability has been established to the required degree of proof by the evidence considered; in the
hope, as with common-law trials, that this will, often enough, produce factually correct verdicts
(2016, 332).

Of course, none of these considerations are meant to celebrate a process without truth, or endorse an
unacceptably formalist drift of adjudication systems that betrays an insufficient regard for the just solu-
tion of cases. Rather, the point is that awareness of a host of factors—the difficulty of knowing what is true,
and the existence of rules that impose limits (sometimes to promote the emergence of truth, sometimes to
safeguard other values ​​that compete with the truth in the process), and of the context of conflicts of inter-
est (and not only of rights), and of the cultural, social and economic restrictions, among many other factors
that surround this epistemic instrument called a “process”—can help us better discern the problems and
weaknesses of the process and define which factors can be modified and which conform to legitimate politi-
cal options.
Under these conditions, to insist on a judge’s duty to seek objective legal truth is to ignore all the com-
plexity that lies under the knowledge produced in a process and, often, to hide decisions disregarding evi-
dentiary rules behind an aspiration with a high emotional burden (who does not want the truth?) and with
an uncertain result.

6. CONSTITUTIONAL RULE OF LAW, NAIVE OBJECTIVISM AND FOUNDHERENTISM

In evidence law we usually say that the object of proof consists of facts. Strictly speaking, the proof falls on
statements or propositions about “facts,” beyond the linguistic license that we usually allow ourselves (Ta-
ruffo 2002, 113-114; González Lagier 2005, 21; Gascón Abellán, 1999, 83). The concept of a fact as object of
proof is extremely complex (González Lagier 2005, 20) and its characterization encompasses the idea of le-
gal relevance. The law is not interested in any old fact, but only in the founding facts of a procedural claim,
i.e., those captured by a rule in the description of the factual event that it regulates. Hence, the law deci-
sively influences the selection of factual data: “Since facts are investigated to determine whether they have
consequences foreseen in some rule, it is with the prism of law that we judge which facts are relevant to the
process. The rules then act like lenses—or theories—that direct our attention towards one or another aspect
of the facts” (Ibid, 43).9

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Nowadays, certain characteristics of the current legal system add to the habitual complexity in the op-
eration of selection of relevant facts.10 The qualitative distinction between rules and principles is of course
one of the pillars of current dogmatics. To a large extent, the constitutional state model assumes that
norms11 (in general) and constitutional norms (in particular) can be divided into these two categories. The
entire system comes to be understood as an open system of principles and rules susceptible to axiological
considerations in which the realization of fundamental rights plays a central role.12
To be sure, it is beyond the scope of this work to deal with the structural differences between rules and
principles13, although a first distinction can be based on the criterion of indeterminacy. From a structural
point of view, and with respect to what concerns here, we note that the particularities of a case are not even
generically determined by principles; or rather, the conditions under which principles are applied and the
model of behavior prescribed, are open-ended. In other words, neither individual actions, nor courses of
action causally adequate to achieve proposed objectives flow from the norms themselves.
Consider, for example, the norms that regulate various so-called “new rights”: environment, historical
and cultural heritage, health, education, consumer... etc. The very definitions of these “goods” are highly
problematic.14 A principle that generically mandates an assessment of “the best interests of the child” poses
infinite difficulties, not only in determining what the best interests of the child are in concrete, legally effec-
tive terms, but also in determining under what conditions (description of the generic fact hypothesis) the
norm must be applied.
The facts—if identified in the norm—appear less and less denoted and more and more indicated or ges-
tured at with multiple or even contradictory expressive or suggestive meanings. In such cases, the task of
selecting the facts must be preceded by a task of normative integration in which—in an analytical back and
forth—the impact of factual data can assume decisive importance. Obviously, it will be necessary to con-
vince a judge first, of the construction of the generic factual hypothesis and, later, of the proof of the con-
crete facts of the case.
As Damaška points out,

[d]espite the simplifying potential of the law’s formal regime, divergent viewpoints can still cause
problems for the administration of justice. This is especially likely in a deeply split society, where
normative standards are uncertain. Fuzzy legal standards in this environment provide no effective
barrier to a multiplicity of viewpoints that bear on factual inquiries: legal indeterminacy contrib-
utes to the elusiveness of truth. Faced with cacophony in the citadel of justice, an authoritarian
government can impose the power-holders’ perspective as pertinent. But a liberal polity, with fluid
power structures and wide group participation in the administration of justice, has no such op-
tion. As a result, it can be difficult in this polity to establish what counts as objective knowledge in
some cases” (Damaška 1998, 293-294).

In order better to understand the scope of possible discrepancies among them, as well as difficulties
presented by certain kinds of fact (omissions, psychological events, causal relationships, etc.), it is worth
remembering the fundamental distinctions among external facts, perceived facts and interpreted facts
(González Lagier 2000, 72). For, “if the law is awash in normative indeterminacies and is constantly referred
to constitutional principles of great abstraction, and is furthermore charged with an axiological burden, and
all of this is claimed to be directly operational: if all this is so, then, now more than ever it is appropriate to
assume that in practical effectiveness and especially in judicial application, the meaning of norms is not de-
tachable from the analysis of facts” (Ruiz Pérez 1987, 136). If judicial adjudications are justified from consti-
tutional principles, then, if one proposes an ideal reformulation of the principles that takes into account all
the potentially relevant properties, the sociological dimension of legal cases will inevitably have to be taken
on board. It is evident that in judicial cases, the discernment of the best interests of the child, the protec-
tion of the environment, the consumer, the obligation not to harm, the access to decent housing, the right to
health, etc., will depend on the factual circumstances of each case. And the same point holds as regards the

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axiological aspects of the case. If we do not want to fall into apriorist positions, we should acknowledge the
sociological dimension of the problem. Every valuation supposes the accomplishment of an ideal duty to be
applied to a concrete reality. If there is no reality to assess, there is no assessment (Chaumet 2016/2017, 19).
Even within this framework, there are numerous problems to be taken into account and one that is
truly significant when it comes to making decisions is that of verifying the facts. Paraphrasing Atienza, we
could assert that arguing in an indeterminate and constitutionalized law is, in many ways, an argumenta-
tion about the facts, even though those facts are qualified by (or seen through) norms (Atienza 1994, 82).15
It is true that one of the areas where judges have the most discretion—and, consequently, the greatest pos-
sibility of arbitrariness—is that of argumentation concerning facts.16
Andrés Ibáñez describes the judicial treatment of the facts as natural entities, previously and defini-
tively constituted from the moment of their production, “those cold data of reality.” The data as “what has
already been given,” which allows the judge a kind of spontaneous operation, without mediation, “the judg-
ments of fact understood as simple findings of the ‘raw data’” (Ibáñez 1992, 263). This being the case there is
still an inadequate, taken for granted culture of motivation, which starts from the idea that questions about
the facts are not especially problematic, that it is good enough to approach them with “good eyes,” with the
best of intentions, and that the issues are beyond interrogation.

6.1. In the context of certain so-called neo-constitutionalist and activist tendencies, reference is made
to the aforementioned “objective legal truth.” At the level of many concrete judicial decisions, it is at least
paradoxical that “objectivity” is invoked and yet the immediate conclusions about what happened are for-
mulated by mere intuition, or sheer “gut feeling.”17
The inclusion of a statement of fact in a declaratory judgment must be provided with the necessary
support that justifies it. Mere gestures in the direction of highly valued principles (life, children, women,
health, the environment, the consumer, etc.) does not give rationality or criteria of truth to statements of
fact.
In many of our judicial decisions, however, this is not usually what happens:

the majority of people feel that conscience constitutes such an obvious way of arriving at evalua-
tive ‘truth’ than any ‘normal’ person (i.e. ‘reasonable,’ and ‘reasonable’ tends to coincide, for each
one, with the content of the own conscience rather than that of the other) is able to find the correct
answer. The guiding myth consists in this, something that in practice we can’t rescue from subjec-
tivity is projected onto the field of reality and objective truth. The fact is that this myth tends to
preside over legal thinking in general today, and that is why it is so easily accepted that debates are
about the application of principles, values ​​and rights that are not detailed, but are stated as if their
content were obvious for each case. (Guibourg 2015, 1229).

From the point of view of procedural dogmatics, these decisions are underpinned by a widely dis-
seminated idea: “to circumscribe the purpose of the evidentiary activity to produce in the judge’s mind a
certainty, not logical or mathematical, but psychological, about the existence or non-existence of the facts
stated. In other words, it is the production of a psychological conviction of the agent of the judicial body
on this last point, the telos to which evidentiary activity ultimately tends” (Palacio 2011, 26418). A “judi-
cial conviction” to which “evident facts” or “well known facts” (the mentioned “facts” related to “values” or
“principles”) are added.

Is it really so?

6.2. Once again Haack’s foundherentism can help us clarify things.

Of course, the evidentiary reasoning just mentioned would not meet the requirement that its justifica-
tion or guarantee be “evidentialist, experientialist, gradational, foundherentist, quasi-holistic, and worldly”

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and, in its most fully-developed form, combining “individual and social elements” (Haack 2014, 12). On
this latter point, judicial reasoning would be lacking inter alia (in Haack’s expression), i.e., an account of
how warranted a claim is for a group of people (clearly, the parties in conflict, but also other “subjects of
proof,” like witnesses, not just the judge), by the evidence available at a given time.

6.3. Moreover, this idea of judicial conviction calls forth echoes of the foundherentist vindication of the
knowing subject and its necessary presence; the perceptions, experience, and background assumptions of
actual knowing subjects will all have an impact on evidentiary reasoning. Would it be possible not to count
on the judge’s beliefs?
In this particular instance González Lagier’s astute reflections come to our help, reporting on the enor-
mous efforts of legal theorists to avoid arbitrariness:

One of the dangers we have warned of is the subjectivity of judicial decisions, which would lead to
a lack of control over them. In general, it would seem that some of the formulations of procedural
rules determining the evaluation criteria and standards of sufficiency of evidence refer to mental
states. As such, they do not ensure a minimum level of objectivity and should be reformulated. For
this purpose, it has been stressed that the purpose of evidence cannot be merely to convince the
judge, and that if a judge states that he or she is (or genuinely is) intimately convinced that some-
thing is a fact, it says nothing about the justification for stating that the fact has been proven. What
we might call ‘the legal philosophers’ theory of evidence’ is presented as an objectivist concep-
tion, while ‘the proceduralists’ theory of evidence’ is labelled a conception based on subjectivism
(2020).

Susan Haack’s epistemology rescues the “knowing subject” and the concern about how justified a belief
is: In her view,

The justification of a belief is something personal, relating to a subject, and not impersonal. One
person, therefore, may be more or less justified in believing p than another in as far as they have
more or less evidence in favour of p and depending on the quality of that evidence. But the fact
that it is personal does not mean that it is arbitrary, because its justification depends on the evi-
dence and arguments the person really has, not on those they think they have. The rejection of
psychologism is the result of confusion between the two meanings of ‘subjective’: subjective as
‘personal’ and subjective as ‘arbitrary’. But the first meaning of subjective does not necessarily
imply the second. Haack goes beyond denying that an epistemology that can include beliefs must
therefore be irrational and also offers an argument in favour of an epistemology that takes the sub-
ject into account. Her argument is that an epistemology without a subject cannot take account of
the role of experience in justification. However, it would be entirely counterintuitive to think that
what we see, hear, etc. should have nothing to do with the justification of our beliefs (González
Lagier, 2020).

  Thus, certain propositions must be able to be justified with reference both to empirically verifiable
data, practices and procedures, and to other beliefs, avoiding dogmatic statements of fact that, frequently,
serve to mask reality or disclose a bias.

7. FINAL WORDS

There is a claim to truth in a legal process, but not at any cost; there is a claim to truth, but not only truth.
From our point of view, the search for the truth of facts that gives rise to one sort of claim is of obvious
interest; but we must also consider the claims of resolving conflicts as soon as possible (or, at least, in a rea-

The Relevance of the Susan Haack’s Epistemology to Evidence Law in Latin America 71
 COSMOS + TAXIS

sonable time), and of not revealing intimate aspects of a family dispute or allocating huge public budgets to
the resolution of small matters, etc. etc.
Examples could be multiplied exponentially, but would end by demonstrating the same thing: law and
its institutions (in this case, the legal process and evidence) exist for the regulation of life in society. As
Haack argues, legal truths are a special sub-class of truths about social institutions and, like many truths
about a society, are socially constructed, considered true based on what people do (legislators, judges and
others) (Haack 2014, xxv). In any case, and even for those who defend the possibility of truth, our theory
of it must be reconciled with the view that reality is created by social actors: “the question is important be-
cause most facts we seek to establish in adjudication are ‘social’ facts rather than phenomena intrinsic to
nature” (Damaška 1998, 291).
A legal process is not a scientific laboratory; claims founded on rights are at stake but also claims found-
ed on interests and conditioned by power relations. The “just resolution” of the case depends on the declara-
tion of the truth of some of the basic facts of the claim.
Each society designs its own model of a legal process according to its historical-cultural heritage and
specific needs. Beyond the phenomenon of globalization and intense legal exchanges, different judicial re-
gimes retain differences when it comes to honoring the values that ​​ underlie and inform legal responses.
 At this point it must be clear that we do not support irrationalist perspectives but that, at the same
time, we suscribe to a sensitively critical cognitivism, which acknowledges context and the strong limits on
the possibility of knowing, particularly in a legal process.
As Twining writes:

[i]n the course of my explorations I have made regular use of three standard devices of ‘contextual’
or ‘realist’ thinking: clarification of the standpoint; thinking in terms of total pictures; and think-
ing in terms of total processes. These devices, coupled with the assumption that for most academic
and practical purposes in law the study of rules alone is not enough, justify labelling the approach
of this book as ‘realist’ or ‘contextual’. But ‘realism’ is not a distinctive form of legal theory nor,
in my view, do these techniques amount to anything like an comprehensive methodology for the
study of law. They ought, however, to be part of the basic equipment of any student of law (Twin-
ing 1994, 368).

Twining considers that:

[m]aybe realism in law stands to Legal Theory as Reality Checkpoint stands to the classroom. It
does not itself offer a rounded theory of or about law or life, but it furnishes a point of reference
against which to check any theory for its plausibility or connection with what happens out there
—if, of course, there is anything there. It is quite compatible with the idea that each of us sees the
world around us with multiple lenses which construct, constitute or reveal many different realities.
It helps to maintain connections in a down-to-earth way with actual events and practices and peo-
ple in the world of fact, however varied, complex and elusive that world may be (Ibid).

 With Haack (2014, 198) we can conclude by insisting that:

[o]f course, the real world is always much messier than philosophers would like… The categorical
distinction between genuine inquiry and advocacy research… while agreeably neat and tidy con-
ceptually, isn’t adequate to the complexities of real life; it needs to be reconstrued as identifying
the two extremes of a continuum. No investigator can approach his question free of any precon-
ceptions whatever; most investigators have some preconception of the expected upshot from the
beginning.

