This wide-ranging collection of Susan Haack's new and recent essays offers applied philosophy in a new key and a fresh voice--subtle, penetrating analyses of vital issues about science, society, religion, law, literature, even about what makes a life meaningful.

· Is truth one, or many--or both? Or could it be just an illusion?

· Are science and religion compatible? Does science itself require a kind of faith?

· Is consistency intellectually indispensable, or merely "the hobgoblin of little minds"?

· How does truth relate to justice, and how can courts best handle the scientific testimony often vital to a case?

· Is economics the "queen of the social sciences," or are its scientific pretensions largely bogus?

· Is philosophy itself a science, or is it more akin to literature?

· How can we learn so much about life from fiction, when the stories novelists tell are not true?

Whether she is telling the "sad, sleazy saga" of a drug company's efforts to suppress the unfavorable results of a clinical trial it had funded, disentangling the many senses of "coherent," or reflecting on the growth of intellectual character, Haack writes with the clarity, verve, and wit her readers have come to expect....

Described by Hilary Putnam as both a fine introduction and a significant contribution to epistemology, and by Anthony Quinton as at once comprehensive...and judicious, Evidence and Inquiry is unique both in its scope and in its originality. C. I. Lewis's foundationalism, BonJour's and Davidson's coherentism, Popper s critical rationalism, Quine's naturalism, and Rorty's, Stich's, and Churchland's anti-epistemological neopragmatism all come under Haack's uniquely thorough critical scrutiny. Core epistemological questions about the nature of belief, the character and structure of evidence, the determinants of evidential quality, the relation of justification, probability, and truth, among others, are given refreshingly novel, and reasonable, answers.

Most books in epistemology are written only for other epistemologists. But Evidence and Inquiry has proven of interest not only to specialists but also to many other readers, from thoughtful scientists to thoughtful scholars of law and literature.

This new, expanded edition--with a substantial new foreword and several additional papers on topics ranging from feminist epistemology to Peirce's critique of the adversarial legal system and Bentham's critique of exclusionary rules of evidence should attract longtime readers and newcomers alike.
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