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Accommodating Diversity: Feyerabend, Science and Philosophy

Accommodating Diversity: Feyerabend, Science and Philosophy

Accommodating diversity: Feyerabend, science and philosophy

CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Science, philosophy and diversity

2 Introduction

There are perhaps thirty million distinct species in the world today. This means that there are thirty million distinct ways of making a living: ways of working to pass DNA on to the future. Dawkins 1998: 11

I found one of the most convincing arguments that there are many successful ways of approaching the world in an introduction to the . We live on a planet where millions of very different species have found the key to their continued survival in their own unique ways of doing things. There are thirty million species that exist in this world and this means that there are at least thirty million ‘right’ answers to the question of how to survive on a planet such as ours.

And it seems that one of these species, human beings, is beginning to acknowledge what the natural world around us has been telling us for centuries. There is more than one answer. Some may be unsuccessful, but there are probably as many that are successful. In many societies, we seem to be moving away from the omnipotent one, one religion, one ruler, one race, one gender, one way of doing things, towards a recognition of heterogeneity and abundance.

Paul Feyerabend, one of the most controversial 20th century philosophers of science, would find it ironic that I found an example of the abundance and diversity of our world in an introduction to science. He argues that far from embracing difference, our world has been tarnished by a far-reaching homogenising influence that threatens to stifle cultural variety and inhibit freedom. The name of this influence? Science. Contemporary science encourages uniformity, encourages the that there is one right answer to the multitude of questions induced by living in this world. We pride ourselves on the freedom enjoyed in contemporary societies and yet, according to Feyerabend, our freedom, especially our freedom to differ from science, is being stifled.

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Feyerabend argues, however, that science itself cannot really be held responsible for its dominance. The question of science’s worth is not scientific; it is philosophical. Underlying science’s privilege are : the idea that there is one way of discovering , the idea that only a select group of people have access to that truth, the idea that we should ignore anything that does not fit into our ideas about what is the truth. These ideas, Feyerabend argues, stem from philosophy. Although science can be democratised and its role in society can be transformed to better accommodate difference, philosophy is intrinsically at odds with difference.

To genuinely respect and accommodate diversity in society, we need to carefully examine how diversity is threatened and how we can prevent it from being marginalised. To help us to truly uphold heterogeneity and abundance, I believe we need to examine Feyerabend’s critique to discover if it can help us to accommodate diversity better. Thus, the aim of this dissertation is to analyse and critically evaluate Feyerabend's attempt to transform science, politics and philosophy to better accommodate diversity.

This chapter can be divided into three sections. Firstly, I will provide background on the relationship between science, politics and diversity to prepare for my analysis and evaluation of Feyerabend’s critique of science and its role in society. Secondly, I will also provide background on the relationship between philosophy and diversity to prepare for my analysis and evaluation of Feyerabend’s of philosophy. And lastly, I will state my research problem, research aim, and research design, and I will outline the chapters in the rest of this dissertation.

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Science, politics and diversity

Scientists are worried. In an age in which scientific advances have cloned sheep and sent a robot to explore Mars, in an age in which science has claimed that it could hold the answer to everything, people are turning their backs on science. Religion, and the paranormal are more popular than science. Creation science simply will not go away and its recent counterpart, intelligent design theory, has joined it at hammering away at the scientific establishment’s ideas about the origin of life:

The paradox of science in the 20th century is that this century has probably unlocked as much new as all the other centuries together, but it has ended with the same level of superstitious belief in paranormal phenomena as the end of the 19th century. And with even greater hostility towards science than ever before. Claassen 2001: 9 [translated from Afrikaans]

Scientists are confused. Science has proven repeatedly that it has a sound method for analysing the world around us, and this method ensures that science produces valid results. Why then does anyone believe in the pseudo-sciences and their lack of ?

Science is based on a rational and empirical foundation that proves its validity, providing it with access to the truth. Creation science, astrology and paranormal psychology warp scientific laws and are all based on false premises. This means that science is right and the pseudo-sciences are wrong. Not to nod one's head in agreement would prove a very unpopular gesture in this the age of science and technology. And yet, 20th century philosophers of science have been shaking their heads vigorously: “Modern developments in the have pinpointed and stressed deep-seated difficulties associated with the idea that science rests on a sure foundation acquired through and experiment” (Chalmers 1982: xvi).

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This does not mean that these philosophers necessarily defend the pseudo- sciences, but they are questioning the often taken for granted authority of science. Science is simply not justified in making such grandiose claims to objective knowledge and universal principles. Paul Feyerabend is one of the most well-known, or perhaps more accurately, most notorious, of these sceptics who distrust traditional views of science. Like his contemporaries, , and , Feyerabend has questioned the authority of our typical understandings of science.

Feyerabend, however, goes a lot further. Although many theorists have challenged the truth-value of science and the role of the rational scientific method, they tend to evaluate the implications of these challenges within the parameters of science and its philosophy. Feyerabend broadens the debate. Not only does science's false claims to absolute knowledge negatively impact on the practice and philosophy of science, it interferes with our experience of freedom and diversity. To understand this interference, let us use the example of the debate between science and creation science.

In 1925, the famous Tennessee 'monkey trial' highlighted the increasing tension between creationism and evolutionary theory (Boyer et al 1993: 826). A biology teacher, John T. Scopes, was prosecuted for teaching evolution at his public high school. Although Scopes was found guilty, the highly publicised trial was seen as a blow to religious fundamentalist ideas about the origins of life, which were exposed as misconceptions of reality (Boyer et al 1993: 826). Now, less than a hundred years later, evolution is taught widely in American schools whereas religion is seldom part of the curriculum.

This does not mean, however, that creationism, the belief that the bible gives us a true account of the origin of the world, has disappeared. Creation science continues to oppose evolutionary theory and to insist that creationism is "given

6 equal time with evolutionary biology in American public schools" (Tilghman 1994: 158). Recently its campaign has been strengthened by a slightly more scientific ally, intelligent design theory, which claims that life is not the result of random, meaningless events as science claims, but the design of an intelligent force (Watanabe 2001: 17).

Scientists' problem with creation science and intelligent design is that they are not scientific: “The Biblical doctrine of Creation is not empirically testable and Creationists refuse to acknowledge scientific standards of . Creationism is fraudulent science” (Tilghman 1994: 160).

Feyerabend would point out that this typical argument is problematic. Firstly, it rests on the assumption that there is some clearly definable field with fixed criteria called ‘science’. Secondly, it also assumes that there is something necessarily wrong with being unscientific, that the only field that has any validity is science. This assumption is prevalent in education, in the media, in our everyday lives. And as once politics was inextricably linked to religion, it seems that science has found its biggest ally in the state.

In 1999, in an interesting reversal of the Scopes trial and of the influence that religion once had over the state, a high school biology teacher in Burlington, Washington, Roger DeHart, was ordered to stop questioning evolution and to stop teaching intelligent design (Watanabe 2001: 17). Now instead of religion, science’s validity is being backed by the state. And even though science is being questioned, we live in a world in which the scientific validity of something has become the standard against which we measure it.

Although creation science questions the scientific establishment, the that it insists on calling itself a science demonstrates how important scientific acceptance is. Feyerabend has two important problems with these assumptions. Firstly, from a descriptive point of view, science is not a clearly defined field and it

7 is not necessarily better or truer than non-science. Our of science, he claims, are simply fairy-tales. Secondly, and more importantly, our unquestioning acceptance of science is harmful: it conflicts with diversity and freedom.

What is significant about the debate between scientists and the creation scientists is not whether science is right and creationism wrong according to some sort of objective standards. The significance lies rather in the fact that this debate has occurred in the USA, a so-called liberal democracy, which is supposed to value and uphold freedom and equality. Never whether or not science is right, how can the state always align itself with science and yet claim to encourage public opinion, freedom and equality? Surely, if education is dominated to such an extent by science, we are trampling on the creation scientist's freedom of belief? Surely, we are denying her an equal place within society? And surely, we are ignoring her voice in a state system that is supposed to be governed by the people?

Of course, creation scientists are not the only ones affected by science's dominance. Any non-western or unscientific approach to the world, Feyerabend argues, is considered inferior when compared to the all-mighty sciences. And this means that we do not encourage diversity and we do not enjoy the freedom or equality that modern democracies are supposed to be built on. Even if science could prove its superiority (and much of Feyerabend’s argument is that it cannot), “[m]ust we not demand that ideas and procedures that give substance to the lives of people be made full members of a free society no matter what other traditions think about them?” (Feyerabend 1978: 79).

Often certain ways of approaching life, certain ideas that make people happy, conflict with . This conflict itself would not necessarily be problematic if the state was not consistently biased. If science conflicts with

8 popular opinion, why do the state and the academic world always seem to take science's side?

A 1999 survey by Science American "showed that fewer than 10 percent of National Academy of Science’s members believe in God” (Watanabe 2001: 17). By contrast, “90 percent of Americans not only believe in God but say God played at least some role in creation" (Watanabe 2001: 17). In selecting a curriculum for schools, how can we justify ignoring the opinions of 90% of a population?

A South African example is the often disregarded role of traditional healers. On the 29th of April 2001, the Sunday Times reported that two traditional healers were fired from their positions in the Department of Health, where they had been helping to formulate government policy on AIDS (Jordan 2001: 5). These two healers claim that they were marginalised and their ideas about healing, which differ from standard Western medicine, were not taken seriously. And yet, “[a]n estimated 80% of South Africans – and 90% of HIV/AIDS sufferers – consult traditional sangomas or inyangas” (Jordan 2001: 5). Again, we need to ask ourselves if we can ignore 90% of a population when formulating government policy, even if their ideas are scorned by science? If we truly uphold freedom, why are scientists calling the shots? Even if science is far superior to common sense or to popular opinion, can we really uphold its dominant position and simultaneously claim to encourage freedom and diversity? It appears that something has to give.

So, what does Feyerabend suggest that we do? Does he really believe that we can do away with science? Does he think that we should live in societies dominated by religion and superstition? Not at all. Feyerabend’s solution is not to rid society of science. He believes that we need to change our ideas about and our approach to science. His solution does not come from science but rather

9 from politics. He wants to apply a political model to science and how we view and practice it.

Using ’s liberalism, Feyerabend argues that science’s dominant position in society could be described in political terms as tyranny. Science’s authority is oppressing the diversity and autonomy of individuals. Primarily, Feyerabend believes that we need to transform science’s role in society. He argues that if science is dominant then an individual's non-scientific beliefs and traditions become marginalised. Science must become divorced from any ideology that legitimates its dominance. In fact, we must aim for an ideologically neutral society that does not promote specific values or ideas, but rather allows individuals to decide for themselves on how they should live their lives.

This means that if a majority of people believe that God played a role in creation then this should be included in the school’s syllabus. If a majority of people believe in the healing power of sangomas, they should be represented in state health policy. We need to recognise that science is simply one of many ways to approach the world. We need to acknowledge alternatives to science, and to ensure that the individual's autonomy is not tarnished, these alternatives need to be respected as equal but different to science.

Feyerabend does not, however, believe that science inherently opposes diversity. It is only our flawed understandings of science and the role of science in society that suppresses and marginalises non-scientific alternatives. Underlying Feyerabend’s critique of science and his political solutions, is a much more damning critique: his critique of philosophy.

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Philosophy and diversity

Although even the Ancient Greek philosophers have questioned the and use of philosophy, this discipline has been repeatedly criticised over the last few decades. Many contemporary thinkers believe that philosophy should, at the very least, be transformed, if not discarded entirely (Baynes et al 1987: 2).