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NOTES

1. In recent years, many thinkers emphasize the consideration of more than one aspect (fact, norm and value) in
each legal phenomenon. Thus, for example, Bobbio argued that any legal response must overcome the reduction-
isms that lead to eliminate or confuse the three constituent elements of the legal experience: ideals of justice to
achieve, normative institutions to be carried out and actions and reactions of men against those ideals and these
institutions (Bobbio 1980, 5); on criticism of the use of the voice “reductionism” see (Guibourg 2010, 1). In the in-
terview that Atienza carried out for Doxa review, Robert Alexy answered that “[t]o the first question, that is, what
is Law, I have given an answer that is complex, because according to it, Law consists of three elements: (1) legal-
ity in accordance with the law, (2) social effectiveness and (3) correction regarding content. The first element rep-
resents the institutionality of the law, the second the facticity and the third its morality. The grace of this trialist
concept of law is that the three elements are not simply related in any way” (Atienza 2001, 684). We are convinced
that the trialist theory of the legal world —which places the emphasis on considering facts, norms and values at
stake in each legal phenomenon— satisfactorily responds to the great challenge of current thought that the refer-
ence to complexity means (in relation to the subject v. Goldschmidt 1987; Ciuro Caldani 1976, 1982/4, 2000).
2. Lessons in the Master in Legal Argumentation, University of Alicante, 2004.
3. For example, Haack 2009, Chapter: “Epistemology legalized. Or, truth, justice and the american way.”
4. This is beyond the worthy criticisms of the very distinction between “material truth” and “formal truth.” See, for
example, Taruffo (2010, 101-102), who on the one hand considers that “there are no several species of truth de-
pending on whether we are inside or outside the legal process: the truth of the statements about facts always de-
pends on the reality of those facts. On the other hand, the rules that limit or condition the search for truth do not
determine the discovery of a different truth; at most, there will be a limited and incomplete truth or no truth. The
same should be remembered with respect to res judicata, which has even been made more flexible in recent times
by expanding the possibilities of new evidence techniques (e.g., DNA studies).”
5. For a critical reference to this change, see Alvarado Velloso 2009a, 145; 2009b.
6. We have expounded on the issue in our doctoral thesis in Meroi, in press.
7. So much so, that an extensive book on the subject takes that title (see Bertolino 2007).
8. “En la aspiración a una verdad omnicomprensiva se cuela con facilidad el quiebre de reglas y principios bási-
cos del Derecho Procesal y Constitucional y la actividad judicial se transforma en la búsqueda de un horizonte
que, por ser tan ‘noble’, como fugaz e incontrolable, crea inseguridad y atropella garantías” (Trionfetti 2002, 193
nota 7).
9. Quote from Jerome Frank.
10. We have dealt extensively with the subject in Chaumet and Meroi 2008. For an interesting and exhaustive study of
the influence of the “constitutional rule of law” on the facts, see Vigo 2012, 679.
11. We are using the concept of norm as an encompassing of rules and principles. Although rules and principles ap-
pear to be linguistically similar normative entities, there is a difference between the two as regards their use and
function in legal reasoning. For example, Alexy claims that “principles” are “norms,” even though he distinguish-
es two kinds of norms, rules and principles: both rules and principles are norms, because both prescribe what is to
be done (see Alexy 2001, p. 83).
12. As early as the 1960s, Esser maintained that the center of gravity was slowly moving from the codified system to
a judicial casuistry oriented according to principles (Esser 1961). However, it was Ronald Dworkin’s (1978) works
that pushed the subject to the center of the stage of the theory of law.
13. See Atienza and Ruiz Manero 1996; Vigo 2000.
14. “En cuanto al objeto de la adjudicación, huelga repetir que la comprensión del medio ambiente, del consumo, del
patrimonio histórico, cultural, lingüístico, requerirá esfuerzos especiales del juzgador que no encontrará simple-
mente en las normas. Abordar el análisis de dichos problemas supone la aceptación decisiva de la influencia de
otras disciplinas, en muchos casos interactuando con ellas. En muchos supuestos el juez debe integrar su con-
ocimiento—sin diluirlo—en la interdisciplinariedad. Para los reduccionismos jurídicos ello no es relevante. Ya

The Relevance of the Susan Haack’s Epistemology to Evidence Law in Latin America 73
 COSMOS + TAXIS

hemos dicho que, en gran medida, el paradigma jurídico dominante de la modernidad fue construido en un mo-
mento en donde no se habían desarrollado la antropología, la psicología y la economía, entre otras disciplinas”
(Chaumet 2017, 271).
15. In the same sense, for Comanducci 1992, 221, this activity is not a simple intellectual diversion, it must be recog-
nized that descriptive inquiries are usually carried out through it.
16. It is the moment of exercise of judicial power par excellence, since in the reconstruction of the facts it is where the
judge is more sovereign, more difficultly controllable, “puede ser—como ha sido y en no pocas ocasiones sigue
siendo—más arbitrario” (Ibáñez 1992, 261). Likewise, Prieto Sanchís (1987, 88), for whom the judge’s margin of
appreciation is greater due to closer procedural proximity to the quaestio facti.
17. Certainly, the intuitive approach to the facts is not enough, supposing that because “common sense” is appealed
to, the facts enter the legal process with all their objectivity. Solving according to a hunch is not the same as solv-
ing it with suitable criteria to be communicated.
18. Similarly, a classic of Latin American evidence law, see Devis Echandía 1970, 252-253.

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Constitucionales.
Alvarado Velloso, A. 2009a. El garantismo procesal. in AA.VV. Activismo y garantismo procesal, Academia Nacional de
Derecho y Ciencias Sociales de Córdoba.
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Andrés Ibáñez, P. 1992. Acerca de la motivación de los hechos en la sentencia penal. Doxa 12: 257-299
. 1994. De nuevo sobre la motivación de los hechos. Respuesta a Manuel Atienza. Jueces para la Democracia, N° 22:
87-92.
. 2010. La ‘cara oculta’ de las garantías procesales. In: AA.VV., Garantismo y crisis de la justicia. Medellín: Sello
Editorial Universidad de Medellín, 161-180.
Atienza, M. 1994. Sobre la argumentación en materia de hechos. Comentario crítico a las tesis de Perfecto Andrés Ibáñez,
Jueces para la Democracia, N° 22.
. 2001. Entrevista a Robert Alexy. Doxa: Cuadernos de filosofía del Derecho. N° 24: 671-687
Atienza, M. and Ruiz Manero J. 1996. Las piezas del derecho. Teoría de los enunciados jurídicos. Barcelona: Ariel.
Ayer, A. J. 1956. The problem of knowledge. London: Macmillan.
Bertolino, P. J. 2007. La verdad jurídica objetiva. 2a ed., Buenos Aires: Lexis Nexis. 1st ed. 1990.
Bobbio, N. 1980. Contribución a la teoría del derecho, edition A. Ruiz Miguel, Valencia and F. Torres.
Calamandrei, P. 1951. Un maestro del liberalismo procesal. Tr. Santiago Sentís Melendo, Revista de Derecho Procesal, Año
IX, N° 1: 159-160.
Chaumet, M. E. 2016/2017. Juez Júpiter, Hércules, Hermes… ¿y el riesgo de Eróstrato? Investigación y Docencia, Centro de
Investigaciones de Filosofía Jurídica y Filosofía Social, Rosario, 2016/2017, N° 52: 19.
Chaumet, M. E. 2017. Argumentación. Claves aplicables en un derecho complejo. Buenos Aires, Astrea.
Chaumet, M. E. and Meroi, A. A. 2004. Argumentación y constatación de hechos en la decisión judicial, Revista de la
Facultad de Derecho, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, N° 20: 383.
. 2008 ¿Es el derecho un juego de los jueces? LL 2008-D, 717
Ciuro Caldani, M. A. 1976. Derecho y Política. Buenos Aires: Depalma.
. 1982/4. Estudios de Filosofía Jurídica y Filosofía Política. Rosario: FIJ
. 2000. La conjetura del funcionamiento de las normas jurídicas. Metodología Jurídica. Rosario, FIJ.
Comanducci, P. 1992. La motivazzione in fatto. In: La conoscenza del fatto nel processo penale, Milano: Giuffrè.
CSJN. 1957. Colalillo, Domingo c. Compañía de Seguros España y Río de la Plata, Fallos 238: 550. 09/18.
Damaška, M. 1997a. Evidence Law Adrift. New Haven: Yale University Press.
. 1997b. Rational and irrational proof revisited, 5 Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law 25.
. 1998. Truth in adjudication. 49 Hastings Law Journal 289. University of California.
. 1986. The faces of justicy and state authority. A comparative approach to the legal process. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Devis Echandía, H. 1970. Teoría general de la prueba judicial. Buenos Aires: Víctor P. de Zavalía.
Dworkin, R. 1978. Taking rights seriously. 5th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Esser, J. 1961. Principio y norma en la elaboración jurisprudencial del derecho privado. Barcelona: Bosch.
Ferrajoli, L. 1998. Derecho y razón. Tr. Perfecto Andrés Ibáñez et al, 3a ed.. Madrid: Trotta.
Ferrer Beltrán, J. 2005. Prueba y verdad en el Derecho, 2ª ed.. Barcelona: Marcial Pons.

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Gascón Abellán, M. 1999. Los hechos en el derecho. Bases argumentales de la prueba. Madrid: Marcial Pons.
Goldschmidt, W. 1987. Introducción filosófica al derecho. 6a ed. Buenos Aires: Depalma.
González Lagier, D. 2000. Los hechos bajo sospecha. Sobre la objetividad de los hechos y el razonamiento judicial. Analisi e
Diritto.
. 2003. Hechos y argumentos. Racionalidad epistemológica y prueba de los hechos en el proceso penal (I y II).
Jueces para la democracia, N° 46 y 47: 17- 35.
. 2005. Quaestio Facti. Ensayos sobre prueba, causalidad y acción. Lima-Bogotá: Palestra-Temis.
. 2020. What is “foundherentism” and what can it contribute to the theory of evidence in Law.
Guibourg, R. A. 2010. La teoría del derecho en calesita. Buenos Aires: La Ley.
. 2015. El sincero ocaso del derecho. Buenos Aires: La Ley.
Haack, S. 2009. Evidence and inquiry: a pragmatist reconstruction of epistemology, 2nd expanded ed. New York: Prometheus
Books.
. 2014. Evidence matters. Science, proof and truth in the law. New York: Cambridge University Press.
. 2016. justicia, Verdad y Prueba: no tan simple, después de todo. In: J. Ferrer Beltrán and C. Vázquez (eds.).
Debatiendo con Taruffo. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 311-340.
. 2019. Personal or impersonal knowledge? Philosophical Investigations, Vol. 13, Issue: 28: 21.
Klimovsky, G. 2001. Las desventuras del conocimiento científico, 5a ed.. Buenos Aires: AZ Editora.
Meroi, A. A. In press. Argumentation for evidence in the legal process.
Palacio, L. E. 2011. Derecho procesal civil. 4th ed. updated by Carlos Enrique Camps. Buenos Aires: Abeledo-Perrot.
Prieto Sanchís, L. 1987. Ideología e interpretación jurídica. Madrid: Tecnos.
Ruiz Pérez, J. S. 1987. Juez y sociedad. Bogotá: Temis.
Salgado, J. M. and Trionfetti, V. R. 2012. “Colalillo” a contraluz. La “verdad jurídica objetiva” como aporía, SJA 2012/09 / 26-
31; JA 2012-III-111.
Samaja, J. 2004. Epistemología y metodología. Elementos para una teoría de la investigación científica, 3a ed. Ampliada.
Buenos Aires: Eudeba.
Taruffo, M. 2002. La prueba de los hechos. Tr. J. F. Beltrán. Madrid: Trotta.
. 2008. La prueba. Tr. L Manríquez and J. F. Beltrán. Madrid: Marcial Pons.
. 2010. Simplemente la verdad. Tr. D. A. Scagliotti. Madrid: Marcial Pons.
Trionfetti, V. R. 2002. Conclusión de la causa para definitiva. Análisis de la reforma introducida por la ley 25.488 a los
artículos 481, 482 y 484 del CPCCN. Reformas al Código Procesal Civil y Comercial de la Nación, coord. Enrique M.
Falcón. Santa Fe: Rubinzal-Culzoni.
Twining, W. 1994. Rethinking Evidence. Exploratory essays. Evanston, Northwestern University Press.
Vázquez, C. 2013. Entrevista a Susan Haack. Doxa 36: 574-580.
Vigo, R. L. 2000. Los principios jurídicos. Perspectiva jurisprudencial. Buenos Aires: Depalma.
. 2012. “Hechos” en los paradigmas legalista y constitucionalista, LL 2012-D, 679.

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I met Professor Susan Haack as a first-year graduate student

To Susan Haack in the fall of 1990 at a social gathering for new faculty and
students. I did not know much about Professor Haack then.
But I was impressed. At first, it was her accent, but as I came
KIRIAKE XEROHEMONA to know more about her, it was the breadth and depth of her
scholarship, her powerful mind, her incredible prose, and
her quiet but feisty demeanor.
Web: https://case.fiu.edu/about/directory/ Professor Haack has been my inspiration and my role-
profiles/xerohemona-kiriake.html model. Even now, after so many years have passed, I am
surrounded and guided by her. Her books sit next to me on
top of my desk. Her writings offer me not only a venue of
knowledge, but also inspiration, strength, encouragement,
and often a small chuckle.
Susan still impresses me with her exquisite use of words
and witty remarks. She always challenges me with her pow-
erful and passionate arguments about concepts and things
that are worth-while, and she still guides me when I engage
with my students in our shared inquiries.
I am privileged to have had the opportunity to study
with a person I consider to be one of the most brilliant phi-
losophers of our time. It is with great pleasure that I join all
others in celebrating the immense contributions of Profes-
sor Susan Haack in my life, the profession, and society. I am
truly honored and grateful to be one of her students, (the
laconic one).
Susan: for all the glimmerings of light that you show
me, I can only say thank you.

