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Home , Confirmation holism, Criticism of science, Paul Feyerabend

Ideology in 's of

Blaise Cameron

(Advisor: Dr Bernard Wills)

Introduction Free Society, Farewell to , Conquest of Abundance and others have the consistent, The question of ideological1 and political overlapping thesis that science is too powerful to influence on science occasionally recurs in allow to control and that in order for and scientific journalism, truly free societies to flourish, and usually to attack pressure groups compromising science have to be uncoupled. An approach he the objective work of scientists or to describe the offers to do this is an anarchist of consequences of a given ideology–often –a standpoint which does not privilege religious–"winning" against scientific knowledge. one body of knowledge as more legitimate than However, to even enter a laboratory is to others, so they can be tested against one another to participate in ideological assumptions and material find which maximize of the world conditions–this point has also been discussed at and which would only increase ignorance. length, usually by postmodern critics to Prioritizing the freedom of individuals and "problematize" the sociological consequences of communities over ","3 Feyerabend takes many scientific findings. Between these poles a host of measures to widen the gaps of certainty inside the questions are raised which typically preoccupy domains of science and the ideologies which mold philosophers of science, who have historically the world where science is conducted. tried to give a prescriptive method for determining Using Feyerabend's texts as a compass, as which scientific findings are "scientific" and well as discussing those critics and authors who which are not. Another perspective is that the support some of his claims in other areas, this approaches described above are simply not essay will explore: i) ways in which the enterprise sufficient to describe the degree to which science of science is ideologicallydefined byitsverynature, in 20th and 21st century industrialized democracies ii) whether it has ever historically been that case is shaped by political, socioeconomic and that ideologies of some kind did not influence the ideological factors, and for this reason the late-20th work of scientists, and iii) whether the separation century philosopher Paul Feyerabend and others2 of ideology and science is possible. In attempted to work out just what the relationship approaching these questions, the merits of between ideology and science is, in practice. anarchist and other methods will be His publications , Science in a compared to examine science's role as a liberating social force in the way Feyerabend describes. 1 In this paper "ideology" refers to a set of beliefs or Background system of informing a way of life–whether individual lives, that of a political party, or for societies at large–and that these beliefs shape the lives of people Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994), an Austrian- and their surroundings in conscious and unconscious born professor of philosophy who spent his ways. prolific and controversial academic career in both 2 Among the late-20th century thinkers examining the European and American university faculties, sociological dimensions of scientific knowledge are authored many works discussing the philosophy of those of the Edinburgh school–the "" science and the sociological dimensions of science provided by David Bloor and Donald Angus from the 1950s until his death, gaining popularity MacKenzie among others (and of which Feyerabend and notoriety in the 1970s. Because of the had a few criticisms)–which holds that all branches of sometimes startling claims he makes in these endeavor including the emerged from works in order to provoke discussion he is still and are therefore mediated by sociological factors. French sociologist Bruno Latour is another, who argues the examination of science in a sociological context has 3 "[It] is of course not true that we have to follow the not yet transcended the " position"–that factors such truth. Human life is guided by many ideas. Truth is one as class, gender, psychology, and race can be invoked of them. Freedom and mental independence are others. explain almost every aspect of human knowledge–or If Truth, as conceived by some ideologists, conflicts the "fairy position," which holds human efforts to with freedom, then we have a choice. We may abandon understand the world are always inadequate projections freedom. But we may also abandon Truth." Feyerabend, onto the world (cf. Latour, 225-248). "How To Defend," 4.

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considered a fringe figure in the philosophy of and is of considerable science, certainly by mainstream science interest. journalists: Reactions against 's theory of knowledge7 which fuelled G. W. F. Hegel's system Depending upon whom you read, of philosophy in the early 19th century and the Feyerabend is a 'cultural relativist,' late-19th century of G. E. Moore and 'epistemological anarchist,' 'the Salvador created a split in the continuum Dali of philosophy,' 'the wild man of of philosophical priorities–the tradition of Hegel, twentieth-century philosophy of science,' by way of and German , and–for one particularly expressive culminating in the "continental" school, and the commentator–'the agent provocateur, the tradition of Moore, Russell and later Ludwig Shakespearean Fool, and the gifted Wittgenstein becoming the "analytic."8 Generally charlatan all rolled into one.' The name speaking, the province of 'Feyerabend' conjures up an image of a includes formal , clarifying the of philosophical trickster, wickedly willing language, the terms of argument, and developing to praise voodoo and and abstract, systematic of nature based 4 demean science and reason. on an empirical mode of knowledge. As a result the scope of analytic concerns fall squarely within Politically Feyerabend's works are interested in the fields investigated by the natural sciences social equality and individual liberty while not while the figures of continental philosophy, subscribing to any leftist ideology such as including Heidegger along with later social or liberalism, which are considered in theorists like Adorno and Derrida, on the contrary his pages as useful "fairy tales" or reductive reject the natural sciences' monopoly on models of reality. As such his philosophical knowledge in favor of more sociological and concerns developed through time to generally bear historicist methods.9 Though the fundamental on the following–how to account for the success content of these two traditions overlaps of scientific , the relationship of science extensively, the methods of investigation in each and its application through to is traditionally viewed as the source of their sociological change, the political dimensions of science, and the stature of scientific knowledge compared to other forms. Because of his towards ideology, coupled with the fact that much of his work 7 dispenses with mainstream and even radical Kant's theory of knowledge, integral to his models of as insufficient philosophical system and explained in Critique of Pure Reason, can be summarized as follows–experience of caricatures, Feyerabend's stature as a reliable the world is mediated by conceptual categories (heat, commentator on science has never been fully 5 length, duration, etc.) inherent to the structure and robust in academic circles. Nevertheless, "the activity of thought, and without these categories it call to take seriously the practical and political would be impossible to relate to the world in a way context of the that earned recognizable to human beings. It is therefore not certain Feyerabend his 'anarchistic' status is now to what extent human experience of the world matches honoured by a rich community of pluralist, some reality outside of the or whether this outside feminist, political, and socially-engaged reality can be said to exist. Hegel in Phenomenology of philosophies of science–even if only a few of them Mind, by contrast, claims that reality and the human appreciate Feyerabend's status as a precursor of mind include one another, reality and mind are an their interests and approaches."6 Certainly in terms undivided whole, and this undivided whole (or th "Absolute Mind") is everything that exists–therefore the of historical context, as a mid-to-late 20 century human mind is always participating, knowingly or philosopher discussing the kinds of questions he unknowingly, in unmediated relation with a reality that does, Feyerabend's position in the schism between mirrors the structure of thought (a reality which cannot be said to be "outside" or "inside" the mind). Moore and Russell, in turn, reacted against Hegel in favor of 4 Brown and Kidd, 2. common sense realism (the world more or less matches 5 "The charge that Feyerabend's work involves a the way we perceive it through the senses). dangerous and that it sanctions 'irrationalism' 8 These categorizations, whatever their inherent is widespread....Noting the 'playfulness' of much of problems or ambiguity–and there are many–are Feyerabend's writings, some commentators even nevertheless broadly useful for discussing the of suggest that he is not a serious philosopher." Jary, 45. 20th century philosophy. (cf. Jones). 6 Brown and Kidd, 2. 9 Cutrofello, 1.

