Paul Feyerabend

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How do you feel about this guy? I don't know a whole lot about him, but I already get the sense that he's probably very misunderstood.

I remember a few months ago being a little shocked to discover that it was Feyerabend who first developed the thesis of eliminative materialism. He'd always come across as quite anti-science, so it seemed odd to me that his ideas have had such a significant influence on Paul Churchland, who is a scientific realist, and works very closely with neuroscience.

Then I read this article: http://www.zeww.uni-hannover.de/111_Hoyningen_Feyerab_Kuhn.pdf

This passage, from page 111, struck me: 'Feyerabend confronts this route to revolutions with an alternative. According to this alternative, revolutions would be caused by following the principle of the proliferation of theories: creating competitors to a given theory. In light of the competing theories, the difficulties of the former theory will be emphasized and simultaneously the means for repairing or getting rid of the difficulties can be seen. For Feyerabend, this proceedure also leads to revolutions but, as opposed to Kuhn, in a rational way.'

If this person has expressed the situation correctly, then Feyerabend isn't anti-science, or even necessarily anti-science-as-a-rational-enterprise. Presumably, he isn't exactly the worst enemy of science.

I've just started reading Against Method, but I'd be interested to hear what any of you who are more familiar with Feyerabend think of him.

I am not the most knowledgeable on Feyerabend, and I haven't read anything by him in a few years, however, I do think that he isn't really an enemy of science but rather just an epistemological anarchist, a position that I consider rather interesting. This in practice leads to cynicism towards science, but it does not destroy science, rather it pluralizes science, and I have nothing against methodological pluralism despite thinking Feyerabend goes too far. (If you read Science in a Free Society, you recognize that he pushes for a separation of science and state, a move that most people will regard as too cynical towards science, or even requiring actual anarchism)

I would bet that Feyerabend's eliminative materialism was developed *before* he became a skeptic though given his stand on science. Instead, he is likely a pro-science philosopher who changed minds. Often extreme people are most willing to make the most extreme changes in position, if they change their position that is.

From what I've read of Against Method, he's coming across more as an enemy of modern attitudes towards science, than an enemy of science in general.

Regarding the nature of science, at the moment, I'm a bit lost with what to think. I would certainly like to be a scientific realist, and I find many of the major arguments against scientific realism unconvincing. The main problem I have is, as Feyerabend and others like him have pointed out, that there doesn't seem to be any particular method in science that hasn't been violated a number of times, with positive results. So I'm certainly open to epistemological anarchism, or some variation of it.

I don't know the details of the development of Feyerabend's views over the decades, but he certainly outlined eliminative materialism before he wrote Against Method. Still, the ideas might not be incompatible. Churchland is inspired by Feyerabend in other ways; as far as I'm aware, he's written in defense of both incommensurability and theoretical pluralism. Presumably, the same themes that inspired Feyerabend to defend eliminative materialism went onto inspire him later to advocate a more skeptical attitude to science.

I don't know about Feyerabend, but attitudes toward science do need to change. Science is about understanding the operation of the physical universe and not about blind acceptance and agreement with whoever is currently regarded as an authority.

The main Authority in science is experimental data. In science, facts are the main deciders.


ruveyn

Well, the issue is that his conception of science is radically different from what science sees itself as, and impossible to reconcile with scientific authority.


I can see that. I am more scientifically realistic at the moment I think. I do think that Feyerabend goes a bit far, but if you read Kuhn, then I think on more Kuhnian grounds we could potentially justify a scientific realism or something close, even admitting along with Kuhn, that science is about solving problems.


Epistemological anarchism is compatible with anything. It rejects the notion of rules that curtail certain ideas. It is just that to take a strong claim on eliminative materialism seems to require a commitment to scientific realism, which Feyerabend is personally rejecting. He could *technically* still be both, but it is not likely.

I think it is the same themes. I think Richard Rorty was also an early eliminative materialist who went on to become radically subjectivist.

Well, for the scientific community, science is about the understanding of the operations of the physical universe. This is not incompatible with the existence of authorities or presuppositions that control/impact the endeavor. For outsiders, such as most people, science is just an authority. Each scientist can be questioned, because the power of science rests upon the trial and errors of thousands of other people and both the explicit and tacit knowledge within the scientific community.