A major attack on philosophy comes from theorists who claim that philosophy, far from projecting universal rational principles, has been complicit in promoting the suspect cultural values of certain social groups. The experiences and ideas of women, blacks, non-westerners, and many other social groups have been marginalised and suppressed by philosophy.

Some theorists go even further. They argue that philosophy cannot be sustained in societies that uphold diversity. Philosophy can never transcend specific human circumstances and values, and thus it can only ever express one side of a story. As such, philosophy will always marginalise certain ideas; it will always suppress dissent. Examples of theorists who accuse philosophy of denying diversity are Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard. Another example is Paul Feyerabend.

Underlying Feyerabend’s is his condemnation of philosophy. When Feyerabend criticises established ideas about science, he condemns the philosophy of science. When Feyerabend criticises the elitism in contemporary democracies that upholds scientific opinion above public opinion, he refers us to philosophy. When Feyerabend criticises the idea that knowledge lies in abstract essences, he takes us back to the beginnings of philosophy in Ancient Greece.

11 Although science dominates our ideas in contemporary societies, Feyerabend blames philosophy for the very notion that certain ideas should dominate societies. Feyerabend blames philosophy for the idea that there can be one right answer, one explanatory system, one way of doing things. He claims that philosophy is rooted in drawing a distinction between abstract knowledge and the concrete world. Far from being able to describe the world adequately, philosophy tries so hard to transcend the messiness and complexity of reality to formulate universal principles, that it becomes vague and unrealistic. Philosophy, Feyerabend argues, necessarily oversimplifies, suppressing diversity and dissent.

Science can be rehabilitated, can be transformed, Feyerabend argues, because there is nothing inherently damaging and marginalising in science. However, philosophy’s aim is to transcend difference; it is intrinsically a distortion of reality; it will always be removed from the complexity and heterogeneity of people's lives. Thus, Feyerabend believes it is time to bid it farewell:

I shall have to say FAREWELL TO . Feyerabend 1987: 319

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Transforming science and philosophy: research questions

Feyerabend's radical approach to science and philosophy has outraged many. One's first instinct as either a scientist or a philosopher is to dismiss his claims as absurd. On closer reflection, many of his claims deserve attention. If we really want to respect and encourage diversity in society, we need to take Feyerabend’s claims seriously.

Surely, we must admit that science holds a dominant position in western society? And surely there is something to his claim that this dominant position marginalises alternatives to science or non-scientific traditions? And does this not then mean that science's dominance in society could interfere with freedom? And surely then, it follows that we need to change society in some way? This dissertation will defend Feyerabend's sensitivity to difference, and his diagnosis that many contemporary democracies do not accommodate diversity sufficiently.

Surely, however, his claims that science should be regarded as equal to all other traditions are problematic? Surely, Feyerabend’s solution of an ideologically neutral society sounds suspect? Would his free society really uphold difference and freedom? Is Feyerabend justified in condemning philosophy? In fact, by dismissing philosophy, isn't Feyerabend doing precisely what he is arguing against, refusing to recognise the complexity and diversity within philosophy? This dissertation will criticise Feyerabend’s solutions for accommodating diversity and his condemnation of philosophy, arguing that they refute the respect for difference that he is supposed to be defending.

13 RESEARCH PROBLEM If we are dedicated to upholding diversity, we need to determine which aspects of society interfere with diversity and how we can transform society to better accommodate difference. This dissertation will be guided by the question, ‘Does Paul Feyerabend succeed in his attempt to transform society to better accommodate diversity?’.

AIM OF RESEARCH The main objective of my study will be to analyse and critically evaluate Feyerabend's attempt to transform science, politics and philosophy to better accommodate diversity.

RESEARCH DESIGN Research will centre on a literature study of all of Feyerabend's relevant texts. A literature study of contemporary philosophy of science, and post-philosophies provide a framework for contextualising his ideas.

OUTLINE OF STUDY I claimed that my research will be guided by the question ‘Does Feyerabend succeed in his attempt to transform society to better accommodate diversity?’. To answer this question, we will firstly need to explore why Feyerabend believes that society needs to be transformed. Chapters 2 and 3 will address Feyerabend’s criticism of science within contemporary societies.

Ø In chapter 2, I will analyse Feyerabend’s problems with our understandings of science. To contextualise Feyerabend’s ideas, I will provide a framework of dominant philosophies of science. I will argue that Feyerabend differs from all of these philosophies, claiming that they are fairy-tales: their descriptions of science are unrealistic.

14 I will vary, however, from prominent assessments of Feyerabend’s ideas to explain that Feyerabend’s chief concern with scientific practice is based on his political ideals. I will argue that Feyerabend, influenced by John Stuart Mill’s liberalism, believes that our understandings of scientific practice suppress the individual scientist’s freedom to differ from established ideas.

Ø In chapter 3, I will argue that Feyerabend’s primary problem with science is not our unrealistic understandings of scientific practice. Feyerabend’s concern rests with science’s role in society. I will explain how Feyerabend extends Mill’s ideas about social tyranny and prevailing opinion to claim that science suppresses diversity and autonomy within society because it dominates our ideas and values.

This chapter will also analyse Feyerabend’s solutions to the problems he diagnoses. Firstly, he claims that we need to transform science’s role in society to ensure that it is not dominant. Secondly, he argues that we need to democratise science itself. Thirdly, we need to divorce education from any ideologies.

To come closer to answering the question, ‘Does Feyerabend succeed in his attempt to transform society to better accommodate diversity?’, Chapter 4 will explain why Feyerabend’s ideas are valuable and begin to question some of the claims that he makes.

Ø In chapter 4, I will explain how we can evaluate Feyerabend according to the analysis so far. I will argue that Feyerabend’s respect for difference is valuable and he contributes to accommodating diversity in society. By providing a framework of postmodernism’s critique of ‘oneness’ in society and multicultural solutions to accommodate diversity, I will contextualise Feyerabend’s contribution. I will, however, question Feyerabend’s claims

15 that science should not have a privileged position in society. I will also question his claims that necessarily suppress the freedom and autonomy of scientists. My criticism of Feyerabend’s problem with in the philosophy of science will introduce my claim that Feyerabend condemns philosophy for suppressing diversity.

We find the major problems with Feyerabend’s transformation of society within his condemnation of philosophy. Chapter 5 will reveal and analyse this condemnation.

Ø In chapter 5, I will explain that Feyerabend does not condemn only specific philosophies of science. I will argue that he condemns all philosophies. By revealing Feyerabend’s understanding of Ancient Greek philosophy and the distinction that he draws between the abstract and the concrete, I will argue that Feyerabend believes that philosophy is inherently at odds with diversity. Feyerabend believes that because philosophy attempts to transcend human circumstances to uncover abstract universal , it divorces itself from the complexities of concrete reality and ignores difference.

I will demonstrate how this condemnation of philosophy underlies Feyerabend’s criticism of our ideas about science and its role in society, and his solutions to science’s dominance. And I will explain how we can use this condemnation to better understand Feyerabend’s ideas about science and politics.

By criticising Feyerabend’s condemnation of the abstract and philosophy, I will answer the question, ‘Does Feyerabend succeed in his attempt to transform society to better accommodate diversity?’. My answer to this question is no.

16 Ø In chapter 6, I will explain that Feyerabend’s failure lies in his lack of sensitivity to diversity. Firstly, I will argue that Feyerabend’s free society fails to provide a sufficient solution to the politics of difference. The biggest problem with this free society is it rests on an oversimplified understanding of the individual and ideology, which in turn is based on an oversimplified understanding of the concrete and the abstract. I will argue that a better solution to the politics of difference is communicative democracy.

Secondly, I will argue that Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy fails to recognise the complex and diverse layers of texts and the varying interpretations they can generate. This will be demonstrated by reference to ’s Republic and Feyerabend’s interpretation of his own texts. I will argue that although philosophy does not need to be rejected for Feyerabend’s , philosophy is transforming itself. And it is transforming itself for the better: it is being used as a vehicle to express difference and it is becoming less serious.

In conclusion, I will review my argument and look at ways in which we can complexify Feyerabend’s ideas beyond my analysis and evaluation.

Ø In chapter 7, I will conclude this dissertation. In the first part of this conclusion, I will summarise my main ideas. In the second part, I will argue that, in the spirit of recognising diversity and complexity within philosophy, we can re-read Feyerabend’s ideas to accommodate my criticisms and my solutions to upholding diversity.

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CHAPTER TWO The fairy tales of science

18 Introduction

I want to defend society and its inhabitants from all ideologies, science included. All ideologies must be seen in perspective…One must read them like fairytales which have lots of interesting things to say but which also contain wicked lies… Feyerabend 1981: 156

Some fairytales begin with ‘Once upon a time…’. Some fairytales are not so easily recognisable. They begin like this: ‘All genuine human knowledge is contained within the boundaries of science’ or ‘The scientific method is the only means to discover the truth’. These are not the fairytales read to us as children. These are the fairytales, Paul Feyerabend argues, taught to us in the classroom, in the lecture-hall. These are not the fairytales found in colourful storybooks but in scientific journals and textbooks. These are the stories spun to describe the theory and practice of science.

We are told, according to these stories, these philosophies of science, that science is based on a set of fixed universal rules. We are told that the only way of truly understanding reality is by following these rules. Science has the monopoly on ‘Truth’, on knowledge: “Scientists…have special methods for improving ideas. The theories of science have passed the test of method. They give a better account of the world than ideas which have not passed the test” (Feyerabend 1975: 300).

But science, Feyerabend argues, does not and should not work in the way in which the fairy-tale describes it. This chapter will analyse Feyerabend’s claims that philosophies of science are fairy-tales, are unrealistic descriptions of science.

In the first section of this chapter, I will highlight the most significant philosophies of science to contextualise Feyerabend’s criticism of science and its philosophy.

19 In the second section, I will explain why Feyerabend refers to these philosophies as fairy-tales. He claims that the history of science and the incommensurability of challenge the rationality and dominance of science. In the third section, I diverge from typical interpretations of Feyerabend and argue that Feyerabend does not have problems simply with specific methodologies or philosophies of science; he implies that all philosophies of science are problematic. They are problematic because they suppress the autonomy and diversity of scientists. And in conclusion, I will introduce the idea that the most significant problem that Feyerabend has with the fairy-tales of science, is not that they are unrealistic. He claims they are damaging: they suppress difference and interfere with personal liberty and genuine democracy. To begin let’s examine the development of modern science and how it came to eclipse religion.

20 The rationality of science

Although the beginnings of modern science clashed with the dogmatism of the Christian faith that had dominated European ideas, the scientific , at least initially, did not discard religion. The scientific revolutionaries saw science as part of Christian enlightenment (Brooke 1991: 52-58). Despite persecution by the church, Galileo remained a dedicated Catholic (Tarnas 1996: 301). Kepler compared astronomers to priests (Tarnas 1996: 300). Newton’s science was infused with his Christian beliefs (Jacob 1988: 89-91).

However, as the discrepancies and often downright contradictions between these two spheres became increasingly apparent, especially in their wildly differing ideas of the construction of the universe, this interaction between scientific knowledge and religion became increasingly unsustainable. Science and religion, reason and faith, had to be separated. Science was applied to the outer world, religion to the inner self, “less to this life than to the afterlife, less to everyday than to Sunday” (Tarnas 1996: 302).