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differences.10 Science, which in the postwar The until this time had period became a dominant institutionalized mode remained more or less unchanged from Francis of has consequently become a primary Bacon's in 1620 in Novum point of contention between the two spheres. Organum–"not to deduce effects from effects, nor , an Austrian-British philosopher experiments from experiments...but in our whose thought drifted away from the certainties of capacity of legitimate interpreters of nature, to the Marxist-continental school and was skeptical deduce causes and axioms from effects and of the tenets of the analytic school, sought to experiments; and new effects and experiments describe the limits and potentials of scientific from those causes and axioms."13 This knowledge. His works The Open Society and Its understanding, based on , set Enemies and The Logic of Scientific the criteria for scientific investigation as data Discoveryoffer discussions about science such as collection and without needing to suit the distinction between "scientific" and any particular epistemic model. Popper, in "unscientific" theories as well as the complicated suggesting that the work of science needs to relationship between liberal democracy, additionally meet falsifiable standards provided by philosophy, and science. Popper's main philosophy,14 claims the concerns of science are in contribution to understanding the limits of fact epistemic rather than simply a scientific questions is falsification: disinterestedobservation of nature–in summary, "there is no pure, disinterested, theory-free Every genuine test of a theory is an ."15 Science can be understood in this attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. way to always be practised within a larger is ; but there are ideological framework (such as that provided by degrees of testability: some theories are Popper himself with falsification), and it is here more testable, more exposed to refutation, that Popper identifies ideology as the conduit for than others; they take, as it were, greater science's influence on society and political risks....One can sum up all this by saying influence on science. that the criterion of the scientific status of Challenging the apparent simplicityof Bacon's a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, method, Popper raised questions about the 11 or testability. rationale of scientific discovery which led to a flood of works trying to finesse or refute his With this formulation, Popper attempted to theories, among the most radical being those of simplify the concerns of science so as to not , and Feyerabend. overlap with other disciplines whose questions Parallel to this surge in philosophy of science was cannot be answered with empirical observation. the growth of postmodernism, a set of intellectual "Tomorrow you will meet the love of your life," attitudes critical of dominant narratives within the for example, is an unfalsifiable prediction in sciences, , and . Thanks to the comparison to "Two positively charged ions will academic affiliations of some postmodern thinkers repel one another" because it operates under a set and the attention Feyerabend and Kuhn drew to of assumptions which cannot be tested by scientific theory in the wake of Popper's observation and therefore lies outside the abilities publications,16 postmodernism from the 1960s 12 or priorities of science.

scientific but the rigid requirements of an 10 "The employment of the term 'continental philosophy' abstract decide about the form and the arguably evolved historically in order for there to be content of the principles accepted." Feyerabend, The some single thing to which analytic philosophy as a Problems, 21. whole could be opposed...analytic philosophers 13 Bacon, Novum Organum, §117. specified for themselves what continental philosophy 14 A large part of the concerns of the philosophy of was, in effect, by thinking of it as an enormous garbage science, one might say its historical mission, is and has bin into which any...non-analytic form of post-Kantian been to make these kinds of demands of the sciences. philosophy was to be dumped" (Conant,17). 15 Popper, The , 8. 11 Popper, Conjectures, 4. Note that falsification is 16 "With its influence in the academic world growing [in intended to test the scientific quality of claims, not the mid-20th century], postmodernism was increasingly whether they are true or false. seen as the greatest metanarrative of all. A contributing 12 "[Popper's] aim is to develop a special point of view, factor was that scholars from the humanities to bring this point of view into logically acceptable increasingly encroached on other fields of knowledge, form (which involves a considerable amount of rather most controversially the natural sciences. After the pointless technicalities) and then to discuss everything theories of Paul Feyerabend and Thomas S. Kuhn had in its terms....Not the ever-changing demands of drawn attention to the social and cultural determination

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onwards issued formidable disruptions to a within fields of research in the future.20 cohesive theory of science as well as any supposed , in Feyerabend's use, is "not to replace scientific . one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is, rather, to convince the reader that all Feyerabend's Philosophy of Science , even the most obvious ones, have their limits."21 Additionally, his use of anarchism It is within the historical context outlined is not exactly an extension of political but above that Feyerabend surveys the interface of emulates its rejection of totalizing theories in ideology and science. Feyerabend asserts that favor of a plurality–in order to be a force for good "science as a whole is founded on ideology. in the world, the sciences cannot be the Particular scientific arguments may be free from it specialized domain of an initiated few but, as but the general framework of ideas in which the much as possible, a self-policing democratic 22 arguments are embedded...almost always has activity encouraging many perspectives. ideological ingredients."17 He adds that though Feyerabend argues further that science is an this fact does not diminish the accomplishments of "anarchistic enterprise," its breakthroughs science, "[most scientists] simply accept the basic proceeding not byphilosophically-prescribed rules principles of their field and the evaluations that are or methods but through scientists experimenting built into them...without a single unbiased and rejecting modes of thinking which would examination of comparative successes and failures restrict their freedom to know. The only general [with other fields]."18 Feyerabend this principle applying to science in all historical leads to a kind of chauvinist tunnel-vision. periods, he estimates, has been that "anything Various disciplines hold, in his view, that not only goes"23–"the events and results that constitute the do their methods hold a monopoly on about sciences have no common structure; there are no the world, they also deserve more federal elements that occur in every scientific funding–"a 'real world' constructed by special investigation."24 He claims the version of science interest groups who use their own narrow values that "persists in large and well-financed (and of course, their power) to confer unreality on institutions...that underlies science instruction at any problem that might be perceived and even all levels, advanced seminars included"25–that is, solved within a different approach."19 The a picture of science or "the scientific method" as a ideological prism through which science is uniform intellectual activity instead of a conducted, he concludes, colors the seemingly heterogeneous family of historically-and- objective scientific "" and "laws" to a degree culturally-bound practices–is a useful myth only which cannot be ignored if they are to aid a for "metaphysicians, schoolmasters and politicians democratic pursuit and distribution of knowledge. trying to make their nation competitive."26 Science being structured in its very Acknowledging the sciences as existing within a foundations by ideology has a number of political framework of this kind, Feyerabend consequences, and knowing this Feyerabend examines the ways in which ideology shapes the developed an anarchist interpretation of knowledge produced by research. knowledge within–or in reaction to–philosophies of science which he felt did not examine this particular issue closely enough. 20 Feyerabend, Against Method,14. For science to move He sketches out a system of critiques toward forward believing in a uniform, trustworthy method it the that any method based on "firm, must be ignorant of its own historical process–cf. unchanging, and absolutely binding principles" : "If science is not to can be shown to accurately reflect the historical degenerate into a medley of hypothesis, it must…enter upon a thorough criticism of its own conditions which have shaped the sciences. He foundations" (18). further denies that such an idea will engender 21 Ibid. 22 This particular aspect of Feyerabend's thought is not well-developed; exactly what this world would look like is left vague. It would not mis-characterize his views to say that Feyerabend would consider of scientific practice, there were a number of studies democratic control over the sciences' interaction with focusing on the sociological aspects of science, on the the state would be better and safer than corporate nature of scientific texts...and the general relationship control. between science and society and culture." Böhnke, 36. 23 Ibid. 17 Feyerabend, "Science and Ideology," 154. 24 Feyerabend, Farewell, 281. 18 Ibid. 155. 25 "Science and Ideology," 157. 19 Ibid. 26 Against Method, 249.