Facts don't speak for themselves though. You can have one fact, three scientists, and 5 interpretations of the meaning of the fact.

In physics there is very little semantic fog. Most physicists agree on the basic terms which are stated mathematically. That is why physics succeeds, philosophy/sociology/economics fail. These latter are at best pseudo sciences and at worst total nonsense.

ruveyn

I'm familiar with Kuhn - I've studied philosophy of science as part of my philosophy course. How do you think you could justify scientific realism on a Kuhnian conception of science?

At best pseudo-science? That's a bit harsh. I'd probably agree with Popper that philosophy, at least (I can't speak for sociology or economics) should be classified as non-science, rather than pseudo-science. In any case, all science at least implicitly makes philosophical claims - I don't see what use science would be if we divorced it from epistemology, for example, or how somebody could develop a useful theory without considering things like Ockham's Razor or their views on reductionism, etc.

The fact that most physicists agree on the basic terms doesn't do anything to answer the poster's point. He is, I presume, referring either to the idea that observation is theory-laden, or to underdetermination. These questions would apply whether you have five physicists with vastly different viewpoints, or five physicists who agree on everything.

Last edited by you_are_what_you_is on 12 Apr 2010, 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

His point isn't semantic fog though, his point is the fact that multiple theories can be given for any set of data, and this isn't a bad point at all. That's the reason that verification is a silly idea, and that "science as problem-solving" and "science as falsification" have more validity.

That being said, philosophy and sociology or economics are not the same. Philosophy isn't very empirical. That being said, I would imagine that either you're a fool, or you hold the opinion that social sciences cannot exist. The issue is that if we hold that a social science can meaningfully exist, we also have to admit that this social science will have a number of problems that hard sciences do not have that will prevent it from having similar rigor or solidity in conclusions to harder sciences.

That science is just problem solving? That the issue of solving problems in our understanding of reality is not confined to science, but rather that it is throughout all things. Have you ever had a conversation and had issues understanding the other person or vice versa? Have you ever seen an optical illusion or seen something at a distance and find out that what you saw far-away isn't the same as what you see when you are closer? Hypothesizing, testing those hypotheses, and so on is a part of life as well as science, but we aren't anti-realists about most of our perceptions usually.

If science is about as real as everything else I see, then that's close enough to scientific realism to satisfy me. (that being said, what I consider "close-enough" to scientific realism is just saying that science is about as real as other perceptions.) Let's also recognize that Kuhn, while rejecting a rigid Popperian falsificationism, is not so alien to the idea that one can't be a sort of a Popperian realist about science, I think. I mean, Karl Popper considered himself a realist while holding to the idea that all scientific theories are just guesses.

I'm not sure about that. It sounds like you're changing the definition of 'scientific realism', then saying that this is justifiable on Kuhnian grounds. That's hardly a significant claim, though.

Kuhn's view of science involves more than simply 'science is problem solving'.

Well, the issue is that if we assume that the other issues are cases where we have perception correspond to reality, we have to admit that science isn't much different. That being said I didn't commit to "scientific realism" but rather "scientific realism or something close". The issue is that I don't think we can actually prove that our own perceptions *really* correspond to external realities, but rather we often can feel confident assuming this. The issue is that a lot of observations are theoretical anyway, and thus would be prone to the same issues as science. If we are anti-realist about science, then why not about most things?


It also involves the paradigm shifts that lead to new paradigms incommensurable to old ones.

I agree that 'observables' are in no better position than many 'unobservables' - in a lot cases, I have problems even with that distinction. I would also agree that any observation is theory-laden, and, obviously, influenced by perceptual limitations. Sometimes, even when we are told what the external world is really like, we still have trouble perceiving it that way (as with optical illusions, for example).

That's not enough to convince me of scientific realism or even 'scientific realism or something close' (however, as I've mentioned, I lean more toward scientific realism, or some variation of it, than anything else), though, especially if you're approaching it from a Kuhnian perspective.



And that's partly why I have trouble seeing how scientific realism is justifiable on Kuhnian grounds.