Although Christianity continued to be widespread, it suffered from the hiatus between religion and science: religion lost its grip on knowledge and truth. Whereas biblical doctrine had once been supposed to be the source of ultimate unquestionable truth, science’s success demonstrated that religion was epistemologically inadequate. Religious ideas were compared to reality, to history, and found to be wanting. Physics contradicted Christian cosmology. Geology and biology ridiculed the bible’s understanding of the earth and human beings’ origins. Biblical scholarship demonstrated the human and not divine foundation of the scriptures. And the ideals of Christianity, its emphasis on love and humanity, were shown to contradict its actual often unjust, corrupt and prejudiced practice: “Christianity seemed best understood as a singularly

21 successful folk myth – inspiring hope in believers, giving meaning and order to their lives, but without ontological foundation” (Tarnas 1996: 306).

As the successes of science progressively undermined religion’s sway over truth, modern western societies became increasingly secularised, divorcing Christianity from the centres of society. But not only did science topple religion from its pedestal of truth, it replaced it. Science became the basis for knowledge, the authority on truth. Science, it was argued, unlike religion, could deservedly lay claim to truth.

Science revealed that religion’s most significant flaw is that it cannot prove that it is true. Religious ideas cannot be verified. They cannot be subjected to empirical testing. Scientific ideas, on the other hand, can be: “It was better to deal only with categories that could be empirically evidenced than to allow into the scientific discussion transcendent principles…that in the final analysis could no more be corroborated than could a fairy tale” (Tarnas 1996: 306).

Like religion, science proposes ideas about the world. Unlike religion, in fact unlike any other domain, science uses a special method of enquiry that determines these ideas and assesses them. Carefully, systematically, logically and objectively science tests its claims against evidence. This is what is known as the scientific method. Scientific method guarantees scientific results. And this is why science should be revered as the source of all genuine knowledge, of objective universal truth.

For the purposes of contextualising Paul Feyerabend’s understanding of science, I am going to divide the philosophy of science into three camps according to how they would react to the way I have just described science. The first group, let’s calls them conservatives, promote the above of science. The second group, who hold a more moderate view, would agree that science follows rational

22 principles to some extent but they would modify the more conservative view greatly. And the third group, the radical group, reject it entirely1.

1. The conservative view: science is the embodiment of human rationality and takes place as a result of the exclusive application of scientific method. Up until the last half of the 20th century debates about the nature of science may have differed according to which method science should follow and what science’s role should be in society, but they have primarily been guided by consensus: science is a function of human rationality. Science and rationality are inseparable. Science is the ultimate expression of rationality. Questioning the rationality of science was mainly unheard of: “Posing such a question would have been about as sensible as inquiring whether it is true that every bachelor is an unmarried man. Scientificity and rationality vouched for each other” (Amsterdamski 1992: 3).

What makes science so rational is that it follows rational and codified rules and procedures, i.e. scientific method, which guarantee its verifiability:

The scientific community sees itself as the very of institutionalized rationality. It is taken to be in possession of something, the scientific method, which generates a ‘ of justification’, That is, it provides a technique for the objective appraisal of the merits of scientific theories. Newton-Smith 1981: 1

Science deals with actual experiences and objects that we can see and touch. Scientific theories are generated and tested through observing and experimenting with these concrete objects. And through , we

1 These classifications are admittedly rather vague and open to debate. I have based them on general views of the schools of thought I discuss and also on how the philosophers concerned would be likely to place themselves. But they can be seen very differently. For example, Popper has been accused of (a conservative view) and Kuhn, especially the earlier Kuhn, of rejecting a rationalist account of science (a radical view). And if Feyerabend had to classify these philosophers, he would likely accuse them all of being conservatives, with the exception of himself.

23 can generalise from these particular items of evidence of experience to formulate and assess theories. This is what makes science neutral and objective.

Although these empiricist ideas (experience verifies knowledge) are widely accepted, they are broad: they can take on various specific manifestations. I would like to discuss two of these manifestations in more detail: positivism and .

1.1 Positivism The ‘positive’ in positivism means, “that which is given or laid down, that which has to be accepted as we find it and is not further explicable” (Speake [ed.] 1984: 283). For positivism, what is given is the world of empirical observation. Outside of direct empirical observation, we cannot know anything for sure, and therefore we should not attempt to hypothesise beyond observation. Thus, and theology are useless speculations. Knowledge cannot exist outside the boundaries of science. And this has important implications for philosophy. Although philosophy “may still perform a useful function in explaining the scope and methods of science…it must abandon the claim to have any means of attaining knowledge not available to science” (Speake [ed.] 1984: 283).

Positivists are not interested in defining science for science’s sake; they believed that by extending the scientific method to all aspects of human life, society would . , for example, developed a positivist that he believed would provide a scientific basis for social change (Speake [ed.] 1984: 283).

Although Henri Saint-Simon and more influentially, Comte, are credited for developing positivism in the early 19th century, ‘positivist’ views have been around for centuries. Ancient Greek philosophy had its own positivist, , who wanted to liberate humans from theological speculation by explaining the universe purely in natural terms (Hergenhahn 1992: 151). Other names have

24 also been linked to positivism. For example, the of , and John Stuart Mill are considered crucial to the positivist tradition (Hergenhahn 1992: 151).

1.2 Logical positivism A major flaw with positivism is the idea that science should only deal with what can be observed directly. Science has increasingly dealt with phenomena that cannot be directly observed: gravity, atoms, electrons, and so on. These are not observable phenomena; they are theoretical constructs.

Logical positivism, developed by the ‘ Circle’ in the early 20th century, attempted to combine positivism with mathematical logic to overcome this problem. Logical positivism divided scientific terms into two groups: observational terms (based on what is observable) and theoretical terms (based on what is not observable). Observables, they claimed, are the basis of science. Theory can have a place in science but only if theoretical terms can be reduced to observational terms (Klee 1997: 41). A is simply “a shorthand encapsulation, in linguistic form, of the sensory experiences” of a practitioner (Klee 1997: 28).

Unlike positivists, the logical positivists acknowledged theory in science. Like the positivists, they rejected any attempts to establish knowledge outside of science. Metaphysics and theology are pointless speculations, they claimed, not because they are false, but because they are not empirically verifiable, and thus they are meaningless (Speake [ed.] 1984: 283). Philosophy can have a role, but only a role that is secondary to science. Philosophers should focus on the meaning of terms, establishing if they can be reduced to observables, if they can be verified, and thus if they have meaning. Philosophy should not try to develop knowledge on its own: its task is to establish the meaning of terms (Speake [ed.] 1984: 283).

25 The idea that science is superior to any other form of enquiry because it subscribes to strict method that verifies its results has come under sharp attack from four major philosophers of the 20th century: Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. Although these four differ greatly in their ideas, they all criticised positivism and logical positivism. I will discuss what can be referred to as the more moderate positions of Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos and Thomas Kuhn first.

2. The moderate view: science is rational (or somewhat rational) but not because of the validity of a traditional idea of scientific method. Basing science on observation, more specifically basing science on inductive reasoning from particular observables to general principles or laws, was famously problematised by David Hume in the 18th century. Hume formulated what has come to be known as the . He claimed that it is impossible to properly predict the behaviour of unobserved instances from observable instances: “for example, that the sun has risen in the past an enormous number of times is insufficient evidence to prove true or even probable the statement that it will rise tomorrow” (Couvalis 1997: 1). For Hume this problem meant that scientific laws “cannot be justified by appeal to logic or experience” and thus “science cannot be rationally justified” (Chalmers 1982: 19).

This problem of induction has greatly puzzled philosophers of science. Some agreed with Hume that science cannot be rationally justified; others tried to solve or bypass the problem of induction to establish the rational verifiability of science. Karl Popper took a radically different approach to the problem: he argued both that Hume’s criticism of induction is valid and that scientific theories can be rationally justified (or at least falsified).

2.1 Karl Popper Popper claimed that, yes, Hume is right. There is a problem with induction: we cannot verify the truth of a generalisation from observable data. But this does not

26 mean that science is problematic. Popper agreed with the logical positivists that what distinguishes science, from non-science or pseudo-science, is that scientific theories are testable because we can check them empirically against the world. What he disagrees with is the positivist’s claim that we can verify a theory, that we can prove a theory, through . It does not matter how many times you observe an object or an event, your cannot be sufficient for proving the conclusions you draw about that object (Horgan 1996: 34).

The significance of Hume’s problem of induction is not so much that there is a problem with induction; the problem is rather the way in which we see science. Science cannot be reduced to independent atomic observations based on pure experience unfettered by theoretical presuppositions. There is no such thing as pure experience. All experience presupposes theory. “Even a simple statement like ‘I see a swan in the lake in front of me’ involves various theories: that the thing I see is not a decoy, that I am not hallucinating, that I can recognize swans, and so on” (Couvalis 1997: 5).

Popper argued that the distinction that logical positivists draw between theoretical statements and observation statements is false: there is no such distinction. And this means that theories cannot be verified through reference to experience. In fact, scientific theories can never be said to be true.

However, this does not mean that science cannot be rationally justified. Scientific theories cannot be shown to be true, but they can be shown to be false. Through empirical observation we cannot ever finally prove the statement that ‘all swans are white’, for example, but through one observation of a black swan, we can prove that the statement is wrong; we can falsify it. Falsification, Popper claimed, is the essence of the rationality of science.

Falsification became the central tenet of Popper’s philosophy of critical . embraces conflict and argument. Instead of

27 legitimating scientific theories, scientists and philosophers should be criticising them, trying to falsify them. Science progresses, not because of consensus, but because of continuous debate and criticism. In fact, not only does science progress in this way, Popper claimed, “so do species evolve through competition and societies through political debate” (Horgan 1996: 34).

2.2 Imre Lakatos Lakatos aimed at correcting the problems of falsification to develop an improved rational model of scientific theory. Lakatos argued that a major problem with Popper’s ideas is that the history of science is inconsistent with the falsificationist model. Popper argued that if scientific theories are falsified, they should be rejected. But Lakatos argues that if this was the way in which science worked, many of the most successful theories of science would have been rejected. If falsificationism were really true, we would have rejected Copernican astronomy because it did not match the paths of the planets or their perceived size (Couvalis 1997: 69-70).

Lakatos argues that we cannot test scientific theories according to a contest between theory and experience. We need to consider the impact that rival theories have on science. No matter how many problems there may be with a specific scientific theory or set of theories, we will not reject them, unless we can replace them. Science has more to do with a conflict between theories than with a conflict between theory and experience (Lakatos 1978: 31-2).

Theories are not, however, isolated entities that can be judged on their own. Science has to do with sequences of theories, in which a theory is generated by modifying the theory that preceded it. These sequences of theories are called scientific research programmes (Lakatos 1978: 45-50). Scientific method provides guidelines both for how work should be conducted within a single research programme and for judging between different programmes.

28 A research programme consists of three aspects: a hard-core, a negative heuristic and a positive heuristic (Lakatos 1978: 48-50). The hard-core is the basis of the research programme: the general theoretical claims that the programme is centred on. The negative heuristic is a principle that demands that the hard-core should not be rejected: a protective belt of auxiliary or observational hypotheses can be modified or rejected instead of the hard-core. The positive heuristic “consists of a partially articulated set of suggestions or hints on how to change, develop the ‘refutable variants’ of the research programme, how to modify, sophisticate, the ‘refutable’ protective belt” (Lakatos 1978: 50). Instead of rejecting an established theory in the light of anomalies as Popper claimed, we can attempt to modify its protective belt to accommodate the anomaly. This protective belt can be developed in any way except by violating the hard-core of the programme or through ad hoc hypotheses (hypotheses that do not have new testable consequences) (Chalmers 1982: 85).

