Susan Haack Etc.

Susan Haack Etc.

I recently learned that Susan Haack has just died. During my six years in the University of Miami philosophy department I never once set eyes on her. Nor did I have any communication with her. I did email her when I arrived to suggest a meeting, but got no reply. I was told she was alienated from the department and had as little to do with it as possible; the rupture occurred before I arrived and the nature of the dispute was never made clear to me. That was a shame as I would have been happy to get to know her. As it happens, I had met her in England years earlier when she gave a paper to my department there, and she had written to me when I was at Rutgers apropos of a review I’d written (warmly not critically). Not a good situation (I cast no aspersions). Anyway, this got me thinking: the department has lost most of its senior members since I was there—me, her, Risto Hilpenen, Harvey Siegel, and Ed Erwin (who was ostracized during his last years there, according to him). No one senior of comparable stature has been brought in to replace us. The only senior member that remains is Michael Slote, now 85 (according to Google). The people that remain are (what shall I say?) not exactly household names. The department wasn’t bad when I was there, though not top tier; now it’s…well, it is what it is. Is it dying? That remains to be seen, but it is hard to see how it can be very attractive to prospective graduate students. I don’t think there was any necessity about this, but my departure can’t have helped. It is not a department I would have joined from my previous post at Rutgers. I will leave my opinion of the philosophical abilities of the people now there unspoken. Suffice it to say that the label “star” does not spring to mind. What I will say is that the dearth of senior people does not bode well for the department. I see no solution to the problem and the prospects do not look good. There was already a problem about recruiting able graduate students in the good old days (there are many better places to go) and the situation cannot have improved. I don’t think things would have reached this point had I not left (unwillingly). Actions have consequences. I have no contact with anyone now in the UM philosophy department (their decision not mine), despite living only a mile away, and I am banned from the campus (no reason given). All round, it seems like a bad state of affairs, and entirely avoidable.