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Ideology and Science Rationalism exercises an influence on the sciences and how they are understood that is hard Feyerabend identifies rationalism as a central to overstate. For example, in what way does a determining the conduct of the sciences and formula like H2O–describing the atomic properties their place in Western democracy, and as an of water, ice and steam–correspond with nature? ancient Greek "attempt to transcend, devalue, and To say "water is H2O" says nothing of wetness, push aside complex forms of thought and temperature, how light interacts with it, its various experience."27 Rationalism is an attitude towards uses or anything else, only what it is when reduced knowledge that privileges deduction, logic, and to its chemical constituents. That the formula abstract reasoning in general as the primary mode "H2O" corresponds to water, or that the word of verifying what perceive through the "water" corresponds to a clear, odorless, drinkable senses, doubting as a result that the world as it is substance depends on a reductive of a perceived is an entirely "truthful" representation. natural phenomenon to a set of readily-knowable René Descartes' 1637 Discourse on Method is an characteristics. It, in short, does not correspond to attempt to deal with this apparent disconnect, nature at all but presents a model by which nature becoming in the process a foundational work can be known without direct observation. In still describing the method of rationalism: fewer words, it is true by definition. Thanks to reductive models like equations and theorems a ...never to accept anything for true which scientist can in practice "know" an aspect of I did not clearly know to be such...to nature independent of experience, and when faced divide each of the difficulties under with the baroque abundance of the universe can examination into as many parts as identify water whether it is liquid, solid or a gas possible, and as might be necessary for its because the number of atoms is the same. When adequate solution...to conduct my asked what the atoms look like, an answer could 30 thoughts in such order that, by only be given in the form of more models. commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by In this sense rationalism is very useful to little and little, and, as it were, step by scientific theories and necessary for many. step, to the knowledge of the more Without it like the speed of light would complex ... in every case to make be impossible–in order to achieve a high-level enumerations so complete, and reviews so generalization like "light always travels at general, that I might be assured that approximately 3.00 x 108 m/s in a vacuum, we nothing was omitted. ...[T]here is nothing will denote this with c," the variety of possible so far removed from us as to be beyond experience and diversity of phenomena have to be our reach, or so hidden that we cannot made very abstract. Mathematics, the notation discover it, provided only we abstain from system by which phenomena are made reducible accepting the false for the true, and and abstractly knowable, operates under a set of always preserve in our thoughts the order assumptions inconceivable without the "real necessary for the deduction of one truth world-world of appearances" split–"it appears that 28 from another. necessary truths, such as we find in pure mathematics and particularly in arithmetic and This reduction and compartmentalizing of geometry, must have principles whose proof experience into knowable parts is, as Feyerabend mentions, part of the Greco-Roman tradition's 30 "Modern elementary particle experiments have influence on modern Western societies—it pushed this aspect to an extreme. Here we have entire distinguishes "between a 'real world' and a 'world cities, watched around the clock...their intestines of appearances'. [As ancient rationalists] presented protected from undesirable influences while their active the matter, the real world was simple, uniform, parts produce events that cannot be seen, not even in subjected to stable universal laws and the same for principle, but are recorded and interpreted by complex 29 and highly sophisticated instruments....Examples such all." He identifies rationalist reductions of nature as these show very clearly that modern science uses as a characteristic of Western thought going as far artifacts*, not Nature as She is....[We] infer that the back as pre-Socratics like Heraclitus and final product, i.e., nature as described by our scientists, Parmenides. is also an artifact." Feyerabend, The Conquest, 238. *By "artifact" Feyerabend is describing models as opposed to some direct, immediate apprehending of objective truth, 27 Farewell to Reason, 65. 28 that is, we are to understand "elementary particles" and Descartes, Discourse on Method, Ch. 2, Para. 7-11. "nature" in this passage as reductive models rather than 29 Feyerabend, "Knowledge and the Role," 167. "real" entities.

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doesn't depend on instances (or, therefore, on the According to Feyerabend rationalism is also at testimony of the senses), even though without the the heart of political ideologies like liberalism, senses it would never occur to us to think of which regards the rationalist picture, coinciding them.…Euclid understood this so well that he "with science," as "not just one view among demonstrated by reason things that experience and many, but as the basis of a society."35 He uses the sense-images make very evident."31 It is with these example of anthropology, which emphasizes "the abstract methods that the rationalist probes the psychological meaning, the social functions, the world of appearances–a set of clues–for existential temper" of other cultures while underlying unity which can be represented in considering "...oracles, rain dances, the treatment formulas and theories which will hold true in spite of mind and body [as expressing] the needs of the of time, space or circumstance. members of the society,...a social glue". Liberal Through abstraction, additionally, the idea of anthropologists throughout history have scientific "laws" and "facts" is possible. acknowledged a people's need for these rituals Feyerabend believes these ideas stretch the limits without granting them "an accompanying of the doable, noting "abstract theories or models knowledge of distant events, rain, mind, body."36 compare projections (i.e., stereotypical Feyerabend believes this dissection of "non- perceptions stripped of many peculiar aspects) to scientific" cultures is harmful to the preservation projections (i.e., streamlined inferences of and legitimizing of their traditions and consequences from the theories or models). The , leading to an indirect or direct match between them is an artificial construction, dismissal of their way of life as unadvanced. The often made to fit using ad hoc interpretations."32 teleological view that indigenous rituals are proto- In other words, the extent to which a physical law science or magical thinking would make can be said to correspond with nature–like "H2O" indigenous cultures a problem to be solved with corresponding to "water"–is at the level of modernization, absorbing them, in Feyerabend's representation, or of a model, not a clairvoyant estimation, into the tradition "of the White Man" 33 37 uncovering of its unchanging essence. curing them of superstition. Empiricism is another ideology characterizing The law of , for example, is a modern science, which Feyerabend considers way of understanding a diverse array of parallel to rationalist, or "theoretical" traditions: phenomena–falling bodies–without observing them individually or directly. ...rationalism did not introduce order There is no doubting that this is useful for where before there was chaos and the purposes of scientific understanding. ignorance; it introduced a special kind of Feyerabend does not deny that rationalist order, established by special procedures, models of nature serve the work of and different from the order and the scientists exceptionally well, he only procedures of historical traditions. The acknowledges that a map is not the same theoretical approach had results in fields 34 as the territory it illustrates. such as astronomy and mathematics. In the Republic, 530ff, advised the 31 Leibniz, New Essays, I, 3. astronomers to abstract models 32 Feyerabend, Conquest, 138. and to 'disregard things in the heavens'. 33 Cf. W.V.O. Quine: "The totality of our so-called Those following the advice succeeded knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of beyond expectations. But the success geography and history to the profoundest laws of could not be foreseen and, besides, it did atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience not immediately lead to better numerical only along the edges" (29). Quine holds that there can values than, say, the Babylonian be no isolated test of a scientific hypothesis–empirical investigations are always occurring within some removed from the world they describe, do not established theory of knowledge about the world or correspond 1:1 with the world human beings inhabit. conditions one is observing. Further, the truth of any Arthur Schopenhauer extends this when he writes that statement (i.e. "I am holding my hand in front of me") a person "does not know a sun and an earth, but only an can be evaluated by itself, only as part of a larger set of eye that sees the sun, a hand that feels an earth" (World statements (cf. , On Certainty). As Will and Representation 3). In the rationalist picture, This position is known as confirmation , or the there is no direct apprehension by humans of a world as Duhem-Quine thesis. it is. 34 Alfred Korzybski also, famously, points out that "the 35 Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society, 76. map is not the territory" to demonstrate that such tools 36 Ibid. 77. as language and mathematics, being representations 37 Ibid. 76.