Different research programmes can be judged according to whether they are progressing or degenerating. A research programme would be classified as progressing “as long as its theoretical growth anticipates its empirical growth, that is, as long as it keeps predicting novel with some success” (Lakatos 1978: 82). We can classify it as degenerating if its theory cannot keep up with the facts. “If a research programme progressively explains more than a rival, it ‘supersedes’ it, and the rival can be eliminated” (Lakatos 1978: 82).

We saw in the beginnings of modern science that religion became eclipsed by science because it was argued that if we compared the Christian and its ideals to the world, Christianity seemed lacking. In comparing Popper’s falsification tenet to the history of science, Lakatos became part of an influential development in the philosophy of science, where philosophical models of science were compared to the actual practice and history of science, and found to be wanting. In The structure of scientific (1970), Thomas Kuhn formulated the most influential historicist view.

29

2.3 Thomas Kuhn Kuhn argues that our traditional understanding of science is that it accumulates: there is a linear progression from older science to modern science, implying that modern science can solve more fundamental problems or is more true than earlier science. But he claims that if we examine the history of science we will find that this picture is inaccurate (Kuhn 1970: 1-3).

Kuhn claims that widely accepted scientific schemes, such as Copernican astronomy and Newtonian mechanics, are based on (Kuhn 1970: 10), or, as he later referred to them because of criticism for the ambiguity of paradigm, disciplinary matrixes (Kuhn 1970: 182). A paradigm is a general approach to research that dominates a scientific field. It has a distinct worldview and it is centred on unquestioned fundamental principles and assumptions. It also provides scientists with problems to solve and directs how they should solve these problems.

Before a paradigm is established, practitioners in a field work in a pre- paradigmatic phase. As they do not have a foundational body of knowledge to guide their work, pre-paradigmatic science tends to be unstructured and haphazard (Kuhn 1970: 19-20). A paradigm emerges “when the practitioners working under its direction score an amazing research achievement” (Klee 1997: 134). Once a paradigm is established, “normal science” can occur (Kuhn 1970: 10).

As opposed to the lack of structure and innovation of the pre-paradigmatic phase, normal science mainly restricts research to the in-depth solving of smaller puzzles that have been left over by the primary research achievement of the paradigm (Kuhn 1970: 23-38). Within this period of normal science, we can call science cumulative as it attempts to progress by solving puzzles. But science, Kuhn argues, is not cumulative when we compare different paradigms: we

30 cannot say, for example, that Einstein’s mechanics is a progression of Newton’s mechanics.

Paradigms experience crises of faith. Anomalies that problematise the paradigm can accumulate (Kuhn 1970: 82-4). Sometimes normal science can defend a paradigm from the crisis. But sometimes it cannot. And this may lead to a : alternatives to replace the existing paradigm develop, and conflict occurs between the practitioners who defend the paradigm and practitioners who want to replace it. A will occur firstly if the new paradigm can solve problems or a problem better than the older paradigm, or more accurately, if it holds the promise to solve problems better (Kuhn 1970: 155-8). Secondly, a new paradigm will be accepted if it has greater “’aesthetic’ appeal” than its predecessor, i.e. if it is “’neater’, ‘more suitable’, or ‘simpler’” (Kuhn 1970: 155).

Kuhn argues that a paradigm shift is not cumulative. A new paradigm does not follow progressively from its predecessor: it is based on entirely new fundamentals and a new worldview (Kuhn 1970: 85). In fact, paradigms are incommensurable: they cannot be compared (Kuhn 1970: 103). A paradigm change is not just a change in worldview; it is a change in world. A paradigm is prior to observation and experiment (Kuhn 1970: 126-7); it determines the world that a scientist will observe and investigate (Kuhn 1970:111-5). When we examine a paradigm, we cannot examine it independently: we will always be examining it from a paradigmatic perspective. And this means that a paradigm shift is not a rational process: “for reasoning itself is a paradigm-relative activity…and what counts as a good reason for adopting a certain paradigm will differ in different paradigms” (Klee 1997: 143).

Although Kuhn subverts strict scientific method, the cumulative progressive nature of science and a rationalist foundation for science, he claims that this does not mean that science is non-rational. Kuhn believed that science

31 progresses in some way because theories that supplant earlier theories tend to solve more problems and make better predictions than the theories they replaced (Couvalis 1997: 7).

3. The radical: what method? what rationality? Thomas Kuhn inspired a new understanding of science. He attempted to demonstrate that if we compare science to history, we find that science is much more muddled and biased than we have come to believe. Kuhn insisted that he did not believe that science was irrational, that he is not promoting a relativist position, that he does believe that there are criteria that we can use to judge scientific theories (Chalmers 1982: 107). But despite his later attempts to soften some of the more extreme aspects of The structure of scientific revolutions, critics argue that the author’s claimed intentions and the actual text do not match: the text promotes a non-rational, relativist understanding of science, i.e. a more radical understanding of science (Newton-Smith 1981: 102-124; Chalmers 1982: 107-110).

Kuhn may have shied from extremism, from the radical opposition to traditional ideas about science that his text seems to encourage, but another philosopher did not. Paul Feyerabend embraces a more radical notion of science. I argued earlier that science demonstrated that Christianity was not universal truth: it is no more than a fairy-tale, “a singularly successful folk myth – inspiring hope in believers, giving meaning and order to their lives, but without ontological foundation” (Tarnas 1996: 306). Feyerabend claims that science can be described in exactly the same way.

Positivism and logical positivism promoted the idea that science is a process justified by strict methodological rules. Popper problematised this logic of justification by arguing that a scientific theory can never be fully verified. He did believe, however, that science was a rational process that followed a logic of falsification. Lakatos argued that science could not be characterised completely

32 by either justification or falsification. He claims science is rational, however, because it can be determined by a methodology of scientific research programmes that provides rational guidelines for theory-choice. Kuhn argued that science can only be rationally justified in a very limited way. He claims that science is not guided by shared rules, but by commitments to radically different paradigms. Feyerabend claims that all of these theories are inadequate.

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The irrationality of the rationality of science

Paul Feyerabend argues that if we examine history and the incommensurability of worldviews, we will find that what we are told about science, that it is superior, that it is rational, that it is justified by method, is a fairy-tale: a story, a myth, with little bearing on reality. And thus, it is irrational to uphold the rationality of science.

1. THE FAIRY-TALE OF SCIENCE REFUTED: ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY Feyerabend claims that there are two primary arguments that are used to defend science’s rationality and dominance:

1. Science “uses the correct method for getting results” (Feyerabend 1978: 98). 2. Science produces “many results to prove the excellence of the method” (Feyerabend 1978: 98).

Feyerabend argues that neither of these claims can be substantiated.

1.1 Method Feyerabend maintains that so-called scientific method cannot validate rational models of science because this method is not particularly rational or scientific: in fact, it isn’t even much of a method.

The traditional positivist argument, Feyerabend claims, is that scientific method entails “collecting facts and inferring theories from them” (Feyerabend 1981: 158). This view, Feyerabend argues, implies that theories and facts are separable. And yet, they are not. Agreeing with Popper and Kuhn, Feyerabend

34 claims that “theories shape and order facts” (Feyerabend 1981:159). And this means that theories can never be justified by observation or experience.

We can only ever attempt to justify theories by referring to other theories, and this means we have no objective criteria for assessing scientific theories. Logical positivism’s separation of observational and theoretical terms becomes pointless: “Experience arises together with theoretical assumptions not before them, and an experience without theory is just as incomprehensible as is…a theory without experience” (Feyerabend 1975: 168). Any argument that claims that scientific method is based on comparing theories to empirical evidence, fails to establish the rationality and of that method, because empirical evidence cannot be theoretically neutral.

Feyerabend is not, however, only arguing that this type of understanding of method is flawed: any understanding of science centred on methodological rules, no matter what these rules are, is problematic:

The idea of a universal and stable method that is an unchanging measure of adequacy and even the idea of a universal and stable rationality is as unrealistic as the idea of a universal and stable measuring instrument that measures any magnitude, no matter what the circumstances. Feyerabend 1978: 98

Scientific development is actually inundated with techniques that challenge the idea of a rational method. Irrational methods, subjective elements, are perpetually employed within science, not just to acquire knowledge but also as a means of persuasion (Feyerabend 1975: 25). It seldom proves to be the merits of a theory or its ability to solve problems that lead to its acceptance. Theories are often accepted because of propaganda, subjective whims and all sorts of contingencies.

Feyerabend claims that it has always been assumed that the heliocentric worldview, advocated by Copernicus and Galileo, eventually replaced the

35 geocentric worldview because it had certain advantages over the idea that the sun revolved around the earth (Feyerabend 1978: 48). For example, it is believed that heliocentric theories explained new astronomical observations better than geocentric theories (Feyerabend 1978: 46-7). This, Feyerabend argues, is not true.

The primary reason why Copernicus and Galileo’s theories were accepted is because they marketed their ideas better. For example, Galileo’s use of Italian rather than Latin is a factor that led to the greater acceptance of a heliocentric worldview, rather than the rational properties or problem-solving capabilities of this theory (Feyerabend 1975: 141). It is precisely because of ‘irrational elements’ that the heliocentric worldview came to replace the geocentric: heliocentric astronomy was buffered by ad hoc hypotheses and persuasive techniques (Feyerabend 1975: 143). Galileo, Feyerabend goes as far as arguing, succeeded because he broke the rules of how science was supposed to be conducted, because he did not follow scientific method (Feyerabend 1975: 112).

In Science in a free society (1978), his defence of and elaboration on (1975), Feyerabend claims that there simply is no “’scientific method’…no single procedure or set of rules that underlies every piece of research” (Feyerabend 1978: 98). If we look at the history of scientific research, we find that there is no set of rules, or even single rule, that has accompanied all scientific practice. All rules have been violated at some stage, and may need to be violated for science to progress. If reason always has control, science would not get anywhere. Feyerabend argues that many widely-accepted contemporary scientific ideas “exist only because there were such things as prejudice, conceit, passion: because these things opposed reason and because they were permitted to have their way” (Feyerabend 1975: 179).

We often believe that theories have been accepted because of rational grounds, because over time we have found rational and/or empirical 'proof' for them. But

36 this proof is ascribed after the fact. Initially, when a new theory develops, Feyerabend claims, it is vague and lacks support: "theories become clear and 'reasonable' only after incoherent parts of them have been used for a long time" (Feyerabend 1975: 26). To allow a new theory to develop further, we often need to defend it by means that can only be irrational, as no rational means have yet been discovered to back it up (Feyerabend 1975: 154).

Thus, Feyerabend claims, without unreason, without violations of rational procedures, science could not exist: "unreasonable, nonsensical, unmethodical foreplay thus turns out to be an unavoidable precondition of clarity and empirical success" (Feyerabend 1975: 27).

1.2 Results Surely though, science “deserves a special position because it has produced results” (Feyerabend 1981: 161). Proponents of this argument will cite technological advances, cures to dangerous diseases, and space travel, for example, as evidence for the view that science is better than other forms of enquiry because it has achieved outstanding results (Feyerabend 1975: 304).

Feyerabend argues that this claim about results only proves that science is superior if it can comply with two conditions. Firstly, science needs to be the only tradition that has produced such results (Feyerabend 1978: 100). Feyerabend argues, however, that science cannot make such a claim: there are other disciplines, such as non-western medical techniques of diagnosis and therapy, which have proven their effectiveness and yet have not developed from scientific method (Feyerabend 1981: 161).