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Legal academics in Ibero-America—and, more notably,

For Susan Haack Spain—have a persistent problem: research and researchers
are divided into separate isolated departments or “knowl-
edge areas”—civil law, criminal law, procedural law, admin-
JORDI FERRER BELTRÁN istrative law, philosophy of law, etc. This isolation occurs at
AND many levels. Ideas are rarely discussed in shared forums, ac-
CARMEN VÁZQUEZ ademic journals are aimed at readers and contributors from
a single department or area, and even the literature consult-
ed to prepare papers is often produced by other researchers
Web: in the same area. This tendency has a high cost, clearly re-
https://jferrerbeltran.academia.edu flected in the quality of the results. Many of the issues stud-
https://girona.academia.edu/CarmenVázquez
ied require a multidisciplinary perspective. Any approach
that limits an expansive viewpoint is partial one, and runs
the risk of encouraging theories that would be untenable
from a more comprehensive perspective. Moreover, debates
and developments in one area of knowledge often provide
constructive contributions to others.
This division of legal studies into separate departments
occurs to a yet greater extent between legal and non-legal
disciplines. All too often, law is studied in total isolation
from theory in the social sciences, from philosophy and,
even more so, from empirical studies.
This situation—not at all conducive to the development
of knowledge—contrasts sharply with Susan Haack’s ap-
proach and highlights one of the outstanding characteris-
tics of her scholarship: working across disciplinary bound-
aries. From her publications in the philosophy of logic
(which is extremely useful for legal applications of deontic
logic) through her work in the philosophy of science (which
bears significantly on evidential legal reasoning) to her ideas
about proof of causation or expert evidence, Susan Haack’s
work bridges disciplines and cuts across knowledge bound-
aries. Beyond this, it has focused on many relevant meta-
disciplinary issues such as the problems of peer review and
the acceptance of academic papers or the perverse incentives
used to evaluate individual researchers or teaching or re-
search centres. Needless to say, Haack’s body of work is ex-
tensive in scale and, especially, scope.
A second point that we would like to make concerns the
impact of Haack’s work on evidence and proof theories be-
ing developed in Ibero-American countries. Until twenty
years ago, scholars’ approach to evidential problems was for-
mal and dogmatic. During the last two decades, however, it
has become more common to view evidence for judicial pro-
ceedings from an epistemological perspective. Haack’s work
on the philosophy of science and her numerous articles on
legal evidence have considerably influenced this emerging
view and the principal Ibero-American authors in the area.
This has led to a substantial number of invitations to partici-

For Susan Haack 77

 COSMOS + TAXIS

pate in events and conferences, where the quality of Haack’s arguments is enhanced by her distinctive sense
of humour.
This impact of Susan Haack’s work on the academic community of legal scholars in Ibero-America was
rightfully acknowledged a few months ago by the Chair in Legal Culture of the University of Girona with
the presentation of the International Award for Legal Culture 2020. The award ceremony gave Haack the
opportunity to visit us again and to present the Spanish edition of her book, Filosofía del derecho y de la
prueba. Perspectivas pragmatistas, translated by Carmen Vázquez, and published in the Filosofía y Derecho
series, by Marcial Pons, co-edited by Jordi Ferrer.
Susan Haack’s thorough editing of her academic writings, including translations, compares only to her
dedication and generosity of effort. This generosity led her to overcome physical limitations, and even the
challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, to join us in March, for the fourth time in nine years. She had been
here previously to take part in the Standards of Proof and Scientific Evidence workshop (2011), to serve
on the board of examiners for the doctoral thesis of Carmen Vázquez (2014) and to give various seminars
in the first edition of the Master’s in Evidential Legal Reasoning (2017). The video library available on the
Chair in Legal Culture’s YouTube channel is a record of those contributions.
Our love and appreciation for Susan is a token of our gratitude to her for a rigorous academic example,
always accompanied by smiles and hugs.

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Haackers are a rare breed. It is much easier to encounter a

How to be a hacker than a Haacker, but that extra vowel makes a con-
Good Haacker siderable difference. For instance, the former tends to stick
rigidly to only one perspective—in particular, a chosen con-
ceptual scheme. Typical hacking may also include an overre-
liance on science and the unique viewpoint that comes with
BARTOSZ BROŻEK it. But Haackers are not like that. When they Haack, they
are ready to change perspectives, take advantage of various
Web: https://jagiellonian.academia.edu/ tools and tackle quite different problems. They pay attention
BartoszBrozek
to the technical language they use, but without fetishizing it.
They cherish science, but within reason. They do not stick to
one logic only, since they know very well that any logic, even
a deviant one, may prove useful.
The most impressive trait in Haackers is their devotion
to the discussion and solution of genuine problems. They
never seek to show the fatal flaw in one system or another,
a strategy which may be easily exploited to gain fame, mon-
ey or merely ridicule one’s adversary. They do not compile
long lists of the errors that plague the programs developed
by their colleagues. They do not seek out a back door, but
march right up to the front, armed only with a smile tinged
with a hint of irony.
They despise all kinds of fundamentalism. An unshak-
able belief in a theory or a method is as alien to them as em-
bracing various fashionable ‘isms’. Yet they also know that
nothing can be built without being somehow anchored,
however provisionally. The most coherent construct just
hanging there in the air has as much connection to reality
as campaign promises to real commitments. There is no evi-
dence for either. And evidence matters.
A Haacker’s favorite desktop application is defrag.exe.
But the point is not only to keep one’s files in order. It is
much more important to have a general overview of the
available applications, helping to see how they may interlock
and cooperate with one another more clearly. For a Haack-
er, fragmentation is a symptom of a dysfunctional mind, not
merely of a disarrayed and underperforming hard drive.
There are times when the attitude of a Haacker may
seem painfully pragmatic, almost akin to old-fashioned
priggery. Yet at its heart is a pragmatism of the best sort, as
it used to be long time ago. It is the rejection of dogmatism
and false dichotomies, coupled with a healthy distrust of a
priori considerations and the belief that we are tasked with
ensuring a constant growth of meaning. A Haacker seeks
answers by carefully identifying the practical consequences
of his or her views, not by looking into the (allegedly broken)
mirror of nature.

How to be a Good Haacker 79

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Haackers prefer cats over dogs. Some people claim that this is connected with the fact that Jean Jacques
Rousseau, no hero to the Haacker, had been unable to survive without the company of his dog. Howev-
er, this seems to be a far-fetched explanation and it seems much more likely that cats are so cherished by
Haackers because they symbolize character traits which are dear to any Haacker: autonomy, independence
and the tendency to hunt alone. Like cats, Haackers are not pack animals.
Another mystery surrounding Haackers is their love of crossword puzzles. Not the love of such puzzles
in itself but rather that Haackers are not particularly interested in solving them successfully. Instead, they
are fascinated by the very mechanism behind crossword puzzles, as if it were capable of illustrating some
eternal truth. Fortunately, this little quirk is quite innocent. It only gives them an edge in Jeopardy! when
the clue reads ‘Arthur Wynne’.
I do not want to leave the Reader with the impression that to be a good Haacker means only caring
about genuine problems, steering the middle way between the Scylla of foundationalism and the Charybdis
of coherentism, opposing fragmentary worldviews and highly specialized nonsense, and solving crossword
puzzles under the baleful supervision of one’s cat. Haacking is much more than that. It is about passion: for
the serious exercises of the mind rather than the frivolous, for the truth—however weird or innocent it may
turn out to be—and most of all for moderation in all things intellectual. When you choose to be passion-
ately moderate, you take the first step to becoming a Haacker.

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I have had the good fortune of meeting Susan Haack per-

Preposterism vs. sonally, and my encounters with her have had a profound
The Pursuit of Truth impact, not only on my understanding of philosophical is-
sues and positions, but on my own practice and teaching of
philosophy. Unquestionably, my encounters with Haack’s
texts, and with her, have made me a better professional; and
ANA LUISA PONCE MIOTTI I see no better space than this Festschrift to reflect on a top-
ic that has concerned and occupied Susan Haack for some
Web: https://uxdexalapa.academia.edu/ years. I refer to her work on intellectual ethics and the situa-
AnaLuisaPonceMiotti
tion of research in the field of philosophy.
Susan Haack is one of the brightest minds in philoso-
phy today. Her work has shaped the agendas of logic, the
philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, the
philosophy of science, and the philosophy of law. But what
strikes one the most about her work is the great coherence
and cohesion of her thinking, so that each area of ​​knowl-
edge in which he has worked is mutual supportive of the
others, and is at some point interwoven with the others.
In this sense, it becomes very difficult to talk about Haack
without doing her vast work a certain degree of injustice.
Having had personal contact with our author of hon-
our and having been fortunate enough to carry out publica-
tion projects with her, I have got to know her way of work-
ing and the exhaustive care she puts into each text, whether
for a renowned magazine or for a presentation at some lit-
tle-known university. This care has extended to something
that many philosophers today lack; an aesthetics of writing,
which made her entirely worthy of the Ulysses medal from
the University of Dublin in 2009.
This why I would here like to dwell on one profound
and highly penetrating line of thought—though all of
Haack’s inquiries and reflections fit these descriptions—
pertaining to the hard work of philosophical inquiry, which
has radically transformed the way I understand, take up,
and carry out work in this area of knowledge.
The way in which Haack’s criticism of the current state
of philosophical inquiry has affected me positively has its
counterpart in how philosophy is conceived and carried
out in our Latin American countries. A metaphor of Carlos
Pereda illustrates this reality very well: in Latin America
there is a “branch office fever." We study at world-renowned
universities, are trained in certain authors and theories, and
open a branch in some Latin American university devoted
to what we have learned:1 “Once the intellectual shop is up
and running, it is set for life, operating in a slavishly dis-
ciplined manner, phenomenological, hermeneutic, logical-
positivist, post-analytic, postmodern ...” (Pereda 2017, 63).
This way of doing philosophy is absolutely foreign to
the principles that Peirce offers us: to develop any and every

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 COSMOS + TAXIS

inquiry that might be taken to be valuable, principles that Susan Haack takes up and from which serve as a
starting point for her thinking. The interesting thing about these principles, and the thinking that derives
from them, is that they are rooted in ethical conditions rather than in intellectual abilities, conditions that,
nevertheless, have direct effects on the kind of reasoning involved in pursuing philosophical understand-
ing.
Susan Haack identifies two types of so-called inquirers whose interests and motivation are a real ob-
stacle to knowledge. The fake inquirer (or reasoner) on the one hand, and the sham inquirer/reasoner on the
other. At first glance we might think of these two adjectives as synonymous, but Haack makes distinctions
worth noting. The fake inquirer defends the truth of propositions for the sake of some extraneous benefit,
for example of reputation, while not having an opinion about whether the propositions are in fact true or
false, or indeed having any other attitude in particular towards them in themselves. Because of this, fake
inquirers will obfuscate and hide behind “affected obscurity." By contrast, the sham inquirer defends the
truth of propositions to which he is already committed. His real interest is in amassing evidence, argument,
and proof in favour of the propositions he defends, which means that he will avoid examining evidence that
contradicts them too closely, will devalue it, or minimize its importance (S. Haack, 1998, 190).
The values and qualities required to do good work in philosophy appear to have been skewed; the peace
of mind, creativity, patience, and time required for true philosophical effort have been replaced by the busi-
ness and administrative skills needed to manage high-budget projects with an eye to efficiency and produc-
tivity. These distorted values are fomented, even celebrated, by university institutions as they have evolved
in recent years and decades. The majority of Latin American universities have added to what is expected of
their academics and researchers the ability to generate material resources. A good philosophical inquirer
is no longer one who contributes to the generation of high quality knowledge, with a significant impact
among the work of his colleague, and to the training of future professionals in philosophy, but—I would
dare say that, mainly—a good researcher is instead one capable of garner mega projects with large budgets
with respect to which actual research work will take a back seat to the administration of material resources,
to political relations, and to sheer power.
This immersion of philosophy in “a culture of grants and research projects”, in imitation of the scienc-
es, creates favorable ground for the fakery and sham reasoning of which Haack speaks. It is an inhospita-
ble environment for the fragile intellectual integrity required for genuine discovery. Long-term intellectual
work, with uncertain results that can end in dead ends is overshadowed by exaggerated results, half-truths
and absolute exaggerations about what has been achieved (S. Haack, 1998, 194-195). In drawing attention
to this, Haack identified something fundamental; that the real problem lies, not with individual inquirers
and their intellectual capacities and respect for genuine investigation, but in the inhospitable context for
bringing ethical intellectual work to fruition: a context capable of extirpating intellectual virtue in those
immersed in it from the beginning.
When choosing trivial topics, promising easily obtainable results, is encouraged, rewarded, and incen-
tivized; and when problems are disguised rather than confronted, and strategies for dealing with them gov-
erned by fashion, allure, surprising obscurity or confusion, as opposed to deep, difficult and painful clarity
we are, says Haack, in a hostile and unfertile environment for good research (S. Haack, 1998, 191-192).
Borrowing the term from Jacques Barzun, and giving the concept a Peircean dimension, Haack calls
the specious reasoning that gives rise to and encompasses these ways of exercising philosophy “preposter-
ism” (S. Haack, 1998, 188). Sham inquiry and fake inquiry are preposterous because what comes first is
what should come last: preposterous reasoning seeks in advance to find arguments for the truth of proposi-
tions determined in advance.
As I hinted above, however, Haack’s work on the ethics of inquiry and what it takes to be a good phi-
losopher is focused primarily not on finding fault with individual reasoners, but on the shaping force of
institutional policies that undermine the virtues that enable the sort of inquiry desired in philosophy. It’s
in institutional contexts that the “preposterization” of the practice of philosophy exercise is most evident,
in promoting the inversion of values that holds sway in this field of knowledge. Virtues such as intellectual

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honesty, persistence, good judgment in discriminating good work from shaky and shallow work, concen-
tration, among other virtues, are hampered by the reigning demands, pressures, evaluations, and types of
incentives. The result is not only bad philosophers but bad philosophy (Derpmann, Düber, Meyer, Rojek
2016, 150).
Where is the chief pressure and demand of this institutional context? In the concept “productivity”,
something more appropriate, as Haack observes, for the manufacture of widgets than the advancement
of knowledge. Productivity is what we see reflected in the ranking of publications, the ability to generate
resources through mega projects whose problems or themes are seductive and alluring or passing fads or
in the proliferation of publications in prestigious journals considered as vehicles more of the validation of
authors than the dissemination of knowledge. These demands and standards of productivity disrupt the
virtues and values that underpin intellectual work of quality and provoke, on the contrary, a “pandemic of
sham reasoning” (Haack 1996, 1414-1415).
The consequence of this state of affairs for Latin American philosophy is devastating. On the one hand,
most of the agendas of fashionable, attractive, problems require one, as Pereda points out, to be open, very
open “to what is coming” (Pereda 2017, 63-64) with ephemeral and low-impact projects whose agendas ar-
rive, with a delay of a few decades, from outside Latin America. On the other hand, one of the most fre-
quently employed strategies for achieving those rankings and major publications, and this is not limited to
the Latin American context, is to focus one’s academic life on the study of a single author or the discussion
of problems in hyper-specialized fields.2 This type of research often restricts itself to interpretations and re-
interpretations, criticisms and defenses of very narrow points pertaining to extremely limited problems, so
that its sphere of philosophical interest extends only to a very limited community. This absence of impetus
to the advancement of knowledge does not worry such researchers too much because the core purpose of
their work is to support their CVs, or the obtaining of academic positions, or status in their home depart-
ments and universities.
Dark though the outlook may be, Susan Haack’s reflections are a call, an opportune cry that demands
radical, and, it should be noted, difficult transformations of a culture that prioritizes the quantitative over
the qualitative, with profound implications for professional development and intellectual work. Betting on
the values, virtues and paths that lead to serious research and good philosophical work can mean a reduc-
tion in recognition, collaboration, publications and jobs.
For these reasons, intellectual integrity can be a extremely difficult to sustain in an adverse environ-
ment. But as Sara Barrena affirms in an excellent piece on the academic ethics of Susan Haack, “what should
give meaning to academic life is the joint effort to get to the truth, inquiry motivated by the desire to know”
(Barrena 2018, 459). In Peircean terms, the chief engine for intellectual integrity is the authentic desire to
learn.
In the face of this great challenge with which Susan Haack’s reflections confront us, with and the pos-
sible institutional consequences for individual professional development, I close with exhortation from
Haack prompted by the question whether criticism and denunciation of her opinions has not led to her be-
ing surrounded by enemies: “better ostracism than ostrich-ism” (Nemko 2016). This response not only in-
vites us to emulate her high intellectual and ethical conduct, but admirably sums up the remarkable quality
of Professor Susan Haack’s work.3

Preposterism vs. The Pursuit of Truth 83

 COSMOS + TAXIS

NOTES

1. Pereda applies this metaphor, or vice in his words, to all philosophical thought in Spanish. In this text I will limit
my reflection to the Latin American philosophical context based on the academic ethics of Susan Haack.
2. Susan Haack (2013) has a deep and timely reflection on the problem of hyper-specialization in “Out of step. Aca-
demic ethics in a preposterous environment."
3. I wish to thank Mark Migotti for inviting me to contribute to this Festschrift for Susan Haack and for his kind
help with previous drafts.

