Beyond Reason : Essays on the Philosophy of Paul Feyerabend

Some philosophers think that Paul Feyerabend is a clown, a great many others think that he is one of the most exciting philosophers of science of this century. For me the truth does not lie somewhere in between, for I am decidedly of the second opinion, an opinion that is becoming general around the world as this century comes to an end and history begins to cast its appraising eye upon the intellectual harvest of our era. A good example of this opinion may be found in the admiration for Feyerabend's philosophy of science expressed by Grover Maxwell in his contribution to this volume. Maxwell, recalling his own intellectual transformation, says also that it was Feyerabend who "confirmed my then incipient suspicions that most of the foundations of currently fashionable philosophy and even a great deal of the methodology to which many scientists pay enthusiastic lip service are based on simple mistake—assumptions whose absurdity becomes obvious once attention is directed at them". And lest the reader thinks, as many still do, that however sharp Feyerabend's attacks upon the philosophical establishment may have been, he does not offer a positive philosophy (a complain made by C.A. Hooker and some of the other contributors), Paul Churchland argues otherwise. Front Matter....Pages i-xxi A Deeper Unity: Some Feyerabendian Themes in Neurocomputational Form....Pages 1-23 How to Be a Good Realist....Pages 25-40 Between Formalism and Anarchism: A Reasonable Middle Way....Pages 41-107 Free of Prejudice and Wholly Critical?....Pages 109-129 Speculation, Calculation and the Creation of Phenomena....Pages 131-157 Reason and Practice....Pages 159-178 Science in Feyerabend’s Free Society....Pages 179-198 Letter to an Anti-Liberal Liberal....Pages 199-212 Obituary on the “Anarchist” Paul Feyerabend....Pages 213-224 Ideology, Science and a Free Society....Pages 225-241 The Myth of Astronomical Instrumentalism....Pages 243-280 Feyerabend on Falsifications, Galileo, and Lady Reason....Pages 281-295 The Observational Origins of Feyerabend’s Anarchistic Epistemology....Pages 297-311 Incommensurability, Its Varieties and Its Ontological Consequences....Pages 313-328 Feyerabend and the Facts....Pages 329-353 Ideological Commitments in the Philosophy of Science....Pages 355-377 As You Like It....Pages 379-387 Perceptions and Maturity: Reflections on Feyerabend’s Point of View ....Pages 389-401 Paul Feyerabend — a Green Hero?....Pages 403-416 Ecology as a Challenge to Philosophy....Pages 417-431 Against Feyerabend....Pages 433-448 A New Slant on the Tower Experiment....Pages 449-452 Feyerabend’s Materialism....Pages 453-463 Scientific Methods and Feyerabend’s Advocacy of Anarchism....Pages 465-486 Concluding Unphilosophical Conversation....Pages 487-527 Back Matter....Pages 529-538 Some philosophers think that Paul Feyerabend is a clown, a great many others think that he is one of the most exciting philosophers of science of this century. For me the truth does not lie somewhere in between, for I am decidedly of the second opinion, an opinion that is becoming general around the world as this century comes to an end and history begins to cast its appraising eye upon the intellectual harvest of our era. A good example of this opinion may be found in the admiration for Feyerabend's philosophy of science expressed by Grover Maxwell in his contribution to this volume. Maxwell, recalling his own intellectual transformation, says also that it was Feyerabend who'confirmed my then incipient suspicions that most of the foundations of currently fashionable philosophy and even a great deal of the methodology to which many scientists pay enthusiastic lip service are based on simple mistake- assumptions whose absurdity becomes obvious once attention is directed at them'. And lest the reader thinks, as many still do, that however sharp Feyerabend's attacks upon the philosophical establishment may have been, he does not offer a positive philosophy (a complain made by C.A. Hooker and some of the other contributors), Paul Churchland argues otherwise. Some philosophers think that Paul Feyerabend is a clown, a great many others think that he is one of the most exciting philosophers of science of this century. For me the truth does not lie somewhere in between, for I am decidedly of the second opinion, an opinion that is becoming general around the world as this century comes to an end and history begins to cast its appraising eye upon the intellectual harvest of our era. A good example of this opinion may be found in the admiration for Feyerabend's philosophy of science expressed by Grover Maxwell in his contribution to this volume. Maxwell, recalling his own intellectual transformation, says also that it was Feyerabend who "confirmed my then incipient suspicions that most of the foundations of currently fashionable philosophy and even a great deal of the methodology to which many scientists pay enthusiastic lip service are based on simple mistake- assumptions whose absurdity becomes obvious once attention is directed at them". And lest the reader thinks, as many still do, that however sharp Feyerabend's attacks upon the philosophical establishment may have been, he does not offer a positive philosophy (a complain made by C.A. Hooker and some of the other contributors), Paul Churchland argues otherwise