Secondly, the results that science has achieved must have been achieved in isolation from all other procedures before it can claim that it is the only means of obtaining ‘true’ knowledge (Feyerabend 1978: 100). But, Feyerabend argues, the so-called results of science have not resulted exclusively from the scientific

37 method. “There is not a single important scientific idea” he claims “that was not stolen from elsewhere” (Feyerabend 1978: 105). Almost all scientific approaches can be traced back to some alternative source. For example, he argues that Pythagoreanism has influenced astronomy, and that herbalism and witchcraft inspired medicine (Feyerabend 1978: 105). . Furthermore, even if we acknowledge that science has improved society in many valuable ways, we cannot disregard the damage that it has also instigated. We find this damage both in non-western and western societies. Non-western societies have been damaged by the introduction of western science and technology. Often the imposition of science and technology destroys the successful indigenous lifestyles in non-western communities, causing disruption and alienation (Feyerabend 1987: 30). Furthermore, the whole world, including western societies run according to scientific ideas, has felt the impact of the results of science, through the “chemical and radioactive pollution of rivers, oceans, the air, the ground water; depletion of the ozone layer; a drastic decrease in the number of animal and plant species; land desertification and deforestation” (Feyerabend 1987: 4).

1.3 Anything goes and What we call science is thus often the result of sometimes beneficial, sometimes damaging methods that are a complex amalgamation of reason and unreason, science and non-science. How can we claim that a rigid application of methodological rules distinguishes science and proves its superiority? If science cannot demonstrate that its methods or its results distinguish it from alternative ways of approaching reality, then it cannot claim to be the only, or even, the best way of discovering and describing the world.

And yet this is what the fairytale tells us but only because our rationalist framework has retold the story of science, bowdlerising it, leaving out all the juicy bits. The rich and diverse history of science has been turned into a uniform and

38 inaccurate story. The accidents, the human imagination, the propaganda techniques, all the subjective elements that do not fit into the scientific method have been left out of its history.

What we have been told is that science is fixed and universal, beyond human context, and scientists are neutral and objective, their biases and subjective desires have no influence on science. But this is simply not true: “The human element was not eliminated, it was only concealed” (Feyerabend 1987: 87). Science has been removed from everyday life, from human circumstances, from the historical processes that underlie it, and thus we are left with only a dry tale of science fiction, of strict rules and method. “All we get is a monolithic monster, ‘science’, that is said to follow a single path and to speak with a single voice” (Feyerabend 1987: 27).

Instead of allowing these flawed understandings of science, however, to colour our views, we should focus on the actual practice of science, the reality of science, not create ideals for science that cannot be matched realistically. The history of science should guide our ideas about science, instead of abstract philosophies that base science on simplistic methodologies that cannot capture the complexity of the practice. Feyerabend argues that history is more complex and diverse than any methodology could ever represent. History shows us accidents, ambiguities, inconsistencies, dissent, contingencies. “Are we really to believe”, Feyerabend asks, “that the naïve and simple-minded rules which methodologists take as their guide are capable of accounting for such a ‘maze of interactions’?” (Feyerabend 1975: 17).

The history of science and the ‘naïve and simple-minded rules’ of methodologies do not match. Actual scientific practice is too complex to be subjected to timeless rules and principles. The only timeless principle that we can extract from scientific practice is that ‘anything goes’. As there can no fixed method or fixed theories, there can only be one fixed principle. There can only be “one principle

39 that can be defended under all circumstances and in all stages of human development. It is the principle: anything goes” (Feyerabend 1975: 28).

As science does not follow fixed rules, Feyerabend claims that it is “an essentially anarchistic enterprise” (Feyerabend 1975: 10). Instead of grounding our ideas about science in abstract philosophical principles, they need a strong dose of anarchism, so that we can begin to recognise the complexity of science.

However, Feyerabend is not, he claims, trying to substitute current methodologies with epistemological anarchism:

One might…get the impression that I recommend a new methodology…My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is, rather, to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits. Feyerabend 1975: 32

By reading the so-called methodological rules of science anarchistically, Feyerabend is not trying to substitute rules for anarchism. He is using anarchism to demonstrate the irrationality of our belief in universal rational rules. And Feyerabend argues that not only is anarchism the most logical approach to science, it is necessary for the progress of science and the development of society as a whole (Feyerabend 1975: 180).

2. THE FAIRY-TALE OF SCIENCE REFUTED: ARGUMENT FROM INCOMMENSURABILITY Science, Feyerabend argues, is seen as being far superior to other ways of understanding the world such as astrology, Chinese medicine or creation science. With its promise of universal validity and fixed rules, science dominates our interpretations of reality, our education, our lives.

However, Feyerabend argues, science’s dominance in society is unjustified because science cannot rationally prove through its method or its results that it is

40 better than its alternatives. Feyerabend bases this argument not only on the history of science, but also on the incommensurability of theories. He claims that theories cannot be objectively assessed: our choice between theories is in some way relative, and therefore the superiority of science over alternatives cannot be rationally justified.

Feyerabend’s response to a positivist understanding of science is similar to Popper’s: experience and observation cannot be the foundations of a logic of justification because experience is not theoretically neutral. This means that we cannot refer to facts to justify a theory: facts are theory dependent, and as such, reference to fact is reference to another theory.

However, Feyerabend goes even further than this. Similarly to Kuhn, he argues that theories can be so different, that they are in fact incommensurable: we cannot compare them objectively. They have totally different conceptual systems, different fundamental principles, and thus refer to different worlds. There is no substantial basis for comparison. This incommensurability can be illustrated when we try to compare classical physics and the theory of relativity. As the theory of relativity provides new principles and an entirely new conceptual system, it cannot express a single idea that is similar to classical physics; it deals with an entirely new world (Feyerabend 1975: 276).

This not only means that we have difficulty comparing incommensurable scientific theories objectively, we cannot compare science to alternatives because they presuppose different worlds. If we criticise religion from a scientific worldview, all we are doing is ineffectively translating the religious world into scientific ideas and then criticising those scientific ideas. “The assertion that current science is a more secure way of gathering knowledge than gleaning it from religious texts is merely the unjustifiable assertion of the superiority of one world picture over another” (Couvalis 1997: 111-2).

41 We cannot claim that science is superior to any other worldview because we cannot objectively compare it to another worldview. Our belief in the merit of a theory, and the lack of merit of a rival theory, are not based on objective standards; they are based on the fundamental theoretical assumptions of that theory itself. We can call this position epistemological : Feyerabend is rejecting the idea that there can be rational foundations for knowledge because he does not believe that scientific theories can be rationally and objectively measured or compared.

From the history of science and from the incommensurability of theories, Feyerabend argues that science’s dominance cannot be rationally justified. Far from being the absolute liberating truth while Christianity is merely a folk myth, Feyerabend claims:

science is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy is prepared to admit…it is inherently superior only for those who have already decided in favour of a certain ideology…the separation of state and church must be complemented by the separation of state and science, that most recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institution. Feyerabend 1975: 295

3. FEYERABEND ON POPPER, LAKATOS AND KUHN Feyerabend believes that his arguments refute both a positivist understanding of science, and the more moderate views of science propagated by Popper, Lakatos and Kuhn.

Positivist demands for scientific method are unsustainable if we look at the history of science. In fact, the violation of these rules can even lead to progress in science. Agreeing with Lakatos, Feyerabend argues that Popper’s tenets of falsification and critical rationalism also do not make sense if we examine actual scientific practice. Feyerabend argues that as descriptive theories, positivism and falsificationism do not work. He claims that all the principles of positivism, such as “be precise; base your theories on measurements”, and all the principles of

42 falsificationism, such as “increase content; avoid ad hoc hypotheses”, have been violated in actual scientific practice (Feyerabend 1975: 179). Science, Feyerabend argues, is really “much more ‘sloppy’ and ‘irrational’ than its methodological image” (Feyerabend 1975: 179).

Even as normative theories of science, these philosophies are flawed. Feyerabend argues that even if we understand these principles according to how science ought to be practiced, rather than how it is practiced, they would still be problematic. As we have seen so far, Feyerabend’s description of science emphasises all the non-rational elements in science that defy a strict rational model of science. He has argued that science needs these elements: they are not mistakes in procedure; they are essential aspects of what makes science. If we try to force positivist and falsificationist principles onto the disorder of science, we will destroy science: “the attempt to make science more ‘rational’ and more precise is bound to wipe it out” (Feyerabend 1975: 179).

Despite Popper’s criticism of positivism, Feyerabend does not see much of a difference between positivism and falsificationism. In fact, he refers to Popper as a positivist, or, in typical Feyerabend style, as “a tiny puff of hot air in the positivistic teacup” (Feyerabend 1987: 282). Both positions prescribe rules based on comparing scientific theories to experience (either verification or falsification) that are unsustainable and they both promote the dominance of science in society, encouraging the scientific method beyond the boundaries of science (Feyerabend 1975: 175).

Feyerabend’s problem with Lakatos is not as straightforward. He has great respect for Lakatos. Against method (1975) was originally written as part of a book on rationalism that would have included both Feyerabend’s attack on a rationalist understanding of science and Lakatos’s defence. The book’s dedication reads “To IMRE LAKATOS Friend and fellow-anarchist”. This joking

43 reference to Lakatos as an anarchist gives us a clue to Feyerabend’s criticism of the methodology of scientific research programmes.

Although Lakatos rejected the positivists’ empirical verification and Popper’s falsification, he claimed that science is rational and that there are scientific methods that can guide scientific research adequately. Instead of forcing scientists to stick to rules, though, Lakatos argues, “the methodology of research programmes provides standards that aid the scientist in evaluating the historical situation in which he makes his decisions” (Feyerabend 1975: 186).

Feyerabend, however, argues that this methodology cannot support the rationality of science, precisely because it does not prescribe rules and principles; it does not specify any conditions for scientists to follow. Scientists can really do whatever they want. The liberal standards of this methodology do not provide scientists with any real conditions that would determine when a degenerating programme has to be abandoned. Feyerabend claims that according to Lakatos’s ‘methodology’, anything that a scientist does could be rational, and thus ‘the rational’ loses all meaning (Feyerabend 1975: 186). In fact, Feyerabend argues, the methodology of scientific research programmes has no methodology: “Lakatos offers words which sound like the elements of a methodology; he does not offer a methodology” (Feyerabend 1981: 161). Lakatos has, according to Feyerabend, failed to defend the rationality of science.

So Feyerabend claims that the positivists’, Popper’s and Lakatos’s ideas about science are flawed. Surely though he must feel that he has found an ally in Thomas Kuhn? Kuhn and Feyerabend have much in common. They both argue that scientific theories can be incommensurable. They both argue that the traditional idea of science as an accumulation of knowledge through an adherence to objective and shared rules is false. And they both use the history of scientific research to demonstrate how problematic our ideas about science are.

44 If you recognise these similarities, you could be forgiven for expressing surprise at the following comments from Feyerabend:

Lakatos is immeasurably more sophisticated than Kuhn. Feyerabend 1981: 160

Pre-Kuhnian positivism was infantile, but relatively clear. Post-Kuhnian positivism has remained infantile – but it is also very unclear. Feyerabend 1987: 190

Somehow, it looks as if Feyerabend has not found an ally in Kuhn. In fact, Feyerabend believes that Kuhn’s theories about scientific revolutions are as much fairy tales as all the other philosophers of science.

I do not think, however, that we have accumulated enough evidence for why Feyerabend believes this. So far, I have examined Feyerabend’s criticism of science. We have not examined what this criticism implies for science. It seems obvious that Feyerabend wants us to re-assess our understandings of science, but we have not explored how he wants us to re-assess them. It is here that we will find Feyerabend’s problems with Kuhn.