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predictions which rested on different and for Plato's idealism, such as the idea of "perfect 38 more empirical principles. triangles" as reducible to the human brain's ability for pattern recognition, for example. This appears Empiricism favors observation and understanding to be a common-sense enough attitude, and by of particulars in the manner reducing reality this way a number of favorable described over purely abstract models, though it results can and have been achieved. However, to overlaps with rationalism and many foundational paraphrase Feyerabend, to justify any theory of rationalist philosophers such as Descartes have knowledge by the results it produces "counts in its outlined empirical scientific methods. Because favour only if these results were achieved by [that observation and data gathering are key to this form theory] alone, and without any outside help" of knowledge, empirical approaches to science are pointing out further that "ideological pressures... generally more accepting of the relationship make us listen to [one theory] to the exclusion of between the senses–or instruments which extend everything else."41 These ideological pressures are the reach of the senses like microscopes–and the social, political and economic in nature and are outside world, and that here is an "outside world" part of determining prevailing theories "to the to observe. In this respect we might say a "pure" extent to which any political...group is permitted empiricism and a "pure" rationalism diverge from to influence society."42 Therefore the "truth" of a one another, but as Feyerabend mentions, "the theory of knowledge–materialist, idealist or discovery of irrational numbers; the semantic otherwise–depends on the dominant ideology of a 43 paradoxes; the difficulties of the theory of ideas; society. the sense-reason problem; the mind-body problem, When this is acknowledged, Feyerabend and so on" have contributed in history to a partial considers the society at an epistemological return from pure rationalism to more empirically- crossroads–either embracing the dominant grounded scientific models. ideology (which can include a spread through Even so, Feyerabend describes a fundamental colonization), embracing relativism, where problem of the empirical tradition lying in "the "traditions not only have no well-defined idea that experience might be a basis for our boundaries...[enabling] their members to think and knowledge [being] at once removed by the remark act as if no boundaries existed: potentially every that '[t]here must be discussion to show how tradition is all traditions,"44 or embracing cultural experience is to be interpreted.'"39 Here he takes pluralism. In all cases, "decisions concerning the his frequent touchstone, 's 1859 value and use of science are not scientific work On Liberty as a valid critique of empiricism. decisions; they are decisions to live, think, feel, In it, Mill continues–"few facts are able to tell and behave in a certain way."45 The sciences then their own story, without comments to bring out become ideologically defined from the outside, their meaning....In the case of any person whose and it is here where the danger lies spurring judgment is really deserving of confidence, how Feyerabend to call for "a formal separation 40 46 has it become so?" Mill is making a statement between state and science." here that calls Popper to mind, that there is no He illustrates this point in part by discussing observation or theory which is not lensed by some the situations within which the sciences are higher structure. From this the question may be asked "What makes an empirical observation deserving of confidence?" 41 "How to Defend," 8-9. 42 Ibid. 9. may be called the higher structure 43 grounding empiricism whereas idealism may be Consider the Soviet republics making the "dialectical called the same for rationalism–in the former, materialist" view of the world and history into an official policy to the exclusion of religious institutions stemming from Democritus, reality is purely and alternatives to socialist economic theories. cf. physical and tangible, with things like "mind" and Bernard Wills, describing the Enlightenment "emotion" being products of physical interactions. conception: "[for] modern science (leaving aside the In the latter, stemming from Plato, reality is question of post-modern science) being is assumed…to ultimately mental and abstract, with the physical be inert passivity described through the model of a universe becoming a low-definition product of the machine whose parts are externally related." This senses. Empirical observation would regard of nature is opposed to mythos, the religious idealism as an unnecessary step, seeing "" model of being as participating fundamentally within a cosmic narrative rather than as the blind flowing of matter (58). 38 Feyerabend, The Problems of Empiricism, 9. 44 Conquest of Abundance,143. 39 Ibid. 67. 45 Farewell to Reason, 30. 40 Mill, 23. 46 "How to Defend," 9.

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expected to work in some industrialized waited for the last four hundred years for democracies–"Government scientists redefine compassionate humane uses of [science]," their problems when a new administration comes which is "outside and above the along...scientists working on defence contracts democratic process."...Conclusion: there adapt their approach to the changing political and is "something inherently wrong" with defence climate, ecologists follow public needs, [science]. We must reject or transcend computer technologists [switch] their priorities it.... Furthermore, [science] "claims to a with every flicker of the market."47 In a way this monopoly of knowledge." It thus denies, 51 is obvious, and a common complaint from parties say, that I know how to tie my shoes ... wanting to defend the work of scientists from policies viewed as oppressive or anti-intellectual. Chomsky views these criticisms, along with In the 21st century particularly there has been a postmodern and poststructuralist criticisms, as vehement championing of science as a safe making a few potentially true criticisms nested in harbour for reason in an unstable global many mistaken assumptions about the "science" community overrun by religious fanatics and they target, while dismissing "dedicated, serious plutocratic businesspeople threatening science's and often successful efforts to overcome methods.48 In a 2006 editorial for Nature titled traditional exclusiveness and privilege" in "Science Under Attack," discussing the Bush university science and faculties.52 He administration's policies regarding science as concludes that these criticisms provide no equally exerting "tighter control of the branches of substantial alternative to the sciences as they are government where scientists work," the editorial currently practiced, and that the political staff claims that for "science to flourish it needs ideologies mediating science's image within public settings that support freedom of enquiry, and the and educational institutions undeniably take many creation of such settings was a great achievement forms across the spectrum. of the Enlightenment. Protecting them is vital, not Faced with a diversity of competing political 49 just for science but for all of humanity." perspectives, relativism is often given as a American conservative institutions are often a solution. Feyerabend sees "relativism," similarly target for these criticisms. In a 1999 interview, to "science," as an array of attitudes rather than a replied to the Kansas public uniform node. He describes relativism as a threat school policy against teaching natural selection as to modern intellectuals–"just as the enlightenment "another long step in the project of redesigning the once threatened the existence of theologians and school curriculum in ways that will reduce the priests"53–as practically synonymous with possibility of students having the intellectual tools "democratic judgement."54 Relativism presents its to escape the fundamentalist fanaticism that the own difficulties but categorically rejecting it designers of the new curriculum prefer."50 presents "others, since competing theories do not Chomsky views from leftist necessarily have to duel one another for the upper circles, more diffuse throughout Western hand–according to ancient skeptics like Sextus university faculties, as also fallacy-ridden even if Empiricus, for example, "if opposing views can be its political influence is less powerfully felt: shown to be equally strong...then there is no need to worry about them."55 It is through a dogmatic [Science] is dominated by "the white male projection of false dilemmas onto conflicts (ie. gender." It is "limited by cultural, racial only one perspective in a debate can be correct) and gender biases," and "establishes and that there arises the need for "objective truth," an perpetuates social organization [with] aim assumed throughout the sciences by 56 hidden political, social and economic explained above to be possible and necessary. purposes." "The majority in the South has 51 Chomsky, "Rationality/Science." 47 Farewell to Reason, 41. 52 Ibid. Employment statistics in the science and 48 The bibliographies of "New Atheist" authors engineering fields may say otherwise. Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins 53 Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society, 79-80. attest to this, raising the post-9/11 political climate to a 54 Ibid. 86. Ragnarök between the forces of science and the forces 55 Feyerabend, Farewell to Reason, 76. of radical or not, along with internet-popular 56 The assumption, if an implicit one, of an objective science educators Neil Degrasse Tyson and Bill Nye, outside world is a practical necessity for whose many debates with hapless apologists for engineering–calculations needed to land a rocket on the religion and creationism are an instructive spectacle. Moon would not need to be so exact if the rocket and 49 "Science Under Attack," 891. the Moon were social constructs or phantoms of the 50 Chomsky, On Democracy and , 98. mind (see the footnote on Quine above).