REFERENCES
Barrena, Sara. 2018. Susan Haack and academic ethics: in defense of genuine research. In: Philosophical Studies, Ponce
Miotti, Ana L. (ed.). Vol. LXVII - No. 196.
Haack, Susan. 1998. Preposterism and Its Consequences. In: Manifesto Passionate Moderate. Unfashionable Essays. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press.
. 2013. Out of Step. Academic Ethics in a Preposterous Environment. In: Putting Philosophy to work—Essays on
science, Religion, Law, Literature, and life. Inquiry and Its Place in Culture. Buffalo: Prometheus Books.
. 2016. La ética del intelecto: un acercamiento peirceano. Anuario Filosófico, 1996 (29):1413-1443.
. 2016. Ethics in the Academy: Response to Dominik Düber, Simon Deppmann, Thomas Meyer, and Tim Rojek. In:
Göhner and Jung (eds.) Susan Haack: Reintegrating Philosophy, Münster Lectures in Philosophy 2. Cham: Springer.
Derpmann, Düber and Meyer, Rojek. 2016. Evaluating Philosophy: Susan Haack’s Contribution to Academic Ethics. In:
Göhner and Jung (eds.) Susan Haack: Reintegrating Philosophy, Münster Lectures in Philosophy 2. Cham: Springer.
Nemko, Marti. 2016. Putting Philosophy to Work: An Interview With Susan Haack. http://martynemko.blogspot.
com/2016/12/putting-philosophy-to-work-interview.html. Retrieved on March 15, 2020.
Pereda, Carlos. 2010. Thinking in Spanish: a pseudo problem? But what is behind it? Euphyía, Vol. 4, No. 6, 59-80.

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Susan Haack: On 1. INTRODUCTION

Pineapples, Puzzles and Finding and solving pineapples

Real-Life Philosophy I have been reading Susan Haack’s work since 2009, but it
wasn’t until 2012 that I got to meet her personally. When
I think of ways to describe her, two scenes strike my mind
almost immediately, both of which involve joyful moments
VITOR DE PAULA RAMOS that I had with her in Porto Alegre. The first was when she
was amused by a parked truck full of pineapples, and I ex-
plained to her that “abacaxi” (the Portuguese word for pine-
Web: https://ufrgs.academia.edu/
VitordePaulaRamos apple) has a figurative meaning here in Brazil: when we Bra-
zilians have a problem, we say “I have a pineapple to solve.”
Susan found that very funny and later even published a pa-
per1 in which she mentions this scene. The other occasion
was when she asked me what was written on the sign we
see posted on all elevator doors in Brazil. “Before entering
the elevator, make sure it is on the same floor as you are.”
I answered. Again, she found it hilarious, and together we
laughed at the incongruity.
Those scenes speak volumes about Susan—about how
curious, amused, and interested she is in culture, real life
and how everything works. Susan aims to truly understand
the world; empty exercises of intelligence are definitely not
for her. As Susan herself puts it, “epistemologists (...) have to
get past their self-absorption and focus on the real world.”2
This is a serious matter for her: if you don’t have an actu-
al problem (as is the case with the “problem” the incongru-
ous sign on the elevator door intends to “solve”), then you
have nothing to worry about (nor to inquire or develop phi-
losophy about). When you have a question, a problem to be
solved—a pineapple, as it were—then and only then is in-
quiry indeed worth it.

2. THE BEST INQUIRER FOR THE JOB

MIGHT BE… SOMEONE WHO IS
PREPARED, SOMEONE WHO RUNS
SUCCESSFUL INQUIRIES

This leads us to the same, only different. A crucial point

about Susan and her work, then, is that the way she sees
epistemology/philosophy/science does not put epistemolo-
gists/philosophers/scientists in a any kind of hierarchy. Ev-
erybody has problems to solve every day, and, therefore,
anyone can theoretically become an inquirer: yes, a scien-
tist, a detective, an investigative journalist, an historian,3
but also someone who simply wants to find out why his/her

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 COSMOS + TAXIS

second bromeliad died, so as to prevent the others from dying as well. The desire to solve the questions that
reality poses is the same for tribesmen and for scientists.4
However, Susan never meant that everyone should go into philosophy/science/epistemology.5 In fact,
she reckons that creative philosophical thought is a “quite rare and unusual talent,”6 and thus, actual merit
is the best way to have the most prepared person doing the job. Susan acknowledges, for example, that there
have been many situations in which, as a woman, she has experienced awkward and unfair situations.7 Un-
derstandably, she took offense in those moments. And yet it was not because she believed there is a “female
way of knowing”;8 but rather because she thinks that “no one should be excluded from a scientific career (or
from any other, I am sure she would say) on the basis of irrelevant considerations such as race, sex, or eye
color”.9 After all, first and foremost, inquiry involves being prepared and having talent (like hers, I would
add).
True inquiry, however, is not only about being prepared; it also involves extensive work.10 This, again,
is what she herself has always done with her own ideas by creating, testing, retesting etc. It is what she did
when she understood that she would have to learn a lot about a specific field of science to test her theoreti-
cal approaches,11 for instance. Or when she developed a general idea of inquiry and presented it in Evidence
and Inquiry, and in Manifesto, and, later when she further developed and applied it to science, in Defending
Science, and to law, in Evidence Matters; always developing “rules, or, better, guidelines, for the conduct of
inquiry” and figuring out “what environments are supportive of, and what hostile of, successful inquiry.”12
This passion for the truth (and consequently for true inquiry) is also what made her choose a difficult
and harsh path for herself, aiming precisely at the independence she suggested all true inquirers should
pursue. In her own words: “I am beholden to no clique or citation cartel; I put no stock in the ranking of
philosophy graduate programs over which my colleagues obsess; I accept no research or travel funds from
my university; I avoid publishing in journals that insist on taking all the rights to my work; etc., etc. Natu-
rally, this independence comes at a price; but it also earns me the freedom to do the best work I can.”13

3. COMPLETING THE ENTRIES OF A NEVER-ENDING CROSSWORD PUZZLE

Susan recognizes that the real-life crossword puzzles (using her own analogy) can be non-ending: an enor-
mous puzzle with some entries “in almost-indelible ink, (…) some in pencil (…). Some are in English, some
in Swahili (…) Some entries were completed hundreds of years ago (…), some only last week”.14 What is
interesting about knowledge, as Susan highlights, is the way “each new step in understanding potentially
enables others”15 (something discovered in genetics can later be used in new technologies for boats, for in-
stance). Curiously enough, this is precisely how Susan’s work became so important to many different areas
beyond general Philosophy and general Epistemology, such as physics, history, epidemiology, law and so on.
Given that she’s interested in how to make inquiry successful, her ideas are useful in several fields. She is,
therefore, not only completing her own puzzle, but also enabling other people to interlock their entries with
hers.
That is where scholars like me come in. In the field of evidential reasoning in law, which is my area of
expertise, her contributions are vast. Michele Taruffo,16 one of the fathers of the new School of Evidential
Reasoning in civil law countries, explicitly based many of his thoughts and theories on the clues that Susan
had completed: foundherentism, the idea that warrant comes in degrees; the importance of previously ob-
tained knowledge; the importance of combined evidence; the importance of comprehensiveness etc. Jordi
Ferrer, the caposcuola of Girona, developed his thesis about the rational evaluation of evidence by interlock-
ing his ideas with Susan’s: about relevance, about the ways in which mathematical probabilities cannot be
used in Law, and about the null role that subjective beliefs play on the degree of warrant. Carmen Vázquez,
writing about expert testimony,17 also elaborated on many of Susan’s ideas, such as the importance of expert
communities, the error of trying to draw a clear line between science and “non-science”, and the problems
with Daubert’s trilogy. What is more, in many ways, her work actually seems intended to answer questions

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that Susan had raised in both Defending Science and Evidence Matters.18 I, too, follow in many of her foot-
steps. Writing about the burden of proof,19 for example, I stood on Susan’s shoulders when stating that Bra-
zilian civil procedure didn’t pay serious enough attention to comprehensiveness, and I then tried to develop
ways of improving it. My most recent work on Witness Testimony20 is also rooted in her ideas and attempts
to add new entries to her entries in the never-ending crossword on how, while evaluating the evidence, sub-
jective impressions of the fact-finder about the testimony shouldn’t have any weight, on how we need to use
knowledge from other areas to improve our legal systems etc.
Furthermore, in the invaluable contributions in Evidence Matters, we find yet another very interesting
aspect of Haack’s thought. As she once put it, fallible and imperfect as it may be, “science (and we could say,
more generally, inquiry) is a manifestation of the human mind at its cognitive best.”21 Hence every inquiry,
and every inquirer, has natural limitations. That is precisely why I reckon that some of the answers she of-
fers about the Law, the only field where my crossword puzzle might have a few more entries completed than
Susan’s, indicate some of her own incomplete entries.22 For instance, her answers might benefit from inter-
locking with further entries from comparative law and in the general theory of law. And this just makes me
admire both Susan and her work more and more. After all, inquiries can only be made by humans. And,
yes, she’s right again when she says that we “feel threatened (..) both by the successes of science [of philoso-
phy, of epistemology, of inquiries…] and by its failures; not surprisingly, perhaps, since it, and we, are only
human.”23 As for Susan, yes, she is only human; but an absolutely outstanding, talented and hardworking
one. She is truly one of a kind.

NOTES

1. Haack, Susan. “Mind the Analytical Gap. Tracing a Fault Line in Daubert.” In: Wayne Law Review, Vol. 31, No. 3,
2016.
2. Vázquez, Carmen. “Entrevista a Susan Haack.” In: DOXA, Cuadernos de Filosofía del Derecho, 36 (2013) ISSN:
0214-8676 pp. 573-586.
3. Haack, Susan. “The Long Arm of Common Sense.” In: Defending Science—Within Reason. New York: Pro-
metheus Books, 2003, p. 98.
4. Haack, Susan. “Multiculturalism and Objectivity.” In: Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993, p. 145.
5. In her interview with Richard Carrier, when asked if she would encourage women to pursue advanced degrees in
philosophy, she eloquently said that she would not encourage women or any other people, “independently of be-
ing male, female, white, black, green, or purple!”. Carrier, Richard. Interview with Susan Haack. May, 2012. Avail-
able at: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/1207. Accessed on March 13th, 2020.
6. Haack, Susan. “Science as Social? Yes and No.” In: Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993, p. 104.
7. The episode in which a boy at school stated that “everyone knows girls can’t do chemistry” (Haack, Susan.
“Knowledge and Propaganda: Reflections of an Old Feminist.” In: Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 123); another such situation happened when, after receiving the congratula-
tory first at Oxford (that she attributes to the University’s policy of blind evaluation), she heard that the examiners
had asked for her exams to be revised because the author “couldn’t be a woman” (Vázquez, Carmen. “Entrevista a
Susan Haack”. In: DOXA, Cuadernos de Filosofía del Derecho, 36 (2013), pp. 573-586); and yet another, when she
felt obliged to explain to a chairman in a job interview that she didn’t hope to be a good professor just for the fe-
male students, but also for the male ones (Haack, Susan. “The best man for the job may be a woman… and other
alien thoughts on affirmative action in the academy.” In: Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 168).
8. Haack, Susan. “Knowledge and Propaganda: Reflections of an Old Feminist.” In: Manifesto of a Passionate Moder-
ate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 125.

Susan Haack: On Pineapples, Puzzles and Real-Life Philosophy 87

 COSMOS + TAXIS

9. Haack, Susan. “Science as Social? Yes and No.” In: Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993, p. 114.
10. Haack, Susan. “The Long Arm of Common Sense.” In: Defending Science—Within Reason. New York: Prometheus
Books, 2003, p. 96.
11. See, for example, Carrier, Richard. Interview with Susan Haack. May, 2012. Available at: https://www.richardcar-
rier.info/archives/1207.
12. Haack, Susan. “Knowledge and Propaganda: Reflections of an Old Feminist.” In: Manifesto of a Passionate Mod-
erate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 130-131.
13. Carrier, Richard. Interview with Susan Haack. May, 2012. Available at: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/
1207.
14. Haack, Susan. “The Long Arm of Common Sense.” In: Defending Science—Within Reason. New York: Prometheus
Books, 2003, pp. 93-94.
15. Haack, Susan. “The Long Arm of Common Sense.” In: Defending Science—Within Reason. New York: Prometheus
Books, 2003, p. 98.
16. See, for example, Taruffo, Michele. La Semplice Verità. Il Giudice e la Costruzione dei Fatti. Roma: Laterza, 2009,
and also Taruffo, Michele. “La Valutazione delle Prove.” In: Id., La Prova nel Processo Civile. Milano: Giuffrè,
2012.
17. Vázquez, Carmen. De la Prueba Científica a la Prueba Pericial. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2015.
18. See, for example, Haack, Susan. “The Troubled Marriage of Science and Law.” In: Evidence Matters. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 78.
19. Paula Ramos, Vitor de. Ônus da Prova no Processo Civil. [2015] 2nd. Edition. São Paulo: RT, 2018.
20. Paula Ramos, Vitor de. Prova Testemunhal. São Paulo: RT, 2018. Also in Spanish: Paula Ramos, Vitor de. La Prue-
ba Testifical. Trad. Laura Criado. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2019.
21. Haack, Susan. “What Man Can Achieve When He Really Puts His Mind to It.” In: Defending Science—Within
Reason. New York: Prometheus Books, 2003, p. 325.
22. For example, when characteristics of the American legal system are overgeneralized (“when the evidence that a
drug or chemical is dangerous is overwhelming, plaintiffs’ claims are likely to be settled out of court,” p. 94), or
when stating that “the law relies on an adversarial procedure” (p. 91), which is not the case in civil law systems.
Or when making affirmations that seem to oversimplify legal interpretation (Nothing Fancy: Some Simple Truths
about Truth in the Law, specially from p. 313 on). Haack, Susan. Evidence Matters. New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2014.
23. Haack, Susan. “What Man Can Achieve When He Really Puts His Mind to It.” In: Defending Science—Within
Reason. New York: Prometheus Books, 2003, p. 325.