45 Re-assessing scientific practice: freedom and diversity

If our ideas about science are fairy-tales, how then should we view scientific practice? The answer to this question is not straightforward.

So far, in explaining Feyerabend’s problems with a rationalist understanding of science, my analysis corresponds to standard analyses (see, for example, Newton-Smith 1981; Chalmers 1982; Munévar 1991a). But this is where the similarity is going to end. When it comes to drawing conclusions about how Feyerabend wants us to see science, I am going to differ from many analyses.

In chapter 1, I argued that a significant aspect of Feyerabend’s ideas about science is that he does not isolate them to science. The primary reason that I am going to differ from many analyses is because they are usually focused on isolated aspects of Feyerabend’s ideas about science and they do not link them sufficiently with Feyerabend’s social and political ideas. And yet, these ideas are central to Feyerabend’s critique of science and its philosophy. Let us start examining what I mean by discussing some of the different ways in which Feyerabend has been interpreted and criticised.

1. VARIOUS UNDERSTANDINGS OF FEYERABEND Before Against method (1975), Feyerabend’s ideas about science could best be described as a condemnation of contemporary empiricist methodology (see, for example, Feyerabend 1963 and 1965). Far from condemning method in general, Feyerabend advocated one of his own: theoretical pluralism (Feyerabend 1963: 6-7). The very title of Against method implies something more. In this groundbreaking text, his most well known, Feyerabend argues that universal scientific methods are flawed: no rule or procedure in science can be applied unfailingly under all circumstances.

46 This has lead to an even more overt shift in Feyerabend’s critique. Science itself has come under attack. If scientific method is not absolute, cannot be defended under all circumstances, science’s privileged position in contemporary societies is questionable. And even if science could prove that it is superior to other understandings of the world, even if it has direct access to the truth, should we support its dominance if this means suppressing its alternatives and inhibiting dissent?

Initially, many critics of Against method were appalled by what they understood as anarchism: Feyerabend believes that all methodologies are problematic, therefore ‘anything goes’ and scientific method should be abandoned (see, for example, Agassi c.f. Feyerabend 1978: 125-140). We cannot, however, categorise Feyerabend that neatly.

Feyerabend says ‘anything goes’. But then he claims he does not really mean ‘anything goes’. He claims that there is no such thing as scientific method as construed by the fairy-tales of science. And at other times, not only does he acknowledge method, he seems to be arguing that some methods are better than others. There is some confusion as to what exactly Feyerabend is trying to say about science.

Many critics take this confusion to mean that Feyerabend’s suggestions for science are flawed. To illustrate my own understanding of Feyerabend, I am going to summarise two general reactions to his work.

1.1 Feyerabend’s criticism of method fails to threaten the rationality of methodology in general, or it fails to threaten the rationality of specific methodologies. W. H. Newton-Smith (1981) advocates the more general version of this view. He argues that the rules of method that Feyerabend challenges are not actually rules that rationalists promote. He claims, for example, the consistency condition that

47 Feyerabend attacks is too extreme. Generally, the consistency condition stipulates that new scientific theories need to be consistent with accepted scientific theories (Newton-Smith 1981: 130). Newton-Smith argues, however, that Feyerabend’s definition of the consistency condition is far too strict, and he claims that no philosopher of science has ever advocated such a strict stipulation. He claims that the actual consistency condition operating in science is much more tolerant than Feyerabend would allow (Newton-Smith 1981: 130-1). So, Newton-Smith argues that the rationality of science that Feyerabend attacks “at best scores a hit on a straw-man. No rationalist need be committed to…a conception of method as a system of binding unchanging, exceptionless algorithmic rules” (Newton-Smith 1981: 146).

Other critics maintain that specific methodologies are safe from Feyerabend’s challenge. For example, Gunnar Andersson argues that although Feyerabend’s arguments “pose serious problems…they can be solved without giving up a rational methodology” (Andersson 1991: 282). More specifically, he argues that Feyerabend cannot refute a critical form of falsificationism (Andersson 1991: 281-293). He claims that Feyerabend’s analysis of the history of Copernican theory, which supposedly refutes falsification, is inaccurate. Andersson argues that Galileo, contrary to Feyerabend’s claims, did not ignore falsifications of the Copernican theory nor did he try to bolster this theory with unsubstantiated ad hoc modifications (Andersson 1991: 292).

1.2 Feyerabend is right in challenging universal scientific method, but this challenge does not threaten a modified rationalism and methodology that respects history and contingency. Arthur Chalmers (1982) and Joseph Margoils (1991) adopt examples of this view. Chalmers argues that although he agrees with Feyerabend that methodologies of science that prescribe scientific rules are problematic, Feyerabend goes too far in rejecting the rationality of science. He claims that Feyerabend’s reasons for criticising method cannot support the extremes of his conclusions. For example,

48 Chalmers claims that Feyerabend rejects the rationality of theory-choice because the process is not entirely logical (Chalmers 1982: 138). But this, Chalmers argues, does not mean, as Feyerabend appears to imply, that theory-choice is then entirely subjective. He argues that just because theory-choice is not entirely rational does not make it arational or irrational (Chalmers 1982: 138-9). As long as we do not see rationalism as a purely logical, objective process, we can resist Feyerabend’s rejection of rationalism.

Margolis argues that although he agrees with Feyerabend that methodology should not be ahistorical, he claims that Feyerabend is wrong in construing all methodologies as ahistorical (Margolis 1991: 479). Methodologies are not always based on fixed and unchanging rules. He claims that Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programmes points to a recognition of history within rationalism that problematises Feyerabend’s extreme views (Margolis 1991: 481). He argues that we can escape Feyerabend’s pessimistic conclusions about the rationality of science as long as we recognise: “a more open, more carefully crafted, de-universalized, anti-ahistorical conception of reason and method” (Margolis 1991: 485).

If Feyerabend’s work had ended with Against method (1975), I would probably agree with the second view. But if we examine all of his work from Against method onwards, especially the combination of Against method (1975), Science in a free society (1978), Farewell to reason (1987) and ‘Concluding unphilosophical conversation’ (1991), we find evidence for a view that will problematise the above analyses.

These analyses rest on the idea that we can find an answer to Feyerabend’s criticism isolated within the philosophy of science. We can, for example, according to view one, defend methodology or specific methodologies. Or according to view two, we can modify the philosophy of science to fit a more context-dependent understanding of rationalism and method. But this misses the

49 point. Where the above analyses fail, is they do not recognise the influence of Feyerabend’s political ideals of freedom and diversity. And as such, they fail to make a distinction between scientific practice according to the individual scientist and science according to the philosopher, between science and the philosophy of science. And yet, I argue that Feyerabend’s political ideals, and the distinction between philosophy and scientific practice that they generate, are critical to his understanding of science. Let us examine these ideals.

2. FEYERABEND AND MILL’S IDEALS OF FREEDOM AND DIVERSITY Feyerabend claims that his understanding of science is unoriginal. He credits John Stuart Mill’s libertarian as a primary influence on his work (Feyerabend 1987: 281). Feyerabend’s main problem with method, with principles, with rationalism, with the philosophy of science, is not that they are unrealistic, that they contradict the history of science. His problem has to do with his liberal ideals.

John Stuart Mill argued that liberty could not be isolated to politics. He defined liberty as protection from tyranny (Mill 1912: 5). However, tyranny is not necessarily purely political. One can live in a liberal state, free from direct political interference, and yet still not experience liberty. He claimed that the tyranny that we experience in these states is a tyranny of ideas. He argues that societal norms and majority opinions are imposed on individuals, and this imposition interferes with their liberty and autonomy (Mill 1912: 9). Individuals are forced to conform to standards, instead of allowing their individuality to flourish, instead of having the freedom to differ.

Mill’s solution to this tyranny, to the suppression of individuality, is to increase freedom and autonomy by respecting difference, by allowing dissent, by encouraging variety. Not only did Mill believe that this pluralism would encourage true and freedom, he believed that encouraging a variety of opinions would help us to get closer to the truth. One answer, one side of the

50 story, Mill argues, cannot possibly encapsulate truth. Truth is discovered when varying ideas are combined. It cannot be discovered when one idea is promoted at the expense of all others: “truth has no chance but in proportion as every side of it, every opinion which embodies any fraction of the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as to be listened to” (Mill 1912: 65).

More specifically, Mill argued that research, including scientific research cannot be conducted according to fixed conceptions and procedures. He claimed that ideas that had not passed current research tests as well as new and untested ideas should not be discarded no matter how little they seemed to fit in with our ideas about reality (Feyerabend 1987: 33). We need to retain these varying ideas, even ideas that are inconsistent with our accepted ideas, for four major reasons:

Ø Firstly, we may discover later that an idea that we have rejected is actually true (Mill 1912: 65). Ø Secondly, even if this idea is not entirely true, it could be partially true. And as established opinions are unlikely to be the whole truth, we will need these partial truths to supplement our prevailing ideas (Mill 1912: 65). Ø Thirdly, even if our established ideas are entirely correct, we need to rationally establish their truth by challenging them with other ideas (Mill 1912: 65). Ø Fourthly, to truly understand the meaning of our established ideas, we need to contrast these ideas with others (Mill 1912: 65).

Feyerabend uses these ideas as a basis for his attack on received ideas about science. He argues that when we describe science according to rationalist fairy- tales, not only are we being unrealistic, not only are our descriptions of science deficient, we are prescribing conditions for science that inhibit the autonomy and individuality of scientists. We are refusing them the right to practice science varyingly, to differ from established procedures and ideas.

51

Here Feyerabend draws an important distinction between philosophers of science and scientists. To increase variety in science, to encourage the individuality of science, we cannot force scientists to follow philosophical rules or models of science. In a sense, we need to discard our philosophies of science to promote difference and autonomy. Let me substantiate this by discussing the various ways in which Feyerabend’s phrase ‘anything goes’ has been interpreted.

3. ANYTHING GOES? In Against method (1975), Feyerabend claims that if no method is universally foolproof, then "there is only one principle that can be defended under all circumstances...It is the principle: anything goes" (Feyerabend 1975: 28). Now this phrase, and what exactly Feyerabend means by it, has inspired much debate. Some critics have taken it at face value, claiming that Feyerabend believes that there are no better or worse methods in science and therefore science can be conducted “As you like it” (Agassi 1991: 379).

In Science in a free society (1978) and later in Farewell to reason (1987), Feyerabend argues that ‘anything goes’ has been misunderstood. He claims that his view has often been mistaken for a naïve form of anarchism that recognises, firstly, that any rules and methodologies have limitations, and because of this, secondly, we should have no rules (Feyerabend 1978: 32). Feyerabend claims that he only agrees with the first part of naïve anarchism. He does not reject rules entirely: rather he wants to expand the rules we have and use them in new ways (Feyerabend 1978: 164). He regards epistemological anarchism not as a substitute for scientific method but rather as “’excellent medicine for epistemology and the philosophy of science’” (Feyerabend 1978: 127).

This means that he does not believe that ‘anything goes’ should be the principle to guide science. If any rational principle will at times be flawed and thus we

52 cannot stick to scientific method absolutely, then ‘anything goes’ is simply the only principle that can be rationally defended in all conditions. He claims, “'anything goes' does not express any conviction of mine, it is a jocular summary of the predicament of the rationalist” (Feyerabend 1978: 188). He argues that rationalists are looking for fixed rational rules to guide science. He has claimed, however, that when we examine the history of science, no such principle exists. So the only principle a rationalist can derive from the disorder of science is ‘anything goes’: “if you want universal standards... then I can give you such a principle. It will be empty, useless and pretty ridiculous...'anything goes'” (Feyerabend 1978: 188).