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F e y e r a b e n d d e s c r i b e s c r i t i c s o f expected to live inside today–structures finding relativism–including Popper, who asserts it is a their source in Euro-American philosophies–still "theory that the choice between two competing alienate and diminish their self-determination in theories is arbitrary"57–as ignoring natural predominantly white society. Imperialism, diversity, where each "division, phylum, species described by Maori critic Linda Tuhiwai Smith as developed its own way of being in a world" as "a complex ideology...[located] within the well as "the disasters created by attempts to Enlightenment which signalled the transformation enforce a uniform way of life" when cultures come of economic, political and cultural life in Europe," into contact.58 For Feyerabend, questions about is an integral part of "the development of the objective truth are not only a matter of ivory-tower modern state, of science, of ideas and of the philosophizing but have fatal consequences when 'modern' human person."63 As such, imperialism groups enforce this claim to objective truth, a exerts its influence in the 21st century through "right way," with violence and oppressive concepts like "the individual," which make socioeconomic structures–it is "not about modern democracy possible, permeating the social 59 concepts...but about human relations." imagination to an extent that alternatives–such as those found in indigenous conceptions of Imperialist Science personhood–are hard justify on imperialism's own 64 terms. It is through colonialism and imperialism that Under this perspective, the imperialist the ideologies and cultural attitudes structuring ingredient to the Western Enlightenment tradition the sciences have had fatal legacies elsewhere on has made knowledge something "there to be humanity. Certainly post-colonial indigenous discovered, extracted, appropriated and critics attest to this–Temagami critic Dale Turner, distributed"65 like a raw material resource, like examining the 21st century situation for indigenous South American gold carried by a Spanish galleon Canadian citizens, writes "the very ways we frame awaiting refinement by more exacting theories of the language of rights, sovereignty and knowledge. Conquered peoples have historically nationalism" in regards to indigenous peoples are been the targets of this predatory thirst. An "steeped in colonialism....[Any] special political example of this is the "rescuing" of artifacts by lights aboriginal communities may possess can be Western researchers and wealthy hobbyists from subsumed within already existing Eurocentric "decay and destruction, and from indigenous political theories of justice."60 "White Paper peoples themselves, [legitimated] practices which liberalism was offered as a way for Aboriginal also included commercial trade and plain and peoples to participate more equitably in day-to- simple theft."66 More than this, "the development day Canadian society, but it is not the kind of of scientific thought, the exploration and participation Aboriginal peoples are demanding."61 'discovery' by Europeans of new worlds...the After the violent generations of colonizing globalization of knowledge and Western culture indigenous lands and subjecting the surviving reaffirms the West's view of itself as the centre of peoples to dehumanizing conditions,62 the legal and political structures an aboriginal person is 63 Tuhiwai Smith, 23. 64 "The individual, as the basic unit from which other social organizations and...relations form, is another 57 Farewell to Reason, 80. system of ideas which needs to be understood as part of 58 Ibid. 77. the West's* cultural archive...[the] individual can be 59 Ibid. 83. distanced, or separated, from the physical environment, 60 Turner, 95-96. the community....Both imperial and colonial rule were 61 Ibid. 97. The "White Paper" in question is a 1969 systems of rule which stretched from the centre proposal under the Trudeau government to abolish the outwards to places which were far and distant. Distance oppressive Indian Act, in the process eliminating again separated the individuals in power from the "Indian status" from aboriginal peoples leaving them subjects they governed." (Tuhiwai Smith, 50, 58). legally vulnerable in the midst of racist political *in this context meaning 'as opposed to indigenous or structures. Many aboriginal citizens felt at the time it non-European.' Marshall McLuhan, working as much was "yet another manifestation of European within the Eurocentric tradition as he could be said to colonialism...unilaterally legislating aboriginal peoples be working outside or around it, notes in The into extinction" (Turner, 12). Gutenberg Galaxy that the individual is the historical 62 The land rights controversies surrounding the product of reproducible printed texts–a transmitter of Muskrat Falls and Mactaquac dam building projects in knowledge privileged over more "tribal" oral Atlantic Canada are just two out of many examples of transmission. corporate and government interests serving to continue 65 Tuhiwai Smith, 61. the colonial agenda under a modern guise. 66 Ibid. 64.

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67 legitimate knowledge:" even if they have not done the actual colonizing themselves.71 Existing within these modern In the nineteenth century the scientific political structures, indigenous peoples are still drive assumed that there were universal trying to decolonize and restore their bodies of models of human society and human knowledge, not only for cultural identity but for nature, and that societies deemed to be political autonomy and the health of its more primitive could contribute to science populations–returning to the example of Canada, by showing the most simple, most "[contemporary] relations between Aboriginal fundamental systems of social peoples and the Canadian state are founded on a organization...While Western theories and racialized ideology, which continues to support academics were describing, defining and the tenets of colonialism....The health-related, explaining cultural demise, indigenous systems-level determinants resulting from [the peoples were having their land and Indian Act] are far-reaching and influence almost resources systematically stripped by the every aspect of First Nations peoples' state; were becoming ever more lives...systematic discrimination from resources marginalized; and were subjected to the and opportunities may well be interpreted as a layers of colonialism imposed through form of structural violence."72 For an indigenous 68 economic and social policies. community to actually function in a post-colonial society, the autonomy to determine their own It is not through some careful comparison and " housing... p r ogr ams an d services... contrast with indigenous knowledge that Western infrastructure...and health systems"73 by and for science, in such manifestations as , has themselves like any other community is necessary. been shown to reflect reality more closely, but This includes, where it is needed, restoring through simple force and economic subjugation. indigenous healing traditions which have Along with murdering swathes of the population, been"explored, researched, refined, and perfected" 74 cutting off younger generations of indigenous by indigenous peoples for "millennia." persons from their community's ideology through Colonization of the sort characterizing the missionary re-education–learning the "master Age of Discovery is a glaring example of language" as Feyerabend calls it69–and conversion imperialism and a stark illustration of the callous to the colonial religion, the colonists reinforce extremes ideology can reach. In the late-20th to their ideology, which includes their sciences, as 21st centuries colonial oppression is not only still the norm. felt by those who live in former European colonies As with the White Paper example above, but entirely modern forms of colonization are proponents of liberalism and neoliberalism, with spread through globalist laissez-faire economic their individualist and rationalist foundations, practices by dominant industrial centers such as have historically seen few theoretical problems in the United States and parts of Europe. These are absorbing an individual from one community (an aided–and one might argue it is no coincidence–by aboriginal group) into a new one (a capitalist heavily interventionist foreign policies by these 70 democracy) without drastic damage being done, countries with a view to installing capitalist

67 Ibid. 66. 68 Ibid. 90. 69 Feyerabend, Farewell, 81. 71 Of course there has been progress since the 1960s 70 The Liberal government under Louis St. Laurent's considering aboriginal rights, though at this stage it is repeal of the Indian Act in 1951 left childcare of hard to say how far it has come. This attitude towards aboriginal communities in the hands of provincial the amorphous individual also extends to interventionist governments, leading to the "Sixties Scoop," a foreign policies which operate, if not consciously then widespread adoption of aboriginal children by white certainly in practice, under the assumption that the end families throughout Canada ending in the 1980s. flourishing of every state is a capitalist liberal Instrumental to ending this was Judge Edwin democracy and anything other is somewhere between Kimelman's appointing of a committee whose 1984 a formidable, threatening alternative (the Soviet Union report determined theseadoptions of aboriginal children in the Cold War) and a barbaric junta oppressing its by out-of-province white citizens was systematic people (hostile Middle Eastern states, military cultural genocide. cf. Arthur Milner, "The Sixties dictatorships throughout Africa)–that the transition for Scoop thirty years later," Inroads 10 (2001), 164; the people in these states to a new way of life will be Manitoba Community Services, "No Quiet Place, Final natural. Report of the Review Committee on Indian and Métis 72 Reading, 9. Adoptions and Placements to the Minister of 73 Ibid. 9-10. Community Services," Winnipeg (1995). 74 Steinhauer and Lamouche; Ibid.152.

