Defending Science-Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism

Rating:
Summary: A rare and edifying treat
Review: In a series of essays that combine clarity with humor, careful argument with accessible examples, and philosophical acumen with broad literary and scientific knowledge, Susan Haack disentangles a vast "bramble-bush" (to borrow the term she borrows from Carl Llewellyn) of issues surrounding the role of science in society and the role of society in science. I cannot think of another book in philosophy of science that manages so successfully to address the complexities of actual scientific practice, nor one that connects both theory and practice so engagingly with those questions of deepest concern to most of us: the way science relates to the law, to religion, to literature, even to corporate interests.

Haack argues that scientific inquiry is continuous with empirical inquiry more generally, though remarkable in its success for important reasons. Moving effortlessly from abstract theoretical and metaphysical questions to particular scientific investigations, Haack carves a middle path between extreme scientism and radical cynicism that should be welcome to anyone who possesses some of that Common Sense of which Haack has long been an eloquent and convincing advocate.

By the end of this book you'll know much more than when you began--about philosophy, scientific instrumentation, the discovery of DNA, legal battles over expert testimony, sociology and rhetoric of science, etc.--and you'll have enjoyed every minute of it.

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Summary: Susan Haack on Science
Review: La reflexión sobre la ciencia constituye un área en la que se están produciendo debates intensos periódicamente. Muchas de estas discusiones están tironeadas por planteamientos extremos, que demandan la aprobación de puntos de vista excluyentes. Así, muchos autores elaboran argumentos en los que priman las consideraciones lógicas y se ignoran las variables sociales; viceversa, no pocos sociólogos de la ciencia enfatizan los abordajes sociales y culturales y desvalorizan los valores de la racionalidad. Así, para uno de los bandos la historia es una variable irrelevante, y para el otro la verdad, la lógica y la prueba son artificios que obedecen a intereses de los grupos implicados en el quehacer científico, directa o indirectamente. De este modo, se consagran o se condenan las disciplinas que, en cada caso, se privilegian: la lógica, la historia, o la ciencia política. Por otra parte, algunos elevan a la ciencia a la condición de ídolo y otros la reducen a política enmascarada con ropajes intelectuales.

No es tarea fácil aventurarse en estos territorios. De ahí la importancia que adquieren ciertas publicaciones, particularmente aquellas que intentan abrirse paso entre los extremos, matizando los argumentos y combinando las variables de análisis. Tal es el caso del libro "Defending Science -within reason. Between Scientism and Cynicism", de la conocida filósofa Susan Haack, profesora de la Universidad de Miami. Conocedora cercana y partícipe directa del debate epistemológico de las últimas décadas, Haack pasa revista a las más persistentes discrepancias y elabora su posición con alto grado de sensatez, considerando cada postura en sus pretensiones.

Sin excluir otros de sus méritos, Haack escribe de modo claro y preciso, sin recursos retóricos exagerados, distante de ese escolasticismo irritante que caracteriza a tanta literatura en el área. Transparentando sus ideas, Haack no cede un paso en materia de rigor.

De entre las muchas ideas que conforman este libro excelente, me parece necesario rescatar dos elementos de su elaboración. De una parte, la tesis de que existe un contínuo entre la investigación científica y la investigación empírica cotidiana familiar y que, en consecuencia, no hay ninguna exclusividad epistemológica que la ciencia pueda exhibir. Sin embargo, la ciencia ha extendido y refinado los recursos (los biológicos y los tecnológicos) en el propósito de explicar sustantiva y significativamente cómo es el mundo.
En ello sus logros no pueden ser exhibidos por ninguna otra actividad humana.

El segundo elemento que resulta ineludible rescatar es la utilización de la analogía del puzzle de palabras cruzadas, como un recurso para plantear, entre muchos otros tópicos, el de la evidencia o la falta de evidencia en favor de las afirmaciones.