These claims have inspired critics to qualify ‘anything goes’. For example:

Ø Gonzalo Munévar (1991a: xvi) argues that ‘anything goes’ is not Feyerabend’s motto. It is merely the only universal principle that we can garner from science, and as such, it is vague and useless. So, he claims that Feyerabend is arguing in favour of recognising the contextual nature of rules: scientific rules can be used as guidelines but we have to respect that they are not universal (Munévar 1991a: xvi).

Ø Arthur Fine claims that what Feyerabend really means is "many things go" (Fine 1998: 11). He claims that Feyerabend is not arguing that we should abandon rules but that we should recognise that science needs variety and difference: “his argument was actually standard libertarian pleading on behalf of open, democratic, Millian ideals” (Fine 1998: 11).

My argument is that both the view that Feyerabend is an anarchist who believes that ‘anything goes’ and the qualified views are mistaken. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to claim that, in certain ways, they are both right.

53 ‘Anything goes’ is a principle that Feyerabend believes should be adopted. He also believes that it should not be adopted. Sound confusing? It depends on who should adopt it. Philosophers of science should adopt the attitude ‘anything goes’. Practitioners of science should not. ‘Anything goes’ is a principle “forced upon a rationalist who loves principles” (Feyerabend 1987: 284); it is the attitude that philosophers of science should have towards science. They need to stop trying to define, describe, explain science. Quite simply, they should stop philosophising about science. If they try to force their idealised rules and models of science on scientists, they will suppress autonomy and individuality. They should leave science to the scientists.

This does not mean, however, that scientists should believe that ‘anything goes’. There are better ways of practicing science. But it should be up to the individual scientists to decide which principles, which methods to follow or not to follow. The methods and principles should not be enforced from outside of science:

a person trying to solve a problem whether in science or elsewhere must be given complete freedom and cannot be restricted by any demands, norms however plausible they may seem to the logician or the philosopher who has thought them out in the privacy of his study. Feyerabend 1978: 117

Far from resulting in , Feyerabend claims that this will probably lead to better and more responsible scientific practice. If the so-called objective standards of science are no longer forced on to scientists from the outside, it will mean that scientists will approach science more responsibly because it will be up to them to check all aspects of their work, including the standards that they choose to use. Instead of merely applying rules that have been derived from outside of their research, they will be responsible for those rules, and the entire process of research (Feyerabend 1987: 284).

Rules are fine. Principles are fine. As long as they are developed and used by individual scientists. This is what Feyerabend means when he says that he is not

54 against rules; he is only arguing that all rules have limits. Compare the difference between the German Wider den methodenzwang and the English Against method. The German title means “Against the compulsion to use methods” (Schnädelbach 1991: 439). Feyerabend is more against scientists being compelled to use method than against method itself. Scientists can use rules formulated by philosophers if they want to. Scientists can also suspend these rules if they want to. But it is up to scientists and the practical research they conduct to determine this. It should have nothing to do with philosophers.

Feyerabend claims that philosophers seem to believe that research can only be conducted if certain simple rules are followed. And they see themselves as the creators and guardians of these rules. However, scientists do not need philosophers to guide their research: “A scientist…is not like a child who needs papa methodology and mama rationality to give him security and direction, he can take care of himself” (Feyerabend 1978: 38).

Although Feyerabend admits that any tradition can have its own rules, and it may even compel its practitioners to accept those rules and the methodologies behind those rules (Feyerabend 1975: 308), science cannot, according to its own rational rules, compel scientists to limit themselves to scientific method. It would be irrational to uphold the absolute rationality and objectivity of science.

Science, it has been claimed, is the only (or best) method of exploring reality. And yet, Feyerabend claims that he has demonstrated that this method contradicts itself: it claims that its use of fixed, rational rules gives it priority over all other methods but it does not always use these fixed rational rules. It employs a variety of means, both reasonable and unreasonable to solve problems. Thus, science cannot force researchers to stick to the scientific method: this would be rationally incoherent. Once we recognise that subjective elements and contingencies play a role in science, we cannot defend the scientific method

55 exclusively, and thus we have to acknowledge that there may be other non- scientific, non-rational ways of approaching science.

Furthermore, and more significantly for Feyerabend, method is something imposed from outside of science or from outside of a specific case of scientific research. Scientists need to decide for themselves how they are going to approach research themselves. Philosophers should not do the deciding for them. Scientists should be given the freedom to explore different ways of approaching science. Using Mill’s emphasis on autonomy and liberty, Feyerabend is arguing that scientists should not have to conform to the tyranny of the prevailing ideas about science.

In the history of science, Feyerabend argues, it has mainly been the anarchists, those who chose not to be bound by the rules of science, who have revolutionised science and our scientific ideas. It is when an individual chooses ‘to do her own thing’, instead of following the prescriptions of methodology, that change is brought about. Outsiders, who do not have training in scientific method, or rebel scientists, who break the rules, are usually the ones who have discovered or invented the most significant scientific advances (Feyerabend 1978: 89). These ‘scientists’ succeeded because they were individuals, because they chose to follow a different course to the one prescribed. For science to develop, to make new discoveries, to formulate new theories, it needs these anarchists.

But this does not mean that Feyerabend wants to prescribe anarchy to scientists: this would negate his whole thesis. If a scientist decides to follow method for a particular research project, that is acceptable, as long as she is not adopting this method because she is expected to. In fact, Feyerabend argues that science needs both the rules and the violations of the rules, both the conformists and the anarchists: “science needs both the narrowmindedness that puts obstacles in the

56 path of unchained curiosity and the ignorance that either disregards the obstacles, or is incapable of perceiving them” (Feyerabend 1978: 89).

Feyerabend has drawn a distinction between the practice of science and the philosophy of science. There are rules and methods and principles that can be justified or rejected in the practice of science. But individual practitioners of science should decide on these rules on a case-by-case basis for reasons that they should determine. Armchair philosophers do not feature. Criticisms of Feyerabend that don’t take this distinction, and his emphasis on freedom and diversity, into account often provide only an isolated perspective on his ideas:

Ø Newton-Smith (1981: 146) argues that Feyerabend’s attack “on method at best scores a hit on a straw man” because rationalists do not necessarily advocate the rules that he claims they do. According to my interpretation, Feyerabend could maintain that this criticism would make no difference to his argument. Firstly, he does not really care which rules rationalists advocate: he has a problem with them advocating any rules. For example, Newton-Smith claims that Feyerabend’s consistency condition is not the consistency condition that operates in science. Feyerabend would claim that the point is not really, what the consistency condition is, but that there is a consistency condition.

And secondly, he does not necessarily have a problem with method or rules or even with a rationalist understanding of science, as long as those methods or understandings are not prescribed: practitioners should decide for themselves.

Ø Margolis (1991) has argued that as long as we adopt a modified form of rationalism that recognises the limits of rules, we can withstand Feyerabend’s criticism. But according to my interpretation, we would find the counter to this argument in Feyerabend’s criticism of Lakatos.

57 Feyerabend claims that Lakatos tries to recognise the contextual nature of rules, instead of prescribing universal rules to scientists (Feyerabend 1975: 181-183). But Feyerabend argues that Lakatos’s methodology is meaningless because it refuses to prescribe rules: it does not provide scientists with any genuine conditions for conducting science (Feyerabend 1975: 184-5).

Feyerabend appears to be arguing that either the philosophy of science will prescribe fixed rules that force scientists to comply with a specific methodology, which cannot be justified under all conditions, or it will be meaningless and vague. Any form of rationalism describing science, whether it recognises the limits of rules or not, is thus unrealistic according to Feyerabend.

Not recognising the significance of freedom and diversity in Feyerabend’s understanding of science, has lead to him being incorrectly labelled as an ‘irrationalist’ (see, for example, Stove 1982). Feyerabend is not arguing in favour of an irrational model of science. He also does not claim that logic and rational rules play no part in science. What he is arguing against is the imposition of rationalist models and methods in science. It is more rational, he would argue, to implement his ideas about science. What is irrational is imposing the fairy-tales of science. For Feyerabend “his dogmatist opponents are the real irrationalists” (Williams 1998: 642).

Feyerabend’s distinction between scientific practice and philosophy explains why he rejects Thomas Kuhn’s ideas about science. Despite Kuhn’s emphasis on the history of science, Kuhn continues to promote fairy-tales about science by creating a model of science and scientific revolutions, which pigeonhole scientists and do not allow them enough autonomy. Paradigms, revolutions, normal science, these are all vague theoretical constructs that Kuhn is trying to use to describe a constantly changing, complex practice. Feyerabend is

58 particularly troubled by Kuhn’s conception of ‘normal science’. Feyerabend argues that firstly, there has never been a period of ‘normal science’ (Feyerabend 1981: 160). And secondly he argues that Kuhn’s claims that scientists should focus on solving problems prescribed by the current paradigm is only another attempt by a philosopher to determine what scientists should do, instead of allowing the practitioners themselves to make up their own . (Feyerabend 1987: 190).

Although admittedly, Feyerabend makes certain methodological suggestions himself, he is careful not to prescribe these suggestions. He claims that these suggestions are not a positive philosophy of his own; they are merely introduced to demonstrate to philosophers that their rational rules are flawed.

He claims, for example, that the falsificationist insistence that scientific theories cannot be bolstered by ad hoc modifications is flawed (Feyerabend 1975: 171- 179). He argues that in the history of science ad hoc hypotheses are often used, and need to be used, to support a new theory or to explain anomalies in an unfinished theory (Feyerabend 1975: 178-9). Feyerabend is not, however, arguing that scientists must use ad hoc hypotheses; he is arguing that we cannot exclude their use. We cannot justify a rule that claims that ad hoc hypotheses cannot be used. But we also cannot justify a rule that prescribes the use of ad hoc hypotheses. The researchers in a specific case should decide whether it is necessary to use an ad hoc modification. Instead of promoting his own philosophy of science, Feyerabend claims that he wants to leave the philosophy of science “to its fate: live and let die” (Feyerabend c.f. Schnädelbach 1991: 442).

4. SO HOW CAN WE CRITICISE FEYERABEND’S IDEAS? I have claimed that when we criticise Feyerabend’s ideas, we need to be sensitive to his emphasis on diversity and the corresponding distinction that he draws between scientists and philosophers. Taking this emphasis and this

59 distinction into consideration so far, we could problematise Feyerabend’s ideas in a number of different ways.

We could, for example, argue that Feyerabend’s descriptions of science according to history are inadequate, as George Couvalis (1997: 118-122) has done. Or we could argue that Feyerabend has defined rationalism too narrowly, conflating rational rules with a command that they must be obeyed, as Herbert Schnädelbach (1991: 434-437) has done. Or we could argue that Feyerabend has unreasonably stipulated that there is nothing special about science because its results are not exclusive.

These criticisms are valid. However, these criticisms still do not get to the root of Feyerabend’s critique of science. We have gotten closer to the central problem by recognising Feyerabend’s sensitivity towards difference and autonomy. However, we have only discussed this sensitivity in relation to science and scientists. Feyerabend’s major concern is not, however, science or rationalism, “such abstractions do more harm than good” (Feyerabend 1987: 17). His concern is with “the quality of the lives of individuals” (Feyerabend 1987: 17).