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Professor Susan Haack is one of the top philosophers in the

Not Only Words world. It is a great good fortune for legal evidence scholars
that at some point she took an epistemological interest in le-
gal philosophy. Today, the impact of Haack’s epistemologi-
RACHEL HERDY cal lessons for the law exceeds the frontiers of the common-
law tradition; and I feel honored and privileged to have
Web: https://rherdy.academia.edu contributed to the dissemination of these ideas.
I first met Professor Haack in 2007, in São Leopoldo,
Brazil. She was scheduled to present the plenary lecture of
the 1st Meeting of the Brazilian Analytic Philosophy Associ-
ation. Before the event, I sent her an e-mail introducing my-
self and my research, and expressing my hope of working
with her. I was a legal scholar writing a Ph.D. dissertation
on the evolution of Charles Sanders Peirce’s thought about
the normative sciences. After exchanging a couple of mes-
sages, she asked me if I could translate a short hand-out for
her coming talk. I said yes, of course; and next thing I was
in São Leopoldo, a small city in Southern Brazil, spontane-
ously greeting Professor Haack with a kiss on her cheek—
something that would never happen again. Upon getting to
know her, I realized that the traditional, exuberant Brazil-
ian kiss on the cheek wasn’t compatible with her moderate,
more sober English style.
The encounter above marked the beginning of a long
and prosperous relationship. Professor Haack supervised
my doctorate research abroad, and in the years that fol-
lowed I translated some of her philosophical and legal work
into Portuguese—two articles, an interview, and perhaps
her most sharp and engaging book, Manifesto of a Passion-
ate Moderate: Unfashionable Essays. In supervising my doc-
toral research and in revising my translation of her work,
Professor Haack educated me.
In 2008 I received a scholarship that allowed me to
spend the academic year as a visiting researcher at the Uni-
versity of Miami School of Law. Professor Haack’s willing-
ness to take an active part in my philosophical research
surprised me. After all, I was just a visiting internation-
al researcher, not formally registered with her institution.
Despite her numerous academic responsibilities, Professor
Haack received me in her office every Friday at 3pm. We
would talk about my research and her current projects; and
gossip about academic life. She encouraged me to send her
drafts with my work in progress and returned them with
several corrections in the margin in pen. This is not some-
thing you see very often in the academia. Senior professors
often stand on an inaccessible pedestal. I wasn’t expecting
to receive that kind of special attention. For the first time, I

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learned, with the most distinguished professor I had ever interacted with, that philosophical research and
writing shouldn’t be a lonely job.
When I returned to Brazil, I started to work on the translation of Manifesto. It was 2009, more than
a decade after its publication in 1998. Professor Haack wanted me to translate Defending Science—Within
Reason, which had been recently published. Defending Science continued to denounce a host of fashionable
projects that undermined the legitimacy of the epistemological enterprise as a whole, and it also advanced
Haack’s thoughts about the interactions between science and the law. But Manifesto was (and still is) for me
a special book. It’s a statement against a popular form of doing philosophy all too common in the academia;
and, besides that, Haack included a sarcastic and fascinating chapter displaying Peirce’s and Rorty’s philo-
sophical texts in conversation and disagreement. Translating Manifesto was a hard job, for I had not only
to deal with technical, philosophical language, but also to be faithful to Haack’s sharp prose and humor-
ous style. Once more, Professor Haack’s willingness to help me was surprising: she read every single word
I translated and correctly identified typos, syntactical errors, and even idiomatic problems in Portuguese.
Today, I recognize that perhaps the most important lesson Professor Haack taught me is how to con-
duct myself in academic life. You don’t need to be pedantic if you want to be a serious philosopher. I feel
lucky to have worked so close to Professor Haack; it was an extraordinary opportunity to appreciate her
academic qualities and (pragmatically) understand what is means to exercise those virtues of intellectual
integrity she so often requires from us. Professor Haack educated me with actions, not only words.

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The title of this brief piece offers the clearest of clues as to

Susan Haack: why Susan Haack is of interest to this journal’s readership.
A Passionate Moderate Whether or not Susan considers herself a liberal (in the clas-
sical sense of course), her concerns are certainly coextensive
with those of classical liberalism. That Susan is one of the
finest technical and most original philosophers of her gen-
LESLIE MARSH eration is a given. What I want to emphasize, though, is Su-
Managing Editor of Cosmos + Taxis san’s distinctiveness in poking her head above the parapet
in taking on illiberality—an illiberality that manifests it-
Department of Pathology and
Laboratory Medicine self in perennially hot topics, a Gordian knot of relativism,
The University of British Columbia Hospital multiculturalism, feminism, affirmative action, scientism,
junk science, the sociology of scientific knowledge, social
Web: https://manwithoutqualities.com constructivism, literary theory, epistemic privilege and
more besides—in Susan’s words, “activism masquerad-
ing as inquiry”. Post-Sokal it seemed that this “fashionable
nonsense” was in retreat. But it’s promoters were merely re-
grouping only to remerge in a big way two decades later. The
New Cynicism that Susan had identified twenty years ago,
is now even more ubiquitous within the academy and this
time round, has gained currency well beyond the university.
Inspired by the issues Susan raised in Manifesto of a
Passionate Moderate: Unfashionable Essays and Defending
Science—Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism, I
set up an analytically inclined journal that offered a forum
to take on the radical constructivists and &c. Along with the
late Anthony Quinton and Alvin Goldman, Susan formed
the core tripartite of EPISTEME’s launch at the British Acad-
emy. Susan came off a long flight from China suffering from
a nasty cold, and being the trouper that she is, went ahead
with her talk without missing a beat. I thoroughly enjoyed
Susan’s company when I saw her at an EPISTEME confer-
ence on evidence and law at Dartmouth in 2008. Chatting
about the philosophy department at the University of Mi-
ami over lunch I was struck about how forthright she was.
The last time I saw Susan was at The University of British
Columbia in 2011 when she delivered Sikora Lecture with a
thoroughly entertaining talk, opening up with the “Rums-
feld Problem.”
Susan is a paragon of intellectual virtue—independent-
minded and epistemically modest—without ever dispens-
ing with a commitment to approaching the truth. Unlike
the prevailing virtue-signaling sophists, Susan is not only a
philosopher’s philosopher but talks without condescension
to the proverbial man on the Clapham omnibus—other pas-
sionate moderates. Thank you Susan.

Susan Haack: A Passionate Moderate 91

 COSMOS + TAXIS

An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once

Not One of the Boys: said in my hearing: “There is very little difference
Memoir of an between one man and another; but what little there
is, is very important.”—William James (1890)1
Academic Misfit
In his heart every man knows very well that, being
unique, he will be in the world only once, and that
no imaginable chance will for a second time gath-
SUSAN HAACK er together in a unity so strangely variegated an as-
sortment as he is.—Friedrich Nietzsche (1874)2
Web: https://www.law.miami.edu/faculty/
susan-haack
Looking back over my fifty-plus years in the academy I real-
ize that—though I have always felt I chose the right career,
and have been doing the work I was made to do—I was nev-
er one of the boys; or one of the girls, either, for that matter. I
have always been something of a misfit.
For one thing, I never quite fitted in socially. Indeed, I
still recall the culture-shock when I first arrived in Oxford:
No one in my family had ever been to university; my accent
betrayed my lower-middle-class origins; I hadn’t, like most
of my classmates, attended a private school; and I wasn't
well-prepared for the level of work expected of me. I didn’t
even know what the meals were called—what I had grown
up calling “dinner” was “lunch,” and what I had grown
up calling “tea” was “dinner.” Quite unconsciously, I soon
learned to speak better; by dint of very hard work, I soon
caught up academically. But it wasn’t until many years lat-
er that I understood the extent to which Oxford was about
“contacts” and pedigree rather than education.3

1 William James, “The Importance of Individuals,” The Open

Court 4, no. 154 (August 1890): 24–37, reprinted in William
James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philos-
ophy (1897; New York: Dover, 1956), 255–62, 256–57.
2 Friedrich Nietzsche, “Schopenhauer as Educator” (1874), in
Untimely Meditations, trans. J. R. Hollingsworth (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993), 125–94, 127.
3 The penny finally dropped during a lunch with Lord Quinton,
Sir Alfred Ayer, and Sir Peter Strawson (the other members of
the small British contingent) at a 1988 conference at Wash-
ington University in St. Louis for Quine’s eightieth birthday.
The conversation turned to the applicants for a chair at Ox-
ford. Sir Peter, who was on the hiring committee, groaned
about one applicant: “Do I really have to read his boring
book?” he asked; to which Sir Freddie replied: “I don’t see
why, he didn’t even go to a proper school.” (Ayer went to Eton;
how far down the list of prestigious private boys’ schools the
© 2020 Susan Haack. All rights reserved concept of “proper school” reached, I don’t know to this day).

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And even much later, when I was an established professor, I felt awkward among colleagues and peers.
I’ve never been particularly good at small talk with people I hardly know;4 don’t care for beer, or cheap
wine, or the whisky that one chairman favored; detest those loud “receptions”; and never could disguise
how little I cared for discussions of soccer, cricket or, later, football, baseball, etc., or how uncomfortable
I was with those one-sided, mutually-reinforcing conversations about political issues, real and academic..
Moreover, I have learned over the years that I am temperamentally resistant to bandwagons, philosoph-
ical and otherwise; hopeless at “networking,” the tit-for-tat exchange of academic favors, “going along to get
along,” and at self-promotion; that I have very low tolerance for meetings where nothing I say ever makes
any difference to what happens; and that I am unmoved by the kind of institutional loyalty that appar-
ently enables many to believe in the wonderfulness of “our” students or “our” department or “our” school
or “our” university simply because they’re ours. Nor do I feel what I think of as gender loyalty, a sense that
I must ally myself with other women in my profession simply because they are women—any more than I
feel I must ally myself with any and every British philosopher simply because he or she is British. And I am,
frankly, repelled by the grubby scrambling after those wretched “rankings” that is now so common in phi-
losophy departments. In short, I’ve never been any good at academic politicking, in any of its myriad forms.
And on top of all this, I have the deplorable habit of saying what I mean, with neither talent for nor in-
clination to fudge over disagreements or muffle criticism with flattering tact, and an infuriating way of see-
ing the funny side of philosophers’ egregiously absurd or outrageously pretentious claims—that there are
no such things as beliefs,5 that it’s just superstitious to care whether your beliefs are true,6 that feminism
obliges us to “reinvent science and theorizing,”7 and so forth.
Most to the present purpose, though, I have never quite fitted in intellectually, either; somehow, both
my interests and my ideas have almost always managed to be out of the current fashion, and often out of the
mainstream altogether. From the beginning, just about, I seem to have been swimming against the intel-
lectual tide.
When I started, it was acknowledged, albeit somewhat grudgingly, that maybe, women could do phi-
losophy—preferably ethics, aesthetics, and such, supposedly the “softer” side of the subject. But I was al-
ready out of step;8 I found ethics impossibly hard—but as I learned logic, I found it more congenial, more

4 Now I remember a quite extraordinary conversation with Richard Rorty, when we found ourselves the first to ar-
rive for a lecture at a conference in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Trying to be civil but not too cordial—since we would
inevitably clash philosophically during the event—I asked whether his wife had accompanied him; she hadn’t, he
replied: “We’re bird-watchers, and Mary only comes when I’m going to a part of the world where there are birds
we’ve never seen before.” I was about to explode: “But look, you say there’s no such thing as the way the world is, so
what the heck do you mean, ‘parts of the world where there are birds we’ve never seen’?” Luckily, just then a pure
black hummingbird flew by, and the conversation was saved.
5 Paul Churchland, “Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes,” Journal of Philosophy 88, no. 2
(1981): 67–89; Stephen P. Stich, From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case against Belief (Cambridge,
MA: Bradford Books, 1985); Patricia Churchland, “Epistemology in the Age of Neuroscience,” Journal of Philoso-
phy 64, no. 10 (1987): 544–53. See also Susan Haack, Evidence and Inquiry, 2nd expanded ed. (1993; Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books, 2009), chap. 8.
6 Stephen P. Stich, The Fragmentation of Reason: Preface to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation (Cambridge
MA: Bradford Books, 1990) (by 1990, Stich had finally acknowledged that, after all, there are beliefs). See also
Haack, Evidence and Inquiry, chap. 9.
7 Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 252. Asked,
nearly a decade later, what breakthroughs feminist science had achieved, Harding replied that we had learned that
menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause aren’t diseases. Well, duh. See Colleen Cordes, “2 Scholars Examine
the ‘Bizarre War’ Against Science They Say is Being Waged by the Academic Left,” Chronicle of Higher Education,
April 27, 1994.
8 I use the phrase deliberately because, as we’ll see, when, many decades later, I ventured into writing about aca-

Not One of the Boys: Memoir of an Academic Misfit 93

 COSMOS + TAXIS

manageable, posing philosophical questions to which I might contribute. In fact, I still recall, after I’d writ-
ten a paper on deontic logic for my tutorial in ethics with her, Philippa Foot observing, quite kindly, “yes, I
see; this is obviously more your kind of thing!” And when I arrived in my first job, as a very junior lecturer
at New Hall, Cambridge, I did a deal with a neighboring college: I would teach the young men from St.
John’s logic, in exchange for Renford Bambrough’s teaching the young ladies from New Hall ethics. (One
of those young men, by the way, was Graham Priest, whom I taught logic from the propositional calculus
through Gödel’s theorem—though I’m glad to say that it was not I, but Richard Routley, who was respon-
sible for his later diversion into soi-disant “dialethic logic.”)
But even in logic I soon found myself still out of step: arguing, against Quine’s insistence that “prelogi-
cal peoples,” and hence deviant logics, were merely “mythical,” an invention of bad translators,9 that there
can be genuinely deviant logical systems, and even that it was possible that such a system might be better
than the classical Frege-Russell system. Now, however, I’m getting ahead of myself; before explaining why
my ideas have never been in the mainstream, I should say something about how those ideas evolved and
why the scope of my work turned out to be so much broader than most others’. For one of the ways in which
I’ve never quite fitted in intellectually is that, at a time when professional philosophy has gradually become
more and more hyper-specialized, my interests have grown broader and broader.

William James once described his philosophical work as “flights” (lectures and articles) and “perchings”
(books).10 The avian metaphor is lovely; but my version would be rather different. After the first flutterings,
my work seems to have been a matter of spreading my wings (extending my scope to new questions and new
fields), then landing and digging for something juicy (figuring out new details, new problems, new ways
to navigate unfamiliar territory), then swooping back (returning to older questions in light of what I have
spotted from the new perspective) and then, spreading my wings a bit more, moving on further, digging a
little deeper—and so on. In fact, you might describe my journey as a philosopher as Samuel Butler describes
Ernest Pontifex’s journey to intellectual maturity: as like the flight of a snipe,11 zig-zagging over many fields.
So, while I began in logic and philosophy of language, as soon as I was asked to teach the year-long
course on Epistemology and Metaphysics offered by the philosophy department at the University of War-
wick, I began spreading my wings as I thought, taught, and eventually wrote, about these new questions.
Around the same time, prompted by Quine’s casual dismissal of his observations about truth,12 I began
reading C. S. Peirce seriously; and was inspired to dig deeper as well as stretch further. So after Deviant
Logic13 and Philosophy of Logics,14 I started real epistemological work; eventually, after many years, finishing
Evidence and Inquiry.15

demic ethics, this became my title. Susan Haack, “Out of Step: Academic Ethics in a Preposterous Environment”
(2012), in Susan Haack, Putting Philosophy to Work: Inquiry and Its Place in Culture, 2nd ed. (Amherst, NY: Pro-
metheus Books, 2013), 251–68 (text) & 313–17 (notes).
9 W. V. Quine, “Carnap and Logical Truth,” in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, ed. P.A. Schilpp (La Salle, IL: Open
Court, 1963), 385–406, 387.
10 William James, “On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology,” Mind 9, no. 33 (1884):1–26, pp. 2–3.
11 Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh (1901; New York: Random House, 1998), 241 (I understand that a “snipe-hunt”
is the idiom for a wild-goose chase in Ohio).
12 W.V. Quine, Word and Object (Boston: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1960), 23.
13 Susan Haack, Deviant Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). A second, expanded edition was
published in 1996 under the title Deviant Logic, Fuzzy Logic: Beyond the Formalism (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 1996).
14 Susan Haack, Philosophy of Logics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).
15 Haack, Evidence and Inquiry.

