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Philosophy of Science -----Paulk PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE -----PAULK. FEYERABEND----- However, it has also a quite decisive role in building the new science and in defending new theories against their well-entrenched predecessors. For example, this philosophy plays a most important part in the arguments about the Copernican system, in the development of optics, and in the Philosophy ofScience: A Subject with construction of a new and non-Aristotelian dynamics. Almost every work of Galileo is a mixture of philosophical, mathematical, and physical prin~ a Great Past ciples which collaborate intimately without giving the impression of in­ coherence. This is the heroic time of the scientific philosophy. The new philosophy is not content just to mirror a science that develops independ­ ently of it; nor is it so distant as to deal just with alternative philosophies. It plays an essential role in building up the new science that was to replace 1. While it should be possible, in a free society, to introduce, to ex­ the earlier doctrines.1 pound, to make propaganda for any subject, however absurd and however 3. Now it is interesting to see how this active and critical philosophy is immoral, to publish books and articles, to give lectures on any topic, it gradually replaced by a more conservative creed, how the new creed gener­ must also be possible to examine what is being expounded by reference, ates technical problems of its own which are in no way related to specific not to the internal standards of the subject (which may be but the method scientific problems (Hurne), and how there arises a special subject that according to which a particular madness is being pursued), but to stan­ codifies science without acting back on it (Kant). One can say, without dards which have the advantage of being simple, commonsensical, and ac­ too much simplification, that the change is essentially due to Newton. cepted by all. Using such standards as a basis of judgment we must confess Newton invents new theories, he proposes a radically empiricist method­ that much of contemporary philosophy of science and especially those ology, and he claims that he has obtained the former with the help of the ideas which have now replaced the older epistemologies are castles in the latter. He supports his claim by a manner of presentation that seems in­ air unreal dreams which have but the name in common with the activity ' deed to suggest, at least at first sight, that his optics and his celestial me­ they try to represent, that they have been erected in a spirit of conformism chanics are the perfect results of a perfect method perfectly applied. Hav­ rather than with the intention of influencing the development of science, ing convinced most of his contemporaries, he creates additional support and that they have lost any chance of making a contribution to our knowl ­ hoth for his science (it has been obtained in a methodologically sound edge of the world. (The medieval problem of the number of angels at the way and must therefore be free from major mistakes) and for his method­ point of a pin had some rather interesting ramifications in optics and in ology (it has led to perfect scientific results and must therefore be the cor­ psychology. The problem of "grue" has ramifications only in the theses of rect method) .2 Of course, his presentation is quite misleading, it is full of those unfortunate students who happen to have an engruesiast for a teacl1 holes, fallacies, contradictions, and he himself violates every single rule he er.) This is my opinion. Let me now give some reasons for it. proposes. Yet it was influential enough to have blinded scientists, histor­ 2. The scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ln ns (including some very recent students of the history of optics, such as is characterized, among other things, by a close collaboration between sc i W cstfall), and philosophers alike.3 'Experience,' from now on, means ence and philosophy. This is a direct consequence of the way in whicli science was debated both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. The re ' ror details concerning Galileo and his differenc~ from Des~a~tes an,? .Bacon, see ~y nKN1 1y "Bemerkungen zur Geschichte und Systemabk .des Empmsm~s, m Paul We1i;i­ action against "medieval science," which in many cases was but a reaction ~111'1'n c r , ed ., Grundfragen der '\,Vissenschaften und 1hre Wurzeln m der Metaphys1k against certain petrified aspects of it, leads to the development of new ( S11 lzburg: Pustct, 1967) . • The development in the quantum theory from 1927 to about 1955 was of exactly philosophical principles. It does not lead to a split between science :i11d Iii s1 1mckincl . philosophy. The new philosophy that is being gradually developed is ol • l"o~ optics.see Goethe, TI1eory of Col?urs, which cont~ins ~ v~ry perceptiv~\account or Ili c 1d cological development JU St mcnt10necl; V. Ronch1, H1stoire de Ia lum1cre (Par- course used to expose and to remove the hardened dogmas of the school ~ 1 ~ 1 C:o lin . 