En una sólida línea argumental, Haack aborda críticamente los planteamientos que asimilan la ciencia a la imaginación literaria, la tesis del supuesto carácter teórico-dependiente de las observaciones, la tesis de que la realidad de la que hablan los hombres de ciencia no sería más que algo creado, la idea de que el conocimiento científico no es más que una construcción social, y la afirmación de que los estándares de investigación de calidad son relativos a contextos y a paradigmas. Su respuesta es que estas tesis, debido al modo categórico y excluyente con que se las formula, resultan inaceptables; no obstante, contiene algún grado de verdad. En algún sentido, tales tesis resultan razonables, pero no cuando se pretende que agoten la descripción de la actividad científica. No se trata, pues, de excluir los contextos, los paradigmas, o las creencias previas. Pero tampoco se trata de elevarlos a la condición de variables sustantivas y definitorias. Entre el determinismo absoluto y la prescindencia absoluta, la actividad científica incluye tales variables pero las relativiza en un marco en el que también se integran la lógica, la evidencia, y la realidad.

Libro actual, de innegable seriedad intelectual, este reciente libro Susan Haack no puede sino resultar una lectura obligada para quienes se interesan por oficio o por interés general en los debates sobre el conocimiento científico y el lugar de la ciencia en nuestras sociedades.

Rating:
Summary: Another Philosophical Gem
Review: Professor Haack has once again proved the practical value of clear and critical philosophical analysis. Continuing the "critical common-sensist" program launched in her MANIFESTO OF A PASSIONATE MODERATE, Haack's DEFENDING SCIENCE-- WITHIN REASON provides a witty, thoughtful, and rigorous antidote to the kind of epistemic anarchy popularly advocated in the name of the worthy goals of diversity, liberation, inclusion, and equality. An important act of public philosophy.

Rating:
Summary: Investigating Science -with rigor and panache
Review: Professor Susan Haack provides an insightful look at historical and contemporary views in philosophy of science. She masterfully blends together clarity of thought with depth and substance. Professor Haack clearly identifies the dangers associated with either blindly accepting or hastily rejecting the claims offered by science.

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Summary: science as inquiry
Review: Susan Haack's "Defending Science-Within Reason" is the only philosophy of science I have read that has any resemblance to science as I know and practice it. She makes no attempt to turn science into a branch of logic, and she does not try to hide its messy, unfinished, imperfect nature. Yet she does not assume that since science is imperfect it is therefore wrong, nor that it is permeated by politics. She allows for knowledge and progress without perfection, and for inquiry that is human and limited but not therefore a sham. She considers what evidence is and how it should be evaluated, how sciences progresses, and what is wrong with the critique of science mounted lately by those sociologists and philosophers who think it is some kind of western, patriarchal plot. Haack also shows the relevance of her own work by delving into how the ways we think about science influence practical matters, like decisions by judges about what scientific testimony should be allowed in the courtroom. The writing here is more technical than in her "Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate," but I think it is all understandable by anyone who cares about the issues Haack raises; compared to all the other important philosophers of science since Hume, she is a model of clarity.

Rating:
Summary: A clear and absorbing philosophy of science
Review: Susan Haack's "Defending Science-Within Reason" is the only philosophy of science I have read that has any resemblance to science as I know and practice it. She makes no attempt to turn science into a branch of logic, and she does not try to hide its messy, unfinished, imperfect nature. Yet she does not assume that since science is imperfect it is therefore wrong, nor that it is permeated by politics. She allows for knowledge and progress without perfection, and for inquiry that is human and limited but not therefore a sham. She considers what evidence is and how it should be evaluated, how sciences progresses, and what is wrong with the critique of science mounted lately by those sociologists and philosophers who think it is some kind of western, patriarchal plot. Haack also shows the relevance of her own work by delving into how the ways we think about science influence practical matters, like decisions by judges about what scientific testimony should be allowed in the courtroom. The writing here is more technical than in her "Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate," but I think it is all understandable by anyone who cares about the issues Haack raises; compared to all the other important philosophers of science since Hume, she is a model of clarity.

Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: This book by philosopher of science Susan Haack focuses itself around a metaphor - a good metaphor. Many have already resorted to metaphor to describe and encapsualate science - for Popper it was biological evolution; for Kuhn it was the paradigm; for Feyerabend it was anarchy; for Haack it is the crossword puzzle. Along with Popper's 'evolutionary' model, I think Haack's is neck-and-neck for the best metaphor. Every essay herein, though not exclusively concerned with it mentions this metaphor.

I want to come back to the metaphor in a bit; first, a synopsis of the book. Haack is one of the few brave souls willing to take the middle position in the science wars (which, by the way, no one is really fighting anymore). Her middle position concedes to the scientists that facts are facts, not constructions, that the scientific process is, when used properly, as objective a method as one can get, and that science has achieved overwhelming success in discovering true things rather than simply inventing or constructing them. To the skeptics - the relativists, postmodernists, etc. - she concedes that science can too easily be led by background assumptions that are not objective, that there is no 'one thing' that is the scientific method, and that science is a much messier and stranger affair than many scientists want to admit, leaving much room for misstep. These essays explore these concessions as they apply to natural and social sciences. What do we mean when we say 'the scientific method' (remembering that Haack is skeptical that there is 'one')? Why have the social sciences been less successful than the natural and are they still sciences (to the latter question she answers 'yes')? Are religion and science actually compatible (though she is not as extreme as, say, Dawkins, she answers a loud 'no')? Will there be an end to science?

Now back to the crossword metaphor, which is quite significant to the book. It is currently fashionable amongst reductionists to see a unidirectional approach in science. When you explain the lower stuff, you can then explain the higher stuff. Science, it is said, has as its goal to discover the lower stuff which leads in a chain to the higher stuff. Haack's method looks a tad different (though she is sympathetic to a degree to this). Rather, some questions (entries) may partially help with other quetions (intersecting entries). Sommetimes one answer turning out to be false (a wrongly filled in entry) misleads scientists on others (as the wrong entry provides a wrong 'clue' to the other). Scientists must then backtrack to figure out how much of the 'puzzle' has been filled in correctly and how much can be left as is.

The important thing is that science, in Haack's metaphor, is not a linear pattern per se, but an amalgomation of scattered entries that assist with and are assisted by intersecting entries. Kuhn, Feyearabend, Popper, Lakatos, Peirce, and a plethora of other thinkers were right and wrong: they all expressed ASPECTS of what science did, but each ignored other aspects. This is why Haack comes to the conclusion that while science is definitely a discipline worth pursuing, there is no one method that can encapsulate it. The worried reader may be getting the impression that this is a throwback to Feyerabendian relativism. So as to keep this brief, it is not. Haack is as objective as can be.

In conclusion, this is a great book by one (and this is rare) who refuses to get pissy about the science wars. She gives each 'side' their due, explains how each side has misunderstood pieces of the other (perhaps in order to make their side look better) and delineates one of the best metaphors ever to be uttered in how science works.

Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: This book has many virtues, but is overrated here.

First the virtues. Haack usually displays sound judgment overall. She wisely steers a course between extremists of all varieties. The book provides a good survey of the current state of thinking about science and the widely varying positions that have been espoused on this hot topic. These are not small virtues. Given that there has been a lot of foolishness published, a guide who has her wits about her is to be valued.

Weaknesses. The book has no substantive new contributions to the core philosophical problems of epistemology. At times it seems as if Haack is appealing to "common sense" to avoid having to frame a philosophical problem in its most challenging form and then seriously grapple with it. This will be popular, but is not likely to be pivotal. It is easy to find straw men in this world, and she does so unhesitatingly. Fortunately even a casual reader will be alerted to areas where are arguments are on thin ice. The rise in her polemical rhetoric functions as an alarm bell.

In summary, sound but not deep.