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governments in unstable sovereign states.75 can reach.78 This is not to mention the legal Domestically, corporate and government interests dimension built into the state-science network, are constantly at variance with indigenous self- since even a very wealthy person will run into determination as with examples like the Lower considerable difficulty acquiring the necessary Churchill Project in Muskrat Falls, Labrador and equipment to replicate the Saturn V rocket due to the Dakota Access Pipeline. the classified technical data used by aerospace Francis Fukuyama, assessing neoliberalism as engineering firms. exemplified by the United States in his 1992 work Whole bodies of knowledge can more or less The End of History and the Last Man as the live or die by a bottom line mentality depending culmination of human history and the final stage on expenses needed to explore them being of political development–the way which "works" justified,79 and in the case of the environment this being capitalist democracy, borne out by the end has and will continue to have catastrophic of the Cold War–assumes along with many results–a paleontologist whose expertise can be neoliberals and neoconservatives that used to find exploitable oil deposits will be Enlightenment or Constitutional ideals thrive deemed a much more valuable scientist, and one through the free market. This assumption more deserving of research grants, than a influences a teleology lying behind notions of paleontologist whose interest is in displaying "developed nations" and "technological Devonian placoderm fossils for public education. advancement" which the sciences are used to In too many cases, when lucrative funding is facilitate. The imperialism still permeating global involved, scientists are simply employees working relations remains paternal, that formerly or out the logistical wrinkles of expensive currently oppressed peoples can be made whole engineering feats rather than primarily exploring, from the outside rather than allowing them some the faithful interpreters of nature envisioned by independence to develop along their own paths, Bacon. These noble pursuits are often peripheral letting their equality be more than "equality…to to the work at the hand.80 At least to the extent access one particular tradition" i.e. industrialized that science is always done in a set of 76 democracies and Western capital. socioeconomic conditions determined through Finally, political ideology shapes the sciences political relations and allocated funds in similarly materially–space telescopes, nuclear fission unpredictable circumstances, ideologies of some reactors, gene sequencing laboratories and so on kind have always been entwined with the cost money, and more than most individual enterprise of science and this coiling together scientists doing the research are able to spend. A suffuses its theoretical foundations almost technology such as the internet77 would not have completely, as has been shown. been possible under its originating historical conditions without military-funded laboratories in Separating Ideology and Science large-scale facilities like MIT and Santa Monica University, and even the federally-funded Apollo It is in light of this that Feyerabend denies the programs would not have been possible without ability of philosophies of science to prescribe or corporate manufacturing contractors like Boeing. describe any "scientific method" which Even in comparatively rare cases like the SpaceX program which are funded by private persons, to 78 This is not to say the motives behind wealthy entities some extent or another the interests of the funding science are always somehow sinister or merely financier–somewhat like a Renaissance art materialist–only to state the mundane case that unless patron–will influence the kinds of research they are charitable, the patrons of a laboratory, like conducted and the lengths to which that research movie producers, are making an investment they would likely like to see returned in the future. 79 Another mundane fact to include for the sake of completeness is that of course many bodies of research 75 The Reagan administration's covert sponsorship of which serve no political purpose have very sufficient the anti-communist Nicaraguan Contras in the late funding behind them, we are only concerned with 1980s, and the Nixon administration's disruption of the potentially hazardous ones since no social or Vietnamese Paris peace accords before extending war environmental danger would be posed by a non- in the area for the next five years, are just two invasive study of freshwater grasses. examples. 80 "[The] uneven distribution of funds, national 76 Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society, 76. rivalries, fear of accusations (of malpractice, 77 The logic frameworks the internet uses were plagiarism, waste of funds, etc.) put restrictions on developed before the actual hardware designed through what some dreamers, many philosophers among ARPANET was available, this hardware is what is them, still regard as a 'free intellectual adventure'" being referred to. (Feyerabend, Against Method, 247).

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definitively divides the "scientific" from the "word 'science' may be a single word–but there "," or provide any account of is no single entity that corresponds to that word."83 scientific progress which justifies internal Feyerabend, aware of science's embeddedness consistency between one groundbreaking within ideology and historical conditions, is discovery and another–that Thales, Galileo and nevertheless convinced that ideology and science, Jane Goodall have some essential continuity insofar as ideology determines the kinds of binding them rather than using within a science being conducted through state given network of historically-contingent mechanisms and economic regimes, can be assumptions shaped by the socioeconomic disentangled–both for the good of societies, where conditions of their respective day. In his "organs of the state should never hesitate to reject perspective science is not a gradual demystifying the judgement of scientists when they have reason of truths that have always existed–clouded by for doing so," and for that of the sciences, "for a historical and cultural conditions and one day, science that is run by free agents looks much more with the right methods, finally uncovered and attractive than the science of today which is run by fully known–but simply a family of tools for slaves, slaves of institutions and slaves of understanding particular problems within 'reason.'"84 However this is not a license to let the particular contexts. He contends if any continuity sciences run free of accountability to society–the binds "science" as a static ahistorical idea, it is not that of a "scientific method"–or falsifiability or objection that science is self-correcting even, as Thomas Kuhn describes, revolutionary and thus needs no outside interference shifts in science's conceptual bases81–but of overlooks, first, that every enterprise is individuals thinking laterally through problems self-correcting (look at what happened to using whatever means are available.82 That the Catholic Church after Vatican II) and, science has achieved certain results does not show secondly, that in a democracy the self- that it is a particularly authoritative method of correction of the whole which tries to knowing the world–and scientists are aware they achieve more humane ways of living are most often producing tentative, falsifiable overrules the self-correction of the parts 85 models rather than static "facts"–only that it has which has a more narrow aim. been the most expedient solution to a certain domain of questions posed under certain restraints: An uncoupling of a state-science complex would engender individuals to "accept, live in accordance with, and spread ideas as [individuals]" instead of 81 Feyerabend explains his position towards Kuhn's making one set of beliefs intrinsically predominant philosophy of science, as contained in The Structure of 86 to being a citizen of that state. Scientific , in the following way: "Kuhn John Stuart Mill provides the basis for says that 'the difficulties that have seemed to undermine the authority of science should not be simply seen as Feyerab to assert this—On Liberty, which observed facts about its practice. Rather they are Feyerabend cites often throughout his works, is necessary characteristics of any developmental or based around the thesis of evolutionary process.' But how do we know that science is an evolutionary process rather than a static way of a society of human beings fully and finding more facts and better laws? Either from variously developed, morally vigorous, 'observed facts about its practice' or frominterpretations self- determining.…[ Mill] views that are imposed from the outside. In the first case we are back at the situation Kuhn wants to overcome while the second case means that science is being 83 Ibid. 238. incorporated into a wider (cultural) context–a context 84 "How to Defend," 9, 12. that values developments–and is interpreted 85 Ibid. 251. accordingly (the procedure I mentioned in parentheses 86 We might imagine that in Feyerabend's vision that above). It seems that is what Kuhn really wants, i.e. he citizens would have greater control over the use of wants to settle the question philosophically, not by science and industrial engineering within their appealing to facts. I would agree if I knew that for him borders–it is evident from constant protests against this is one way among many and not the only possible fracking and pipelines, for example, that citizens do procedure" (Against Method, 271). feel this is necessary already. Feyerabend could not 82 "The consistency condition which demands that new foresee the kinds of problems facing the social hypotheses agree with accepted theories is dimension of science today; however, in zero-sum unreasonable because it preserves the older theory, and situations, such as vaccinations, it is best to accept the not the better theory....There is no idea, however authority of pharmacists. The same goes for many such ancient or absurd, that is not capable of improving our situations. Feyerabend would only recommend that the knowledge" (Against Method, 5). acceptance of this authority not be blind.