19 %); /\.I. Sabra . T/1corics of Light from Descartes to Newton (London: 172 171 Paul K. Feyerabend PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE either the results of Newton's experiments as described by him (optics), Mach's own positive suggestions have been extremely fruitful, both in the or the premises of his deductions (celestial mechanics), but it also means, sciences and in philosophy. In science Mach's suggestions have contribut­ by virtue of Newton's connecting maneuver, the safe, irrevocable, and ed to the development of the general theory of relativity and they play an gradually expanding basis of scientific reasoning. Small wonder that think­ essential role in more recent discussions, now that interest in general rela­ ers who seemed to sense a flaw but who lacked either the patience or the tivity has been revived. They had also a decisive influence, not always bene­ talent to combine their critical intuition with spectacular scientific dis­ ficial, on the founders of the quantum theory (even Schrodinger was often coveries were not heard, and were increasingly isolated.4 To survive, they heard to say, quite emphatically: "Aber wir koennen <loch nicht hinter changed their target from science to philosophy and thus created (or, Mach zurueckgehen!"). In philosophy it was a different story, as will be rather, continued-for there was always a tradition that developed philos­ seen below. ophy out of its own problems and with only the most tenuous relation to In order to understand Mach we must distinguish most carefully (and science) a self-sufficient subject, content with discussing its own problems. more carefully than Mach himself did on various occasions) between his Science, on the other hand, being separated from philosophy, had to rely general methodology ( s.v.v.) and the more specifi.c hypotheses he used as on intuitions of a different and much more narrow kind. The possibility starting points of research. of a fundamental criticism became more and more remote. In this respect, A general methodology is independent of any particular assertion about too, the situation was surprisingly similar to the situation that exists in cer­ the world, however trivial, and however obvious. It is supposed to provide tain parts of science today.5 However, there is one difference. The nine­ a point of view from which all such assertions can be judged and examined. teenth century produced one philosopher who was not prepared to accept It will not assume a dichotomy between an objective world and a perceiv­ the status quo, who was not content to criticize science from the safe dis­ ing subject who explores the world (using his mind and his senses) and tance of a special subject either, but who proceeded to suggest concrete gradually increases his knowledge of it. Such a dichotomy is presupposed means for its change. The nineteenth century produced Ernst Mach. by almost all science, it is the instinctual basis of everyday behavior (at 4. Ernst Mach's "philosophy" 6 contains a general criticism of the sci­ least in vVestern societies), and it has been professed with almost religious ence of his time, including the house philosophy of the contemporary fervor by thinkers who otherwise pride themselves on having made criti­ Newtonians, and a philosophy of science that completely abandons the cism a principle of science and of philosophy. Yet-is it not possible that idea of a foundation of knowledge. The criticism and the positive views arc lhis view is mistaken? Is it not possible that it neglects or misrepresents illustrated by his work in the history of science where factual and epistemo­ phenomena of an intermediate nature which show that the boundary is logical considerations are once more merged in perfect harmony, and they rather ill-defined, and perhaps altogether nonexistent? And if we admit are given strength by the exhibition of shortcomings right in the center of I his possibility, must we not ask ourselves how such a failure of realism can the most advanced theories of the nineteenth century. The criticism and possibly be detected without relying on realism in the process? At this point recourse is usually made to sensations, and this is quite appropriate Oldbourne, 1967); as well as my discussion of Newton in "Classical Empiricism," i11 The Methodological Heritage of Newton, ed. R. E. Butts and J. W. Davis (Toronto : if the existence of sensations, bundles of sensations, lawful connections University of Toronto Press, 1969). l>dween sensations, is regarded as an alternative hypothesis rather than as •An exception was Faraday, but his background philosophy remained almost co111 pletely unknown.
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