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This book led to a whole raft of unexpected invitations to defend the objectivity of epistemic standards
against skeptics of many kinds, requiring me to spread my wings much further as I developed the sus-
tained response to postmodernist skepticism expressed in the essays in Manifesto of a Passionate Moder-
ate.16 Among my targets were radical feminist, post-colonialist, and sociological critiques of the pretensions
of the sciences to tell us something of how the world is; and so this critique led, in due course, to the even
more ambitious topics and themes of Defending Science—Within Reason,17 which offers an account not only
of the epistemology of science and its metaphysical presuppositions, but also of its place in society and its
relation to law, literature, and religion.
My involvement with questions about the law, like many of my philosophical turns, was almost pure
chance, fortuitous intellectual opportunism—in this instance, prompted by my discovering that a colleague
in the law school at the University of Miami was using my Evidence and Inquiry in a course on the analy-
sis of evidence. As I learned more about why my work was relevant to evidence scholars, I discovered that,
while I had a theory of evidence and its quality, the legal system was dealing on a daily basis with evidence
far more complex and tangled than any philosopher could imagine. So I have spent many years refining and
amplifying my foundherentist ideas as I applied them in the law, exploring the consequences of my critical
common-sensist philosophy of science for courts’ handling of expert testimony;18 and—glimpsing new pos-
sibilities out of the corner of my eye—gradually getting familiar with the work of Oliver Wendell Holmes,
Jr., and then developing my own neo-pragmatist philosophy of law.19 This involved, in part, thinking about
legal systems qua evolving social institutions, looping back to ideas I had earlier developed in metaphysics
and in philosophy of the social sciences.
By this time, I had been reading the old pragmatists for many years, and as a result my metaphysical
ideas had already moved well beyond the mainstream analytic focus on our language or our conceptual
schemes: My metaphysics, like my philosophy of science, is “worldly,” and so depends on experience; not,
however, the recherché experience needed by the sciences, but close attention to aspects of everyday experi-
ence so familiar we don’t usually notice them. This was the approach that led to my Innocent Realism, an
ontological picture—very different from the more familiar forms of realism—of a world best described as
a pluralistic universe.20 And this required me to return to issues from Evidence and Inquiry as I developed
and deepened the understanding of mind I had begun to sketch in response to Stich’s and the Churchlands’
skepticism about the very existence of beliefs and other propositional attitudes. Similarly, my thinking
about the role of logic, first in science and then in law, led me back to issues from Philosophy of Logics about

16 Susan Haack, Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate: Unfashionable Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1998).
17 Susan Haack, Defending Science—Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism (Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 2003).
18 Susan Haack, Evidence Matters: Science, Proof, and Truth in the Law (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2014).
19 Susan Haack, “On Legal Pragmatism: Where Does ‘The Path of the Law’ Lead Us?”, The American Journal of Ju-
risprudence 50 (2005): 71–105; “On Logic in the Law: ‘Something, but Not All,’” Ratio Juris 20, no. 1 (2007): 1–31;
“The Pluralistic Universe of Law: Towards a Neo-Classical Legal Pragmatism,” Ratio Juris 21, no. 4 (2008): 453–80;
“The Pragmatist Tradition: Lessons for Legal Theorists,” Washington University Law Review 95 (2018): 1049–82; “The
Pragmatist [Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.],” in The Pragmatism and Prejudice of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., ed. Seth
Vanatta (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2019), 169–89.
20 Susan Haack, “Realisms and Their Rivals: Recovering Our Innocence,” Facta Philosophica 4, no. 1 (March 2002): 67–
88; Susan Haack, “The World According to Innocent Realism: The One and the Many, the Real and the Imaginary,
the Natural and the Social” (2014), in Susan Haack: Reintegrating Philosophy, eds. Julia Göhner and Eva-Maria Jung
(Berlin: Springer, 2016), 33–58; Susan Haack, “Brave New World: Nature, Culture, and the Limits of Reduction-
ism,” in Explaining the Mind, eds. Bartosz Brozek, Jerzy Stelmach, and Łuckasz Kwiatek (Kraków: Copernicus
Center Press, 2018), 37–68.

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the scope and limits of formal methods.21 And teaching a class on philosophy and literature—I focused on
epistemological novels—was not only, like my many discussions with Meggan Padvorac, enormously enjoy-
able, but also led me to all kinds of interesting questions about intellectual integrity, misleading evidence,
sham reasoning, and so on.
Putting Philosophy to Work22 brought a good deal of this together, along with some wry reflections
about the state of my profession, rife as it now is with perverse incentives that gradually undermine the gen-
uine desire to figure things out without which serious philosophy is impossible. More recently still, noticing
a distinct rise of scientism in philosophy, as in our culture more generally, I returned to issues from Defend-
ing Science, to articulate just what this mistake is, what forms it takes, and what’s wrong with it.23 And of
late, after decades of wrestling with the ever more unreasonable demands of referees, editors, copy-editors
and, especially, academic publishers, I have turned my attention to the horrendous condition of academic
publishing.24
As I said, ever since I began reading Peirce seriously in the 1970s, my work has always been informed
by the insights of the classical pragmatist tradition—a distaste for the a priori method and a focus on the
world, a repudiation of false dichotomies and a search for continuities and, most relevant here, a lack of
concern for disciplinary and sub-disciplinary boundaries. The “AOS” and “AOC” of job advertisements and
résumés signal that the norm in our profession today is for most people to work in two or three areas at
most; and no doubt some think I’m all too given to trespassing on their proprietary territory. But real-
ly I’m just doing what’s needed to follow ideas and problems where they lead me, without much concern
for the boundaries of those professional specialties and sub-specialties.25 In consequence, though my path
occasionally crosses others’—the path of those soi-disant “virtue epistemologists,” for example, or of the
“epistemology of testimony” crowd, or the path of those scientistic atheists who ally themselves with the
“Brights,”26 and so on—I’ve always been the outsider.
Moreover, while my work has gradually become more and more interdisciplinary, it has somehow never
been interdisciplinary in any of the currently fashionable ways. I don’t do neurophilosophy, for example, or
philosophy of literature, or even philosophy of law, as these are usually understood today; and I have never
had any enthusiasm for those team-taught courses where faculty members from different departments talk
past each other and the students flounder. And of course I’m an outsider, too, in my attitude to the history
of philosophy, the study of which seems to be frankly despised by many in the analytic mainstream; and in
my pragmatism, which would have been readily recognizable to Peirce, James, Dewey, Mead, or to Sidney
Hook or Stan Thayer, for that matter, but is utterly unlike the Vulgar Pragmatism of Rorty and his follow-
ers, and far removed from the “Analytic” Pragmatism of Brandom and his disciples. (I won’t soon forget the
reaction when I mentioned George Herbert Mead’s important contributions to philosophy of mind in a talk
at NYU: “Mead? Where’s he?”—apparently my audience thought I was referring to some up-and-coming
contemporary philosopher of mind they somehow didn’t know about.) I don’t quite fit, even, in the circle of
Peirce scholars, James scholars, Dewey scholars, etc., though I have many valued friends among them; for

21 Susan Haack, “Formal Philosophy: A Plea for Pluralism” (2005), in Susan Haack, Putting Philosophy to Work: In-
quiry and Its Place in Culture, expanded ed. (2008; Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2013), 235–50 (text) & 310–
13 (notes).
22 Susan Haack, Putting Philosophy to Work, 2nd expanded ed. (2008; Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2013).
23 Susan Haack, “Six Signs of Scientism” (2010), in Haack, Putting Philosophy to Work, 105–20 (text) & 287-83 (notes);
Susan Haack, Scientism and Its Discontents (Rounded Globe, 2017).
24 Susan Haack, “The Academic-Publication Racket: Whatever Happened to Authors’ Rights?” Borderless Philosophy
2 (2019): 1–21.
25 Susan Haack, “The Fragmentation of Philosophy, the Road to Reintegration,” in Göhner and Jung, Susan Haack: Re-
integrating Philosophy, 3–32.
26 See, e.g., “The Brights’ Principles,” The Brights, accessed January 2, 2020, https://www.the-brights.net/vision/
principles.html.

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my concern has always been, not only to understand and interpret these remarkable thinkers of the past,
but to learn from them—to find, in their ideas, ways of tackling the problems I encounter in my work.

II

But it’s not just the scope and focus of my work, but also its content and its approach that don’t quite fit the
conventional mould. Indeed, even my style of writing—which, unlike the stilted, impersonal “social sci-
ence” style adopted by so many philosophers today, is direct, plain-spoken, and yet informal, conversation-
al, idiomatic, sometimes even humorous27—is far from the norm. But I’ll focus here on my philosophical
approach and the content of my work.
Even early on, while I was still concentrating primarily on logic and philosophy of language, I was
never tempted to participate in the “Davidsonic boom” that was then dominating British philosophy, nor
to sign up for the Kripke cult, or join to Popper’s band of disciples or the rival inductivist crew. While I was
concerned to grasp the technical complexities of Tarski’s theory of truth, I was never disposed to hope that
this theory would do all the philosophical work that Popper, or Davidson, expected of it. And while at this
time I was impressed (too impressed, I now believe) by Quine’s seductively smooth prose and the sense of
important philosophical substance his logical cleverness conveyed, I was no follower. I worked on the de-
viant logics he thought mythical; I also pointed out inconsistencies in his ideas about analyticity,28 worked
hard to figure out what reasons could possibly lie behind his dogmatic repudiation of quantified modal log-
ic, and asked questions about the epistemology and metaphysics of logic that he brushed aside with a rhe-
torical question: “if sheer logic is not conclusive, what is?”29 Indeed, the plural in the title of my Philosophy
of Logics itself revealed my off-center slant.
As I began writing Evidence and Inquiry, though, I found myself even more out of step with others in
the field. The false dichotomies here, I found, were even worse than those I’d encountered in my earlier logi-
cal work: foundationalism vs. coherentism, of course, but also internalism vs. externalism, logical vs. causal
approaches, evidentialism vs. reliabilism, apriorism vs. scientism, and so on. After a whole lot of work, I ar-
rived at my foundherentism, marrying the strong points of foundationalism and coherentism while avoid-
ing their weaknesses, and including both internal and external elements. My approach put evidence and
its quality center-stage, but at the same time was concerned to articulate the connection between a belief’s
being more, or less, justified by foundherentist standards and the likelihood of its being true. My approach
was also naturalistic, in the sense of allowing the contributory relevance of results from psychology, etc.,
to epistemology, but not in any sense scientistic. (Puzzling over “Epistemology Naturalized,” by this time I
had realized how skillfully Quine’s way of doing philosophy could disguise fatal ambiguities that blurred
genuine insights.) And so on.
The response of the epistemological mainstream was predictably defensive. Despite my having argued
in excruciating detail that foundherentism really is a new approach, some simply couldn’t escape the false
dichotomy of foundationalism vs. coherentism: Several authors were sure that I was really a covert founda-
tionalist; others were equally sure that I was really a covert coherentist. And as for evidentialism vs. relia-
bilism—well, my repudiation of this false dichotomy prompted a truly bizarre correspondence with Alvin
Goldman, who was apparently quite unable to escape its grip. First he sent me a draft paper in which he
described me as focusing exclusively on evidence and paying no attention to truth; in response to which
I politely pointed out that the last chapter of my book was precisely about the relation between evidential
quality and likely truth. In reply he sent me another draft, now describing me as a reliabilist like himself; in

27 I have written on the role of humor in philosophy in Susan Haack, “Serious Philosophy,” Spazio filosofico 18 (2016):
395–407.
28 Susan Haack, “Analyticity and Logical Truth in The Roots of Reference,” Theoria 42, no. 2 (1977): 129–43, reprinted
in Haack, Deviant Logic, Fuzzy Logic, 214–225.
29 W. V. Quine, Philosophy of Logic, 2nd ed. (1970; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 81.

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response to which I asked him, rather less politely, please to look at my chapter 7—devoted to a thorough-
going critique of reliabilism—and to remove his endnote thanking me for my help!
Though I touched briefly on issues about testimony and about the conduct of inquiry, Evidence and In-
quiry had focused primarily on the degree of justification of the beliefs of individual knowing subjects. In
the mainstream, however, interest in these crucial questions had waned rapidly—not, apparently, because
people believed solutions had been found, but because they were bored with them, and felt like moving on.
Mainstream attention turned to social epistemology and virtue epistemology—and, almost unbelievably,
back to Gettierology, which in 1993 I had thought was, thank goodness, in decline. (A decade earlier, I had
written a paper explaining why Gettier-type “paradoxes” were inevitable, and harmless, given the mismatch
between the gradational character of justification and the categorical character of knowledge; but I didn’t
think it worth publishing until the second, 2009, edition of Evidence and Inquiry, at the peak of a new Get-
tier boom.)30
However, despite the mostly dispiritingly defensive reception among specialists in epistemology, the
first edition of Evidence and Inquiry found many readers elsewhere, among philosophers in other areas, le-
gal scholars, natural scientists, economists, etc.—including some who pressed me to give a verdict on the
then-burgeoning new specialty of “feminist epistemology.” Wisely or not, I agreed; but concluded that, so
far as I could see, there was no such connection between feminism and epistemology as the rubric “feminist
epistemology” required. The idea that feminist epistemology would represent “women’s ways of knowing”
simply reintroduced old, indefensible sexist stereotypes; the idea that considerations of what was to wom-
en’s advantage should determine theory-choice would not only undermine inquiry by politicizing it, but
undermine the possibility even of determining what is to women’s advantage.
This didn’t make me popular with some professional feminists, who evidently thought that women in
philosophy should stick together—we might have our internecine disputes, but we must display our solidar-
ity in the face of the sexism they believed to be endemic in the field. I must, they concluded, be some kind
of reactionary, hostile to feminism. This was what I meant when I said I was never one of the girls, any more
than I was ever one of the boys: while I like and respect some of the women in philosophy, I like and respect
them as individuals, not as fellow members of my “gender.” (I like and respect some of the men in the field,
too!)
It didn’t help matters, probably, when a few years later I wrote what I hoped and believed was a very
temperate essay in which I expressed some reservations about affirmative action, and specifically about
preferential hiring of women in universities: 31 an essay that one referee wanted suppressed from my Mani-
festo of a Passionate Moderate, and that no reviewer dared even mention. (That was disturbing; but as I said
in my introduction to the book, “better ostracism than ostrichism.”)32 Nor, sadly, did it help when, shortly
afterwards, I wrote my own humanist, individualist, feminist position-statement—stressing, not women-
as-a-class, but what all humans beings have in common, and what’s unique about each and every individu-
al.33 By this time, I fear, feminist philosophers were already sure I was beyond the pale, and wouldn’t conde-
scend to read me.

