Haack's goal in these essays is to get beyond fads, fashions, obfuscations and false dichotomies to the central and most essential questions -- whether there is such a thing as truth, whether honest inquiry is possible or desirable, whether there is a real difference between knowledge and propaganda. There is, Haack argues; but serious inquiry is difficult and demanding, evidence can be ambiguous or misleading, and what passes for truth is sometimes false. Staking out the reasonable middle ground between fashionable extremes, Haack explores how the terms of cultural debate have shifted. How did the sexist stereotypes deplored by old-fashioned feminists come to be celebrated as "women's ways of knowing"? How was the admirable goal of tolerance of cultural diversity transformed into relativism or tribalism? How did we lose sight of the ways in which science differs from literature, and philosophy from both? How did it come to be thought naive to care about truth or to value intellectual honesty? And why is pseudo-inquiry so ubiquitous in the present intellectual climate?

Astringent and immensely entertaining, Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate is sharply critical as well as thoughtfully constructive. Vigorous as well as rigorous, this call to arms is sure to provoke -- and to inspire.