Rating:
Summary: A clear and absorbing philosophy of science
Review: This very engaging and clearly written book by Susan Haack may at first appear to be merely a contribution to the "science wars" debate. But although the book significantly contributes to this debate, I believe that its primary goal is to present a new and better understanding of science. There is hardly a central problem in contemporary philosophy of science that Haack does not tackle, and she presents in her discussion of each of these issues a carefully argued middle position that avoids the pitfalls that beset more extreme views. Thus, for example, when examining the much debated relationship between the natural and social sciences (chapter 6), Haack carefully analyzes both their many similarities and their differences, showing the irreducibility of social to natural sciences. In her discussion of the question of the scientific method (chapter 4), she convincingly argues that although there is no "scientific method" as this term has been frequently understood, the sciences are epistemologically distinguished. Scientific inquiry is continuous with other kinds of inquiry, including everyday, commonsensical inquiry, but is more rigorous and exact than non-scientific ones.
In these and other discussions, Haack shows an impressively wide-ranging familiarity both with science itself and with theoretical works on it in a variety of fields, including sociology, literature, law, history of science, and of course philosophy. Many sociological discussions of science, for example, present it as a merely consensual or political institution, thus devaluing its status as a truth-seeking enterprise. Haack analyzes these theories (chapter 7), and shows that science is indeed partly a social institution, but that understanding it in these terms only, thus ignoring its truth seeking function, is self-defeating. She argues that Neutralism (i.e., adopting a neutral stance about the bona fides of science) leads to self-undermining relativism, and explains why The Strong Programme (the efforts of some sociologists of the Edinburgh School to rescue their social analysis of science from these self-referential problems) cannot work. Similar problems arise in The Radical Programme of the Bath School. As an alternative to these, as well as to Latour's and Woolgar's programs, Haack suggests what she calls (with tongue in cheek) "The Sensible Program," which acknowledges the influence of social factors on science and calls for managing them in a way that would enhance science as a truth seeking enterprise. In much the same way as some sociologists treat science as a purely social phenomenon, some literary scholars analyze scientific texts as if they were simply literary works, thus treating science as if it were no different from myth, fable, or works of fiction (chapter 8). In Haack's analysis of these theories, she shows that while there are similarities, there are also important points of difference between scientific texts and literary ones, and that consequently it is unhelpful to regard a scientific work as a literary text. Chapter 10 discusses the relation of science to what is perhaps its oldest competitor, religion. Haack takes science and religion to be largely incompatible. The differences, she argues, lie not only in issues of factual claims (e.g., evolution vs. creation), but also in the type of inquiry and its standards. One important difference, she explains, is that in many religious contexts, faith-i.e. acceptance of theses in absence of what would ordinarily be seen as evidence-is considered a virtue.
These epistemological views require also an ontological statement. Why is science successful? And why should we put such high value on evidence? Haack is a realist (concerning objects in the world, kinds, and laws), but again, a moderate one (chapter 5). Thus, she emphasizes that our senses are imperfect and sometimes distorted. Similarly, she argues that there are real kinds, but only in the sense that "some knots of properties are held together by laws." While delineating her version of realism, she compares and contrasts it to, and offers useful insights into, the views of Van Fraassen, Arthur Fine, and Popper, among others.
There is much more to this book than can be discussed in a few paragraphs (I haven't mentioned, for example, Haack's stimulating discussion of science and law). In all these matters, Haack defies classification into any traditional position, and this is part of the interest of her book, as well as its force. It makes for a complex explanation of science, which besides being very interesting, also avoids pitfalls that ensnare other, less balanced positions. The new picture of science that emerges, in turn, offers an original, and I believe more balanced and powerful, contribution to the "science wars." There is much to learn from this absorbing, provocative, and well-argued book, which should be recommended to anyone interested in science, philosophy of science, and rationality.

Rating:
Summary: An opportune defence
Review: With her well known competence and sense of humor, Susan Haack faces in this recent book the "science war" which seems to shake contemporary philosophical and sociological scene, showing that, although the "old deferencialism" towards science seems nowadays exaggerated, the "new cynicism" towards it is nevertheless wrong. On every subject, Haack helps the reader to identify the weaknesses of prima facie good arguments, and to avoid extreme views, sustaining convincing intermediate positions. I is a very useful book, and I recommend it strongly.