30 Susan Haack, “Know’ is Just a Four-letter Word” (written in 1983), in Haack, Evidence and Inquiry, 2nd ed..,
391–430.
31 Susan Haack, “The best man for the job may be a woman’… and other alien thoughts on affirmative action in the
academy” (1996), in Haack, Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate, 167–88. This paper was written at the invitation of
Martha Nussbaum for presentation at an APA session she had told me would be a “debate.” It wasn’t; all the other
presenters, and most of the audience, were keen supporters of preferential hiring of women in the academy. The
only exception was the small contingent of black faculty in the room, who thanked me warmly for saying that it
wasn’t clear to me that the problems they faced and the problems white women faced were entirely the same.
32 Haack, Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate, x.
33 Suisan Haack, “After My Own Heart: Dorothy Sayers’s Feminism” (2001), in Haack, Putting Philosophy to Work,
221–29 (text) & 309–10 (notes).

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But Manifesto tackled not only the “feminist philosophy” crew, but a whole variety of postmodern con-
fusions, including confusions about science. Mainstream philosophers seem mostly to have ignored post-
modernism; but some mainstream philosophers of science, probably prompted by the wild claims of radi-
cal sociologists of science, had begun, very cautiously, to try to accommodate some social elements in their
logical models of scientific inference. Once again, however, I found myself out of line. For one thing, I saw
philosophy of science, not as a freestanding specialty, but as intimately related both to epistemology and to
metaphysics. As a result, I found myself thinking in ways quite outside the usual late twentieth-century/
early twenty-first century lines, ways more akin to the ideas of such thinkers as Thomas Huxley, Albert Ein-
stein, John Dewey, Percy Bridgman, and Gustav Bergmann. So in Defending Science—Within Reason34 I de-
veloped what I called my Critical Common-sensist philosophy of science.
As I’d already suggested in Evidence and Inquiry,35 in Defending Science I argued that scientific in-
quiry is continuous with everyday empirical inquiry, only more so: It is usually more careful, more thor-
ough, more rigorous; it often relies on instruments and other specialized tools; and it is generally the work
of many people, both within and across generations. There’s no “scientific method,” i.e., no method used
by all, and only, scientists. There are the familiar procedures of everyday inquiry: make an informed con-
jecture, see how well it stands up to the evidence you have and any further evidence you can get, use your
judgement whether to accept it, to draw no conclusion but seek out more evidence, or to start over; but these
are not used only by scientists. And there are the special tools and procedures developed by scientists over
hundreds of years—from models and metaphors to aid the imagination, instruments of observation and
measurement to aid the senses, through the calculus, the theory of probability, the computer, etc., to aid
reasoning powers, means for the dissemination of results so that evidence can be shared, and incentives to
keep scientists productive and honest; but these scientific “helps” to inquiry, always evolving and often local
to a specific scientific field, aren’t used by all scientists. These helps engage scientists’ imagination, extend
and refine their sensory reach, enable new reasoning powers, and (up to a point) maintain honesty and en-
courage creativity and the sharing of results. This is how the sciences have been as successful as they have.
The evidence for scientific claims, my argument continued, is continuous with the evidence for every-
day empirical claims, only more so—a mix of sensory evidence and reasons, but far more complex and tan-
gled: The experiential components are often meditated by instruments, with all their theoretical backing;
the reasoning is often dependent on computer programs, with all the assumptions built into them; and such
evidence is almost always a shared resource, the result of many people’s work. Thinking about the sharing
of results, i.e., scientists’ pooling of evidence, I was obliged to dig deeper into issues about social aspects of
epistemology, only touched on in Evidence and Inquiry.
The evidence for scientific claims rests ultimately on experience, and of course it’s individuals who
have experience. But the evidence for such claims is almost always a shared resource. So, unlike the social
epistemologists, who seemed concerned with the warrant of scientific claims for a group or team of people,
I started from what I’d done in Evidence and Inquiry to explain the degree to which a claim would be war-
ranted for an individual. Then I turned to how to handle the degree of warrant for many people, whether
members of the same team or scattered around the world or even over centuries; a matter, I suggested, of
the degree of warrant for a hypothetical individual who had all the evidence possessed by these people all
together, discounted by some measure of how justified each person is in believing the others reliable. And
finally I constructed an account of the degree of warrant of a scientific claim at a time.36 (This, as I noted,
turned Popper’s “epistemology without a knowing subject” on its head.)37

34 Susan Haack, Defending Science—Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism.

35 Haack, Evidence and Inquiry, 164.
36 Haack, Defending Science, 69–72 (this task proved extremely complicated, not least because scientists will likely
differ in their background beliefs; but the analogy of many people working in the same giant crossword puzzle
proved helpful).
37 Haack, Defending Science, 60. Some of my arguments here were anticipated in Susan Haack, “Epistemology with a

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This approach suggested an important role for epistemologically-informed sociology of science: in the
form, for instance, of questions about what kinds of environment enable such work and what kinds impede
it, the kinds of perverse incentives that encourage scientific fraud, and so on. But this was more in keeping
with the ideas of earlier sociological thinkers like Robert Merton than with the radical skepticism about the
epistemological pretensions of the sciences then in vogue among up-and-coming sociologists of science.
Moreover, I had distinguished the social from the natural sciences in a somewhat non-standard way;
and repudiated the false dichotomies that I believed impeded an understanding of how the two are alike
(both use the same procedures and methods as everyday empirical inquiry) and how they are different (the
social sciences using different specialized helps, and seeking different kinds of explanation, in terms of peo-
ple’s beliefs, desires, plans, fears, etc., rather than physical forces). So I was more than somewhat out of line
with mainstream thought among philosophers of the social sciences, too.
The epistemological strands of my Defending Science intertwined with metaphysical elements derived
from the conception of a pluralistic universe at the heart of the Innocent Realism I was then developing. But
once more I was out of step. Some philosophers of science wanted to eschew ontological commitments en-
tirely, some to derive such commitments from scientific theories, and some to skirt the issue by appeal to a
Kripke-Putnam theory of reference for natural kind terms. I, however, was arguing that—while, for science
to be even possible, there must be real kinds and real laws— there is no guarantee that current scientific vo-
cabulary matches real kinds, which is why the language of science is constantly shifting and changing; and
that these shifts and changes of meaning need not impede inquiry, but can actually advance it when they
come closer to real kinds in the world. This suggested another reason (besides their failure to accommodate
experiential input) why those formal models of scientific inference failed; and suggested that the metaphors
often used by scientists are not only important helps to the imagination, but can also contribute to the evo-
lution of scientific vocabulary.38
Unfortunately, if predictably, Defending Science was greeted with less than overwhelming enthusiasm
by the philosophy of science establishment: One reviewer even had the poor taste to complain that the
thinkers I relied on were dead—no boost for his and his friends’ citation counts there, I suppose! Another
reviewer, apparently quite unable to read the book, thought I had said that science is “just common-sense.”39
However, like Evidence and Inquiry, Defending Science found a large and appreciative audience elsewhere:
among philosophers not specialists in the field, among scientists of every kind, and among lawyers and law
professors struggling to understand how best to deal with scientific testimony—but I’ll get to them later.
When I thought about the relation of science and imaginative literature, I was concerned both with the
similarities and with the differences between the two, notably with the difference between the imaginative
(common to both) and the imaginary (the province of fiction). It was while I was thinking about literature,
by the way, that my path crossed the virtue epistemologists’; or more precisely, the path of Linda Zagzebski
and her followers.40 (I had already filed Sosa’s “virtue epistemology”41 in my head under “reliabilism,” itself
filed under “failed theories”). Epistemological virtues, I concluded, are often best understood through the
rich detail of novels such as Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith, Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh, and Dorothy
Sayers’s Gaudy Night. But instead of mining these rich resources, the “virtue epistemology” crowd seemed
to have settled for a somewhat hackneyed list of rather thinly described virtues, and hadn’t articulated that
what makes a virtue epistemological is the subject’s relation, and his reaction, to evidence. So I found myself
out on a limb yet again when, at a conference on virtue epistemology at which I had spoken about Butler’s

Knowing Subject,” Review of Metaphysics XXXIII, no. 2 (December 1979): 309–35.

38 See Susan Haack, “The Art of Scientific Metaphors,” Revista de filosofia portuguesa 75, no. 4 (2019).
39 To be fair, by this time there were many fewer general philosophers of science than there had once been; the field
had split into philosophy of physics, philosophy of biology, etc.
40 Linda Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
41 Ernest Sosa, “The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge,” Midwest
Studies in Philosophy 5, no. 1 (1980): 3–25.

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extraordinary semi-autobiographical novel, an audience member asked me how on earth I had come up
with that example (nowhere to be found, I gathered, in the “virtue epistemology” literature). I tried to ex-
plain that this book was one I had loved for years, but that I had only recently articulated its epistemological
lessons. He looked baffled.
I remember, while I was writing chapter 9 of Evidence and Inquiry, “Vulgar Pragmatism: An Unedify-
ing Prospect,” thinking that if I were Richard Rorty, and really believed, as he professed to, that standards
of epistemological evaluation were purely conventional, I wouldn’t bother going after epistemologists, who
are really very small fry indeed; I’d be raring to dismantle the legal system—which, if there really are no ob-
jective standards for the evaluation of evidence, could be nothing but a cruel farce. Not surprisingly, then,
I later found myself drawn into questions about epistemology and the law of evidence and, especially, the
legal system’s handling of scientific testimony.
Once again, though, I found myself at odds with the social epistemologists, some of whom had begun
to interest themselves in questions about testimony, and were applying their work to legal contexts. They
seemed too content with what sounded to me like verbal solutions of no practical help; and their work
seemed insufficiently informed either by the nitty-gritty details of real-life evidence in real-life cases or
by an awareness of the very special constraints on the presentation of evidence imposed by legal rules and
procedures. And since I saw legal degrees of proof as something quite different from mathematical prob-
abilities, I was even more sharply at odds with the Bayesian wing of the “New Evidence Scholarship” then
predominant in legal circles; but at the same time was underwhelmed by the “story-based,” “narrative” ap-
proach that was its main rival—too much hand-waving, not enough details. And neither philosophers nor
legal scholars had much interest in my reply to Peirce’s critique of adversarialism, or even in my reply to
Bentham’s objections to exclusionary rules of evidence.
As my legal interests began to extend to questions about scientific evidence specifically, the U.S. Su-
preme Court was handing down a series of decisions on the standards of admissibility of such testimony
in a trilogy of cases: Daubert (1993), Joiner (1997) and Kumho Tire (1999).42 And my first paper on these
matters was even prompted by a newspaper article reporting that in Joiner the Supreme Court had ruled
that there is no real distinction between methodology and conclusions.43 But again I was out of main-
stream thinking. Legal scholars weren’t terribly interested when I showed that Justice Blackmun’s ruling in
Daubert had Popper’s and Hempel’s incompatible philosophies of science completely confused; nor, more
surprisingly, when I showed that this ruling had also confused “scientific” and “reliable,” as if all and only
scientific testimony were reliable. Neither, so far as I know, were philosophers of science much interested.
Nonetheless—perhaps because in an early piece in this area I had cracked a memorable joke about Jus-
tice Blackmun getting his Hoppers and his Pempels all mixed up44—I soon began receiving interesting legal
invitations; and eventually, quite without planning to, became something of an expert on the epidemiologi-
cal evidence so often crucial to toxic-tort cases. Predictably, however, Evidence Matters,45 where much of
this work can be found, bears little resemblance either to standard legal texts on evidence, or to other philo-
sophical work in the area.
Naturally this book is pragmatist in orientation; but not, of course, in the sense of following Judge Pos-
ner’s confused idea that pragmatism means eschewing theory. Rather, it is pragmatist because of its worldly,
nuts-and-bolts approach to the law, quite in keeping with the ideas of Holmes or of Benjamin Cardozo, also

42 Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993); Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136 (1997); Kumho Tire
v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999).
43 Susan Haack, “An Epistemologist in the Bramble Bush: At the Supreme Court with Mr. Joiner,” Journal of Health
Politics, Policy, and Law 26, no. 2 (April 2001): 217–48.
44 Susan Haack, “Trial and Error: The Supreme Court’s Philosophy of Science,” American Journal of Public Health 95
supp. (2005): 66–73, reprinted as “Trial and Error: Two Confusions in Daubert,” in Haack, Evidence Matters, 104–21.
45 Susan Haack, Evidence Matters: Science, Proof, and Truth in the Law (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2014).

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a legal pragmatist of the classical stripe. The epistemology on which it calls is foundherentist, and the phi-
losophy of science Critical Common-sensist. Undertaking this work enabled me to deepen my foundherent-
ist critique of epistemological atomism, as I argued that a congeries of pieces of evidence, none sufficient by
itself, may in some circumstances jointly warrant a conclusion to the legally required degree of proof; and
legal probabilism, showing that degrees of proof differ from mathematical probabilities, and that Bayesian
efforts to analyze evidence fail and that the “doubling of risk” standard for admissibility of epidemiologi-
cal evidence in toxic torts are both bad epistemology and bad policy. This volume also includes thoughts
about truth in the law, and about the relation of law and morality; none, as usual with me, the standard
kind of thing. Moreover, because those legal invitations had include many from other countries—the U.K.,
and Canada, across Europe, across Latin America, and even in China—Evidence Matters is probably more
aware than much evidence scholarship of important differences in evidentiary procedure in different juris-
dictions; subsequently, I have written specifically about this.46
When I presented an early paper on epistemology and the law of evidence at Notre Dame Law School,47
John Finnis commented that I was “a real pragmatist, not like Rorty.” This prompted me to begin read-
ing Holmes seriously. The first result was a paper on his famous lecture, “The Path of the Law,” arguing,
against the received view, that Holmes’s so-called “prediction theory” was no such thing, but only the first
step towards something much subtler and much deeper. The next was a paper exploring Holmes’s critique
of Christopher Columbus Langdell’s idea of a legal system as a set of axioms from which correct decisions
could be deduced. Holmes was right, I argued, to say that “the life of the law has not been logic, it has been
experience”;48 but it remained to be seen whether the more powerful apparatus of modern logic, not known
to Langdell or Holmes, might be up to the task of formalizing legal decisions. It would not, I concluded; and
thus set my face against those many, especially in Europe, working on legal logics of one style or another.49
The reason for the limits of formalism here, I realized, as with the sciences, lay in the shifts and changes of
meaning of legal concepts over time.50
All this eventually this led me to develop my own neo-classical pragmatist legal philosophy. Innocent
Realism proposes a pluralistic universe of natural stuff, things, kinds, phenomena, laws, and so forth over-
laid, in “our” small corner of this universe, by a whole raft of human artifacts, physical, social, imaginative,
intellectual, and so on. Legal systems are a pluralistic universe within this pluralistic universe; indeed, the
U.S. legal system is a pluralistic universe in itself, within this pluralistic universe of legal systems within the
pluralistic universe of the world. This gave rise to many good questions about the evolution of legal systems,
the ways different systems borrow from each other, and so forth. (But I haven’t focused on such familiar
questions as “what is law?”—to which I can only reply that the concept of law is itself fuzzy and itself evolv-
ing.)
Although the subtitle of Defending Science was “Between Scientism and Cynicism,” I had devoted more
space to dismantling cynicism than I did to combating scientism, simply because the anti-scientific cri-
tiques of radical sociologists and rhetoricians of science, feminist and post-colonialist science critics, etc.,
seemed the more immediate danger. Before long, however, there was a kind of backlash, both in the acade-

46 See, e.g., Susan Haack, “La justicia, la verdad y la prueba: No tan simple, después de todo,” in Debatiendo con Ta-
ruffo, eds. Jordi Ferrer Beltrán and Carmen Vázquez (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2016), 311–36.
47 Susan Haack, “Epistemology and the Law of Evidence: Or, Truth, Justice, and the American Way,” Olin Lecture,
Notre Dame Law School, published in American Journal of Jurisprudence 49 (2004): 43–61, reprinted in Haack, Evi-
dence Matters, 27–46.
48 Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Common Law (1881), in Collected Works of Justice Holmes, ed. Sheldon M. Novick
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993) 3:111–325, 115.
49 Susan Haack, “On Logic in the Law: Something, but Not All,” Ratio Juris 20, no.1 (2007): 1–31.
50 Susan Haack, “The Growth of Meaning and the Limits of Formalism, in Science and Law” (2009); amplified ver-
sion, “Ripensare la rationalità: La Crescita di significato e i limiti del formalismo,” Diritti & Questione Pubbliche
XIX, no. 1 (2019): 160–79.