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democracy with some ambivalence. He is arises–allowing it to coexist with other committed to equality of moral status, to perspectives–"ideologies must be seen in the responsibility of each individual … perspective...[since they can be] deadly when [however] he cherishes 'civil' liberty; he followed to the letter."93 Though he does not wishes, that is to say, to limit the address to any great detail the practical problems authority government over individual of getting such a program off the ground, a 87 self-determination. plurality of perspectives, lifestyles and ideologies living parallel to one another is in Feyerabend's Mill states that the power by governments to exert estimation a surer safeguard against the kinds of coercion is "illegitimate. The best government has transgressions which can characterize human no more title to it than the worst" to legislate relations especially in the midst of competing norms by which individual beliefs must conform.88 ideologies. In Mill's estimation, the official state ideology has The preceding pages have hopefully given an no legitimate bearing on the beliefs of ordinary accurate account of Feyerabend's thought on citizens–or it at least has a heavy burden of proof points relevant to the ideological, imperial and to meet if such bearing will be legitimate–and in economic dimensions of Western science. A this respect Feyerabend is fully in line with number of objections have been made to Millian democratic liberty: if democracy as Feyerabend's overall approach, as well as the formulated by current state structures cannot interpretations which inform his conclusions. It secure individual liberty, so much the worse for may be the case that he has many more detractors 89 democracy. than sympathetic readers. His "irrationalist" Feyerabend further asserts "it would not only reversals of conventional understanding of science be foolish but downright irresponsible to accept articulated through sensational, provocative the judgement of scientists and physicians without language is a constant point of dispute among further examination," and that the lay population science journalists, for instance, his understanding "can and must supervise" the sciences.90 It is in of John Stuart Mill–a pillar propping up his this supervision–not by experts within the field or attacks on method–has been taken to task at least through corporate interests, but of ordinary once as "synchronic and unhistorical, citizens–that the sciences would be most fully insufficiently sensitive to nuance and context."94 A consistent with the freedom of peoples in 1987 Nature article famously categorizes Feyerabend's view, since "science is not beyond Feyerabend as "the worst enemy of science" of the the natural shrewdness of the human race. I time, viewing him as a trivial relativist who "can suggest that this shrewdness be applied to all fool a lot of people a lot of the time with important social matters which are now in the sophistries like 'anything goes'" but offers no 91 95 hands of experts." The preservation of ways of substantial insight to the problems of method. life–not only democratic ones–is to Feyerabend far Other than being in the opinion of these critics more crucial than preservation of the insights of basically ignorant of the reality of scientific particular systems of knowledge or the conduct, the substance of Feyerabend's arguments continuation of certain industrial practices, and has attracted widespread criticism though he this oversight has been the cause of much fatal considers them attacks on occasions in his writing imperialism and many suicidal ecological attitudes where he stops "reasoning and engages in a little throughout human history. rhetoric."96 One is his use of "anarchism" in For "maximum liberty of thought in the regard to epistemology, which as Rom Harré society in which we live now, maximum liberty writes, serves not only of an abstract kind, but expressed in appropriate institutions and methods of as a parallel between political and teaching,"92 the dogmatisms of epistemology and epistemic anarchy so that the philosophies of science have to be subdued, and abandonment of any and all principles of by receiving "anarchism" into the discussion as a method, including adherence to any basis possible "medicine" for doing so when the need of rationality is treated not only as being like political anarchism, but as an integral part of an anarchistic standpoint in which 87 Skorupski, 338. 88 John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty," John Stuart Mill, 23. 89 cf. Paul Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society,135. 93 Ibid. 2. 90 Ibid. 96. 94 Jacobs, 212. 91 Ibid. 98. 95 Theocharis and Psimpolous, 596. 92 "How to Defend," 13. 96 Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society 125.

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all order is abandoned.97 example…of a case where the scientific authority and the political authority are fused, is where the The same critic contends state legitimises science and the authority of science legitimises the state. This, indeed, ought Feyerabend's philosophy of science turns to be prevented." He then asks "[is], then, on two points: (i) that the very world is Feyerabend right? No. To the extent that we can changed in the radical transitions from speak of the authorities of science separately from one set of concepts to another, and that science, then we do need to control them and the change is brought about by non- prevent them from misusing their power–on the rational means, by which he means by condition that they can and would participate in means irreducible to any combination of public affairs no less than the Pope....[Separation 98 101 moves in logic; (ii) that the whole of of state and science] is useless." human culture ought to be taken to be Still further, though Feyerabend's approach available as a resource for the has admittedly had an "advantage: it is a advancement of science, in particular discussion within the politics of science. This is remote cultures considered primitive or quite unusual: most writers about science prefer to 99 102 even bizarre ought not to be neglected. pretend that science and politics do not mix" , he invites refutation for declaring "science an As a consequence of his about intellectual system that competes with other scientific theories breaking with established intellectual systems, and that its claim for modes of thought, "novel theories are almost superiority to all competitors is but an expression certainly already refuted by experience and of its cultural imperialist tendencies....The option experiment when they are born, so that the that science is not intellectually superior to of conjecture and refutation, his is but a teaser. He clearly offered it as a mere particular bête noire, could not possibly be applied challenge: he did not consider it seriously."103 to them" and "[if] we see science as the endeavour This alludes to passages in Feyerabend where, for to construct an adequate conception of the natural example, he maintains "Voodoo has a firm though world," then the kinds of procedures which still not sufficiently understood material basis, and Feyerabend shows us to have actually occurred in a study of its manifestations can be used to enrich, "the at certain times and places and perhaps even to revise, our knowledge of of particular importance, is just the kind of method physiology"104 and the demand to "either call 100 that would be called for." quarks and equally real" because neither Feyerabend draws quite a bit of resistance for have been empirically observed, "but tied to his idea that separation of church and state different circumstances, or altogether cease talking provides an adequate guide to solving the kinds of about the 'reality' of things and…use more ideological problems he sees present in the complex ordering schemes instead."105 This is a sciences. Joseph Agassi, assessing Feyerabend's too-frequent criticism by his contemporaries: move to separate state from science, concludes the however much they grant the legitimacy of the analogous "separation of state and church does not arguments "underlying" his prose, he is simply imply any separation of politics and religion....Let being provocative for its own sake or that he is an us assume that science does have authority, that the authority of science exercises power, and that at times it does this quite unjustly." Agassi brushes this aside as "excessively naive," "[a] prime

97 Harré, 295. 98 The point Harré criticizes here is Feyerabend's suggestion that the philosophy of science should not be treated as any more rigid an activity than ordinary process of interpretation we use every day–it is simply a hermeneutical practice of understanding science with all the ambiguities and diversity of perspectives that the involved in reading may have. 101 Agassi, "The Politics of Science," 44. 99 Ibid. Note that since the 1970s it has been 102 Agassi, Popper and His Popular Critics, 67. incrementally more accepted that indigenous 103 Ibid. Feyerabend may have perfectly serious in this knowledge indeed should not be neglected, so this is no belief. longer a controversial point. 104 Against Method, 36. 100 Ibid. 297. 105 Ibid. 89.