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my and in our culture more generally: an alarming rise in the popularity of a crude scientism often, but not
always, driven by anti-religious sentiment. My first response was to try to articulate exactly what scientism
is, what’s wrong with it, and how to spot its telltale signs;51 my next, to continue this work by showing the
extraordinary weakness of the scientistic philosophy then coming into vogue.52
This naturally put me at loggerheads with the “Experimental Philosophy” flash-mob and with reduc-
tionists of every stripe, from Ladyman and Ross and their soi-disant “naturalized metaphysics” to Alex-
ander Rosenberg and his depressing “physics fixes all the facts” bravado. It even put me at odds with many
readers of Free Inquiry—a journal to which I had already contributed on several occasions—when I said in
their pages that one might repudiate scientism without having any kind of religious agenda, and that it was
no less fallacious to argue that, if religion doesn’t explain anything, science must explain everything, than it
was to argue that, if science can’t explain something, religion must explain it.53
Still, while by this point I felt yet more alienated from the majority in my profession, there was an up-
side: spelling out the crucial difference between today’s scientistic philosophy and Peirce’s aspiration to
make philosophy scientific—by which he meant that it should be undertaken with the “Scientific Attitude,”
the genuine desire to find out the truth, and use the “Scientific Method,” i.e., experience and reason—en-
abled me to articulate why it can seem that you can do philosophy from your armchair, when in fact it
depends on experience. As Peirce had argued, unlike the sciences, which require specialized, recherché
experience, what philosophy requires is close attention to aspects of the experience we all have every day
but seldom notice. This means you can do philosophy anywhere, without the need for expeditions, instru-
ments, etc., but not that it’s a purely a priori exercise. And this, of course, is precisely the middle way that’s
needed, the way to avoid both the extravagances of wild, unanchored a priori philosophical speculation and
the equal-and-opposite extravagances of “X-phi” and all the other forms of scientism now rife in our field.
And, because that Free Inquiry paper had begun by agreeing with the editor’s observation in his let-
ter of invitation that professional philosophy is in bad shape, while disagreeing with his diagnosis—that
the problem is the rise of religiously-oriented work in the field and the horrible influence of the Templeton
Foundation—it meshed neatly with other pieces I’d written about the state of the profession: “Preposter-
ism and Its Consequences” (1996),54 on the appalling culture of grants and research projects; “Out of Step:
Academic Ethics in a Preposterous Environment” (2013),55 on the virtues needed to do good intellectual
work and the ways in which our over-administered universities are systematically eroding them; and “The
Fragmentation of Philosophy” (2016),56 on the disastrous splitting of our discipline into a host of sub-spe-
cialties and cliques. This, together with my frustration with academic publishers—the extraordinary length
to which I had to go to be treated as an author rather than a fungible content-provider with no rights in my
own work, prompted me to carry on this work in another piece, “The Academic-Publication Racket: What-
ever Happened to Authors’ Rights?” (2019).57
I’ve long thought that philosophy should be, not hermetic and self-absorbed, but engaged, concerning
itself with what Dewey called “problems of men.” I suppose that was why, in light of a recent invitation to
give the Theoria lecture, I chose a topic that engaged my logical, my epistemological, my metaphysical, and
my worldly concerns: the idea that we are now living in the era of “post-truth.” This meshed neatly with a

51 Susa Haack, “Six Signs of Scientism” (2010), in Haack, Putting Philosophy to Work, 105–20 (text) & 278–83 (notes).
52 Susan Haack, Scientism and Its Discontents, (Rounded Globe, 2017).
53 Susan Haack, “The Real Question: Can Philosophy be Saved?” Free Inquiry 37, no. 6 (2017): 40–43.
54 Susan Haack, “Preposterism and Its Consequences,” Social Philosophy and Policy 13, no. 2 (Summer 1996):
296–315.
55 Susan Haack, “Out of Step: Academic Ethics in a Preposterous Environment,” in Haack, Putting Philosophy to Work
251–68 (text) & 313–17 (notes).
56 Susan Haack, “The Fragmentation of Philosophy, the Road to Reintegration,” in Göhner and Jung, Susan Haack: Re-
integrating Philosophy, 3–32.
57 Susan Haack, “The Academic-Publication Racket.”

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series of earlier papers on truth, in the course of which I developed my “Laconicist” approach (Kiriake Xe-
rohemona’s word) to the concept. But even when I’m writing about “post-truth” my slant is distinctive. The
problem, I emphasized, is that the idea that we are now post-truth is ambiguous; and that while it is true on
one understanding (unconcern for truth is on the rise), it is false on the other (the concept of truth is illegiti-
mate, out of date).
I can’t guess, of course, which, if any, of my ideas will stand the test of time; I can only hope that some,
at least, will do so. But I can be pretty sure I’ll never be mainstream, not in this lifetime anyway. As Peirce
once said, “there is a kink in my damned brain that prevents me from thinking as other people think”;58 I
guess there’s a kink in my brain, too.

III

Not surprisingly, I have never had a “prestigious” job, landed a major grant, held any academic office with
the power of patronage, or anything of that kind. None of this has really bothered me; though I’d be lying
if I said I don’t get annoyed when one of those “lucky,” well-connected few who seem to lead charmed aca-
demic lives feels entitled to condescend to me. And naturally I dislike unwarranted criticisms of things I
never said and absurdly defensive reactions to ideas of mine threatening to those who might have to admit
that they were wrong if I were right.
I suppose I could have used a thicker skin, because academics can be—well, they can be quite nasty. I
don’t want to dwell on this, but I’ll note few particularly egregious examples of thing kind of thing I mean.
I was dismayed to learn that Bernard Williams—who had been chair of the philosophy department at Cam-
bridge when I was a Ph.D. student there—had simply ignored the help I gave him, decades later, in response
to his request for references on pragmatism; and instead used “pragmatism” to refer to Rorty’s confusions—
and dismissed my response to Rorty’s misunderstandings about truth as if they were as unsophisticated and
unsubtle as John Searle’s or Jay Rosenberg’s.59 I was disappointed to learn that when, in 2008, Anil Gupta
“discovered” that we needed a theory of empirical justification combining the strong points of foundation-
alism and coherentism, he didn’t so much as mention my work.60 I was distressed to discover how many
people seized so eagerly on a pitifully weak paper by Peter Tramel claiming that my foundherentism is a
form of foundationalism—apparently without having read either Tramel or myself with any care.61 I was
disgruntled when the organizers of a conference on “the point and purpose of epistemic evaluation”—at
which mine was the only paper that referred to real-world issues at all!—asked me to make my paper “more
like ours” before publication.62 And I was disheartened when the editors of several anthologies wanted to
include my critique of feminist epistemology, but apparently had no interest in, or perhaps no knowledge of,
my constructive epistemological work.

58 My source is E. T. Bell, The Development of Mathematics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1949), 519.
59 Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
Mark Migotti, I’m glad to say, pointed out how grossly inappropriate this was. See Mark Migotti, “Pragmatism,
Genealogy, and Truth” (Critical Notice of Williams, Truth and Truthfulness), Dialogue 48 (Winter 2009): 185–203.
60 Anil Gupta, Empiricism and Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Curiously enough, Gupta did
refer to two papers in Louis Pojman’s anthology on epistemology; but missed mine, which appeared between the
first and the second of these. See Louis Pojman, Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Sources (Bel-
mont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998). Go figure!
61 Peter Tramel, “Haack’s Foundherentism is a Foundationalism,” Synthese 160, no. 2 (2008): 215–228. See also Su-
san Haack, “The Role of Experience in Empirical Justification,” in Göhner and Jung,, Susan Haack: Reintegrating
Philosophy, 157–65 (responding to commentators who had picked up Tramel’s muddled ideas).
62 I declined. The paper is “The Embedded Epistemologist: Dispatches from the Legal Front,” Ratio Juris, 25, no. 2
(2012): 206–35.

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And then there was the editor-in-chief of a journal for which I was putting together an issue on “Femi-
nist Epistemology: For and Against” who urged me to accept what he agreed was a very weak paper from a
feminist Big Noise. The reason, it turned out, wasn’t that he thought I shouldn’t reject bad papers from big
noises—though that would have been be bad enough; it was that accepting this weak paper would make the
feminist epistemologists look bad—which was not the project for which I thought I’d signed up. (I resisted;
and instead accepted an even-handed and sober paper from Iddo Landau63—the beginning of our now de-
cades-long friendship.)
But, though I would certainly have preferred to have been less intellectually lonely and—much as I have
enjoyed my discussions with Peirce et al.—to have had more living people to talk to, there has surely been
a bright side. I have enjoyed a full intellectual life—with all the frustrations and disappointments such a
life inevitably involves, to be sure, but also with its moments of exhilaration and the pleasurable company
of “clean, humorous intellect.”64 I have enjoyed the privilege of teaching generations of students of many
and various talents, some of whom have become my good friends and respected colleagues; and of making,
along the way, not “contacts,” but much-valued friends, among philosophical, and now, legal thinkers—and
many others, too, all around the world. Some of these, sadly, are no longer alive; I will mention particularly
Robert L. Heilbroner,65 Jacques Barzun,66 Peter Strawson,67 Louise Rosenblatt,68 and Sidney Ratner.69
Sometimes people suggest to me that my work has not been valued as it should be “because you’re a
woman.” In my estimation, though, in many quarters my work has been valued as it should be; though,
granted, this has more often been by other outsiders than by the mainstream. And while I have certainly
encountered my share of sexism,70 I have also had some remarkable good fortune on this score, notably Ox-

63 Iddo Landau, “Should There Be a Separatist Feminist Epistemology?” The Monist 77, no. 4 (1994): 462–71. (Prof.
Landau and I corresponded for several years, by the way, without my knowing whether he was a man or a woman.)
64 F. M. Cornford, Monographia Academica: Being a Guide for the Young Academic, reprinted in University Policy: F.
H. Cornford’s Cambridge and his Advice to the Young Academic, ed. G. Johnson (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1994), 100.
65 After Evidence and Inquiry, Robert L. Heilbroner (1919–2005)—historian of economic ideas, author of the best-
selling The Worldly Philosophers, sent me a charming letter the burden of which was “My God, woman, you can
actually write” (quite a compliment coming from him). We soon became fast friends.
66 My correspondence with Jacques Barzun (1907–2012), historian of ideas and former Provost of Columbia, be-
gan after I sent him a copy of Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate, where I had used his word, “preposterize.” See
Jacques Barzun, The American University: How it Runs, Where It is Going (New York: Harper and Row, 1968),
221. Later, he would send me a copy of his A Word or Two before You Go, inscribed “To Susan Haack, gourmet of
words” (again, quite a compliment, coming from him).
67 I first met Peter Strawson (1919–2006), Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford, at that confer-
ence in St. Louis mentioned earlier. He proved a very helpful and agreeable correspondent over a series of letters
that began with my signing “Yours respectfully, Susan Haack” and his signing “Yours sincerely, Peter Strawson,”
but soon moved to “Love, Peter” and “Love, Susan.”
68 I first met literary theorist and educator Louise Rosenblatt (1904–2005), author of Literature as Exploration (1933),
at a dinner with her husband, Sidney Ratner; she was 90 years old at the time. Later, after Sidney’s death, she
would visit Miami in the winter, where she taught a class in my course on philosophy and literature, and delighted
me with stories of her time as Margaret Mead’s roommate at Barnard College.
69 I met Sidney Ratner (1908–1996), a historian of economics who had at one point collaborated with Dewey,
through meetings of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. There followed an enjoyable cor-
respondence in the course of which he sent me a copy of Dewey’s correspondence with Arthur Bentley—whose re-
action to reading Peirce for the first time was exactly like mine: “Oh my goodness, I just found a goldmine!”
70 Readers can find one such story in “The best man for the job may be a woman, and other alien thoughts on af-
firmative action.” But I don’t care to dwell too much on such past injustices and condescension—it’s a waste of a
short life.

Not One of the Boys: Memoir of an Academic Misfit 105

 COSMOS + TAXIS

ford’s admirable practice of grading undergraduate final exams anonymously—but for which I might never
have got past the first post.71 I suspect, though, that my biggest problem hasn’t been my sex, but my stub-
bornly independent temperament.72
As you see, my academic and intellectual independence, the freedom to think things through for my-
self, hindered only (only!) by my own weaknesses, prejudices, and blind spots, has come at quite a high
price: isolation, a sense of alienation, and sometimes real resentment and hostility on the part of some who
are unwilling, or not in a position, to pay the price such freedom requires. (Perhaps that explains my expe-
rience at the Humanities Center at the University of Minnesota, where my first lecture had a tiny audience,
my second a much larger one; and after the second a shy graduate student came up, handed me a brown-pa-
per package—which turned out to contain a copy of Helmut Schoeck’s Envy,73 inscribed “To Susan Haack,
with admiration”—and scuttled away before I could thank him.)
So I’ll end with a treasured memory, a favorite anecdote that strikes all the right notes: Sometime in
the mid 1990s, Sidney Ratner called to tell me that during a dinner at the Institute for Advanced Studies
in Princeton the previous evening, Morton White, who knew something of my work on pragmatism, had
asked him “who is she?”—a question expecting the answer, “she’s So-and-So’s student, from Such-and-Such
University.” “I hope I didn’t say the wrong thing,” Sidney went on. “What did you say?” I asked. “I said, ‘she’s
very independent,’” said Sidney; “was that all right?”—to which I replied, “Sidney, if you weren’t in New Jer-
sey, I’d kiss you!” That was the nicest, as well as the most accurate, answer he could have given.74

71 At least, if what I was subsequently told by someone in a position to know—that in my case, after they learned the
names of the candidates, the examiners had sent the class list back to the Registrar’s office with a little note saying
“check this one; it can’t be a woman”—was true.
72 Of course, the two issues intertwine; probably an independent woman philosopher is even harder for the estab-
lishment to stomach than an independent male philosopher is.
73 Helmut Schoeck, Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior (1966), trans. Michael Glenny and Betty Ross, (Indianapolis:
Liberty Fund, 1987) (I have always wondered whether philosophy graduate students might have been discouraged
from attending my lectures by a graduate director who was, I fear, disturbed by my critique of feminist epistemol-
ogy; but, of course, I can’t actually know what happened.)
74 My thanks to Mark Migotti , who, as usual, gave me very helpful comments on a draft, and to Nicholas Mignanelli
for his help with formatting the footnotes.

106 VOLUME 8 | ISSUE 6 + 7 2020

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