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106 110 unremarkable postmodernist. survival." If "scientific results are not only Feyerabend defended himself from criticism influenced but even constituted by values, then we in countless reply articles published in various must take a new look at the role scientists play in journals throughout his later life, often reproduced our societies."111 It is made evidently clear by his in his books–"[State university science views in other areas that it is not in Feyerabend's departments] are financed by taxpayers. They are interest to argue for any single, dogmatic solution therefore subjected to the judgement of the to bringing that about. taxpayers and not to the judgement of intellectual Whatever the flaws in his style or argument, parasites who live off public money....Experts the democratizing of science of the kind he calls have a vested interest in their own playpens, and for is not to be overlooked, and is developed in so naturally they will argue that 'education' is detail in Rupert Sheldrake's Seven Experiments impossible without them."107 Positioning his That Could Change The World which calls for arguments against critics he sees wanting to "grassroots" science, taken up by ordinary citizens preserve "Western oriented history, Western with ordinary means, to participate in realms of oriented cosmology, ie. science" he believes research often ignored by institutional research “democracy as conceived by its current bodies. In it, Sheldrake explains that intellectual champions...will never permit the institutionalization in the 19th and 20th centuries complete survival of special cultures."108 made amateur science and its concerns–like those Feyerabend also contends he is not as politically of Darwin, he argues–more and more fringe while radical as his critics assume–"I regard anarchism professional science and its concerns–along with as 'excellent medicine for epistemology and the the funds needed to explore evermore expensive philosophy of science'...[one] takes medicine for areas of study–have taken over. His solution is a a time, and then one stops....Anarchism, I say, will possible relationship between amateurs and heal epistemology and then we may return to a professionals–"the former having a greater more enlightened and more liberal form of freedom to pioneer new areas of research" with the rationality....I am not too enthusiastic about latter having "a more rigorous approach," political anarchism."109 He frequently, through expanding and integrating discoveries.112 For this close reading of reviews about his works, purpose he designs his book to appeal to the determines his critics are "illiterate" without the amateur–who in earlier times made significant necessary sensitivity to irony, rules of argument or contributions to the sciences–and using basic literary devices. As for criticisms of a deliberately "fringe" scientific questions to invite science unencumbered by political ideology, readers to try experiments and avenues of research "[just] as all religious traditions in a democratic which do not require extensive laboratories or any state should have the same rights, all cognitive elaborate apparatus. He presents such questions as traditions should receive the same conditions for whether pets have telepathy as potentially worthwhile to explore, or potentially not, to invite 106 Feyerabend at various times calls Marxism a "stupid amateur research and genuine testing of the religion" and seeing as his suspicion of ideology hypotheses which may be outright dismissed by potentially or necessarily including ideologies like more conservatively-minded professional and other leftist theories, one could give scientists. The political implications of non- Feyerabend's arguments a more conservative frame professional individuals researching these than his readers have traditionally given, though it is questions are that it promotes bodies of knowledge hard to say how far that reading could go (he certainly otherwise "disproven" as legitimately in need of appears at any rate, from surveying his works, to be a first-hand inspection, and that the objectivity of philosophical classicist who can seemingly find an institutional science "fundamental to the ancient source for just about any modern or postmodern assertion). He is deliberately subversive on enough of materialists, rationalists, secular points to make categorizing his "school of thought," if humanists, and all others who uphold the any, difficult. This cannot be said for very consciously superiority of science over religion, traditional anti-patriarchal or anti-capitalist postmodern authors , and the arts" is opened up to further 113 who leave little ambiguity as to their political leanings, perspectives and findings. however much ambiguity is left in their prose. To group In What Is Life?, Erwin Schrödinger, him with postmodernism proper is hasty, and the same considering the physical basis of , can of course be said for other thinkers, even ones intimately tied with postmodernism, grouped in a 110 similar way. Preston et al., 13. 107 Science in a Free Society,135. 111 Feyerabend, "Science and Ideology," 155. 108 Ibid. 112 Sheldrake, xv. 109 Ibid. 127. 113 Ibid. 165.

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states a "rationalist may be inclined to curtly deal Feyerabend concludes in Conquest of Abundance w i t h t h i s q u e s t i o n , r o u g h l y a s that the world in which we live is fundamentally follows...consciousness is linked up with certain ineffable, that no word, theory or doctrine has kinds of events in organized, living matter, scratched its surface. For this reason the sciences namely, with certain nervous functions. How far are needed, art is also needed, literature is needed, back or 'down' in the animal kingdom there is still conversation, songs, games, romance, self- some sort of consciousness, and what it may be exploration, experimentation with psychoactive like in its early stages, are gratuitous substances, dreaming–none of these are speculations...and thus of no value to distractions or impure methods of uncovering the knowledge."114 He then states this approach mysteries in which human life is embedded and leaves "an uncanny gap...in [the rationalist] picture which surround us to depths no mind or of the world....[It is] extremely improbable that instrument has ever sounded. These domains do our understanding of the world represents any not have to be "purified" or raised to the merits of definite or final stage...[by] this I do not mean the sciences, they have a dignity of their own as merely that the continuation of our research in the explorative tools just as cultures have an various sciences, our philosophical studies and inalienable dignity, even if they are to determined religious endeavor are likely to enhance and after being tried to have failed to uncover anything improve our present outlook...[we] may be meaningful. approaching the end of a blind alley, we may even The work of the sciences makes legitimate have reached it."115 It is as true in this century as discoveries and in its long history has provided the it was in the last that we simply do not know human race with tremendous abilities and enough to be dogmatists especially with knowledge that have made our primate origins implements as potent as the sciences, and our unrecognizable to us and this is truly remarkable. survival depends on it–as of 2014 "[an] IPCC It has also made remarkable cruelty possible in the report reaffirms that the 'vast majority' of known form of genocidal othering of worldviews, in the fuel reserves must be left in the ground to avert destructive ecological practices it facilitates, in the intolerable risks to future generations. Meanwhile increasingly efficient weapons it continues the major energy corporations make no secret of producing to feed military-industrial complexes at their goal of exploiting these reserves and the expense of innocent lives–science is not like discovering new ones....[The] 'most appropriate the sword in the stone which only obeys its chosen metaphor for the insanity of our times' is the hands, it can as be readily manipulated to serve Siachen Glacier, where Indian and Pakistani what is worst for survival of life on Earth soldiers have killed each other on the highest including human beings as it can to serve what is battlefield in the world. The glacier is now best. The human race simply does not know melting and revealing 'thousands of empty enough to sacrifice life on Earth to pursue the artillery shells, empty fuel drums, ice axes, old illusions of certainty provided by scientific boots, tents and every other kind of waste that materialism or that of any other belief system. thousands of warring human beings generate' in A future in which ideology and science, as it 116 meaningless conflict." is recognized today, are fully uncoupled is uncertain and may be impossible. By making the Conclusions facilities and the institutions where the sciences do their work if not open to the layperson, then If we grant to Feyerabend that "science as a responsible to the layperson, a future where fatal whole is founded on ideology"117 along with his mishandlings of scientific knowledge regularly exploration of same, we can conclude that there is occur may be avoided. This is not to say people no ideology-free science just as is there is no with scientific training should be put out of a theory-free observation, and attempts to laboratory position to give laypeople run of it, understand science as operating somehow outside merely to say that in a more integrated and domains shaped by human affairs will meet transparent society science ought to serve life on considerable issues. This is not to say politics is the planet and the knowledge thereof, and all there is to life–human existence is as ornate ideologies which would have it the opposite way and sublime in its dimensions as nature itself. would meet with the proper opposition. It may go a long way to uncouple the state mechanisms 114 Schrödinger, 93. which make science subservient to the daily- 115 Ibid. 94, 103, 104. changing needs of economic ideology and turn 116 Chomsky, "The End of History?" them incrementally towards freeing the 117 Feyerabend, "Science and Ideology," 154. communities of the world to similar subservience.

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The sciences are among the greatest —. On Democracy and Education. Ed. C.P. Otero. achievements humanity has mustered against New York: Routledge, 2003. vertigo-inducing horizons of uncertainty–to know ourselves and our environment is of crucial —. "The End of History? The Short, Strange Era importance, and to allow it to continue playing of Human Civilization Would Appear to be any part in widespread extinction, Drawing to a Close." In These Times. dehumanization, futile global wars, or ( S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4 ) . environmental collapse would be a cruel display www.chomsky.info/20140904/. of irony. It is therefore necessary to any future worth having that "those who look at the rich Conant, James. "The Emergence of the Concept of material provided by history, and who are not the Analytic Tradition as a Form of intent on impoverishing it in order to please their Philosophical Self-Consciousness." Beyond lower instincts, their craving for intellectual the Continental-Analytic Divide. Eds. Jeffrey security in the form of clarity, precision, A. Bell, Andrew Cutrofello, and Paul 'objectivity' [or] 'truth'"118 emerge out of what Livingston. New York: Routledge, 2015. 17- Immanuel Kant describes as self-imposed 58. immaturity, "the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. [It] is Andrew Cutrofello, Continental Philosophy: A self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of ContemporaryIntroduction .NewYork: Routledge, understanding but in indecision and lack of 2005. courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance....'Have the courage to use your own Descartes, René. Discourse on Method (1637). understanding,' is therefore the motto of the www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/desc 119 enlightenment." artes1637.pdf.

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