Feyerabend has argued that we cannot rationally uphold science’s so-called superiority. However, even if we could prove that science is superior to any other forms of enquiry or approaches, Feyerabend would not feel that this threatens his ideas. He argues that even if science could prove its superiority, its privilege, this does not prove that science should be allowed to dominate our lives, as it currently does.

Feyerabend’s major concern is the freedom and diversity of individuals within society, not simply the autonomy of scientists. And he argues that science’s dominance in society interferes with individuality, with diversity, with autonomy, even with democracy. To fully understand Feyerabend’s ideas, we cannot isolate

60 them to science. We must explore his ideas about democracy and science. We will examine these ideas in the next chapter.

61

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have explored ideas about science from positivism, logical positivism, Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, and Thomas Kuhn. As we have seen, Paul Feyerabend claims that these philosophies of science are fairy-tales, are unrealistic descriptions of science.

The first problem that Feyerabend has with these descriptions is that according to arguments from the history of science and the incommensurability of worldviews, we cannot claim that science follows a strict scientific method, and if we cannot claim this, then science is not a paradigm of rationality. This is an uncontroversial description of Feyerabend’s ideas.

My second point, however, differs from typical interpretations. Based on the link between autonomy and diversity promoted by John Stuart Mill, Feyerabend argues that our emphasis on method suppresses the autonomy and diversity of scientists. This means that Feyerabend’s concern is not with specific philosophies of science, but with the philosophy of science itself, because, he claims, it forces scientists to adhere to philosophers’ ideas about how science should be practised instead of allowing the practitioners to decide for themselves.

Claiming, however, that Feyerabend wants to promote diversity within science is still not a sufficient description of his ideas about science. Feyerabend’s primary concern is with diversity within society, not science. Feyerabend’s problems with the philosophies of science can be divided into two significant components. Firstly, our philosophies of science are unrealistic. They expect scientists to follow rules of scientific method, which cannot be justified, instead of allowing them to decide for themselves. These are the fairy-tales of science. But this is

62 not the most important problem that Feyerabend has with science and its philosophy. Even if we could prove that science deserves a unique position in society because it represents the truth, we should not provide it with such a position. Science’s dominance, even if it was justified, is harmful. It is harmful because it interferes with diversity, personal liberty and genuine democracy. In the next chapter, I will explain why Feyerabend believes that science’s dominance interferes with freedom and democracy.

63

CHAPTER THREE The free society

64 Introduction

[I]s it not possible that science as we know it today, or a ‘search for truth’ in the style of traditional philosophy, will create a monster? Is it not possible that it will harm man…? I suspect the answer to all these questions must be affirmative… Feyerabend 1975: 175

In Against method (1975), Feyerabend claims that his analysis of Karl Popper’s critical rationalism raises two questions. One of the questions that he asks is whether science can be conducted according to the rules of critical rationalism (Feyerabend 1975: 174). As we have seen in chapter 2, Feyerabend claims that the answer to this question is no. But Feyerabend claims that a far more important question is whether it is desirable to live according to these rules (Feyerabend 1975: 174-5).

Feyerabend’s primary concern with science is not whether our understandings of science are correct. His concern is whether our understandings of science are damaging. Feyerabend’s primary concern lies not with scientific practice. His concern is science’s influence on individual freedom and diversity. In chapter 2, I claimed that many critics do not recognise the importance that Feyerabend places on a scientist’s freedom to practice science according to her own decisions, not according to the principles formulated by philosophers of science. In this chapter, I will argue that Feyerabend’s aim is not to maximise freedom merely within science. His primary aim is to maximise freedom in society by curbing science’s dominance.

Feyerabend claims that even if the fairy-tales of science were not fairy tales, even if they were correct, we should guard against science dominating our lives. He argues that currently science governs education, public policies, and even thought in contemporary western democracies. And he argues that, not only is this dominance unjustified because it is legitimated by faulty philosophies, it

65 interferes with our freedom to decide life for ourselves, to differ from received opinion: it interferes with the very basis of our democracies. Even if science is superior, it should not dominate our lives because “if we consider the interests of man and…the question of his freedom (freedom from hunger, despair, from the tyranny of constipated systems of thought…), then we are proceeding in the worst possible fashion” (Feyerabend 1975: 175).

Feyerabend argues that the only way in which we can live in genuine democracies that respect freedom and diversity is if we do not allow science to dominate society. Science cannot be given a privileged position in society. It should be given a status equal to any other ways of life and traditions. And individuals, not scientists, not so-called experts, should have the freedom to decide between these alternatives.

In this chapter, I will elaborate on these claims, explaining why Feyerabend believes that science suppresses freedom and diversity, and how we should change society to curb science’s influence. In the first section of this chapter, I will explain why Feyerabend regards science’s dominance as tyranny. I will link Feyerabend’s ideas to John Stuart Mill’s concerns about the tyranny of prevailing opinion. In the second section of this chapter, I will explain how Feyerabend believes we can overcome the harm caused by science’s dominance: we need to eliminate science’s dominance, we need to democratise science, and we need to separate education from ideology.

66

The tyranny of science

In chapter 2, I introduced the important link between Feyerabend and John Stuart Mill. Feyerabend’s major concern with science and its philosophy comes not from within scientific practice, but from the political ideals of Mill’s liberalism.

Feyerabend wants to maximise freedom and diversity within science. This is his primary problem with method and its rules. But this is not Feyerabend’s only aim. The more important aim is to maximise freedom and diversity within society. Like Mill, Feyerabend believes that our liberal democracies are not free societies. They tyrannise their citizens by imposing established ideas and silencing dissent.

1. THE INFLUENCE OF MILL’S LIBERALISM In On liberty (1912), Mill argues that when democratic republics were first formed, we believed that we did not need to limit the power of leaders. As these leaders were supposed to be representatives of the people’s will, checks on power were unnecessary: “The nation did not need to be protected against its own will” (Mill 1912: 7).

However, we have found that this is untrue. The so-called self-government that is supposed to characterise liberal societies is “not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest” (Mill 1912: 8). The will of the people is not the will of the people, but the will of the majority of the people, or the will of the dominant.

Although tyranny has traditionally been associated with direct political interference, Mill argues that this is not the only type of tyranny to which we can be subjected (Mill 1912: 5). Liberal states may not be politically tyrannical, but they can still be tyrannical. Liberal states, Mill claims, suffer from social tyranny.

67 Social tyranny is “more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since…it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into…life” (Mill 1912: 9). When the will of the people is associated with the will of the majority of the people, or with a dominant group, this will is imposed on all the people. And this is what Mill means by social tyranny. Prevailing ideas and feelings are imposed on others, stifling their autonomy and forcing them to conform to others’ standards (Mill 1912: 9).

If tyranny is not purely political, a liberal state cannot focus on protecting its citizens from political interference alone. We need to protect citizens from social tyranny. So, what we need to determine is the limit for society’s legitimate interference with individual freedom. Mill claims that the only justified interference with individual freedom, “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others” (Mill 1912: 15). Besides this restraint, the individual’s autonomy should be absolute.

And yet, Mill argues, this is not the case in so-called liberal states. Instead of allowing people to live their lives in the way that they choose to live them, society forces its ideas down on us, promoting homogeny and stifling our autonomy (Mill 1912: 18-21). Unless we have absolute liberty in every aspect of thought, expression, action and association, unless the only liberty that is not restricted is our freedom to harm others, we cannot call our societies free. To counteract social tyranny, we have to maximise these freedoms, encouraging difference and dissent without trying to stifle them into the conformity of collective opinion.

Mill discusses two important liberties that we need to maximise. The first of these is freedom of opinion: the liberty of thought and discussion (Mill 1912: 22). He claims that no matter how ridiculous an opinion is, or how few people agree with that opinion, we should never suppress it. He argues that besides the right of the individual to hold such an opinion, we should not suppress any opinions because

68 they help us to arrive at the truth. Prevailing opinion, no matter how justified, is unlikely to be entirely true. Prevailing opinion is only one answer, one side of the story. Contrary opinions should not only be allowed, we should encourage them to supplement or challenge established ideas to get closer to the truth. Dissent and difference are not problems in society. Problems arise when we try to suppress difference: “Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil” (Mill 1912: 64-5).

The second freedom that Mill discusses in detail is the freedom of action, the freedom to act on one’s opinions. Mill refers to this freedom as the expression of individuality, the expression of each individual’s uniqueness (Mill 1912: 69). Mill claims that we tend to under-value this liberty; we do not recognise its worth (Mill 1912: 70). And yet, “the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being” (Mill 1912: 70). When you express your individuality, you are expressing your worth as a human being, and developing your most important faculties: observation, reasoning, judgement, activity, discrimination and self-control. On the other hand, if you conform to society’s customs and ideas, then you “have no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation” (Mill 1912: 73). If we want a society with mature, intellectually active individuals, we will have to maximise individuality.

So, how does Mill propose that we achieve a society that maximises freedom and individuality? The basis of such a society, he argues, rests on two maxims. Firstly, “the individual is not accountable to society for his actions” except when it comes to harming others (Mill 1912: 115). Secondly, the individual is accountable for actions that harm others and can be punished for those actions (Mill 1912: 115). Mill claims that we need to judge the structures of our society according to these two maxims.

Mill argues that if we apply these maxims to education, we will find that we need to radically restructure education to fit in with a free society. He argues that

69 education is typically used by the state to force its opinions onto citizens: it “is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another” (Mill 1912: 130). So, we need to separate state and education. Instead of the state paying teacher’s salaries, citizens should pay those salaries, to guard against education simply being collective opinion forced onto individuals (Mill 1912: 130). This is one of ways, Mill argues, that we can achieve a society that truly values and promotes freedom and diversity.

Feyerabend’s diagnosis of the problem with liberal democracies rests on Mill’s analysis. He agrees that our freedom and individuality are being suppressed by prevailing opinion. For Feyerabend, the prevailing, the dominating opinion in contemporary societies is scientific opinion.

2. SCIENCE AND LIBERTY Science, Feyerabend argues, is often considered synonymous with freedom. Science has liberated us from religious dogmatism, from authoritarianism, from superstition (Feyerabend 1981: 156). Feyerabend argues, however, that although science may once have been liberating, it is no longer so. In fact, it is now the opposite: it stifles our freedom.

Initially, Feyerabend argues, rationalism and science were both used as instruments of liberation. In Farewell to reason, Feyerabend explains that the emphasis on rationality that developed during the Enlightenment was focused on independence and freedom: Kant, for example, claimed that rationality has to do with the ability to think for one’s self (Feyerabend 1987: 11). Also, when modern science came to the fore in the 17th and 18th centuries it overthrew the rigid dogma of religious and superstitious beliefs (Feyerabend 1981: 156-7) and thus contributed “to the liberation of man” (Feyerabend 1981: 157).

And yet, just because these traditions were instruments of liberation does not mean, he claims, that they have remained such instruments: ”There is nothing

70 inherent in science or in any other ideology that makes it essentially liberating, [sic] Ideologies can deteriorate and become stupid religions” (Feyerabend 1981: 156).

What makes contemporary science so different is that earlier forms of science were seen as one of many competing traditions and helped to restrict the influence of dominant traditions, such as Christianity (Feyerabend 1978: 75). Science encouraged individual thought. But now, Feyerabend argues, science has become the dominant tradition in western society: it is seen as the only means of gaining knowledge, of approaching the world.

Science’s dominance has led to its institutionalisation. As science is seen as giving "a true account of man and the world and produces powerful ideological weapons in the fight against the sham orders of the day" (Feyerabend 1975: 188), we allow it to dominate our lives. All alternatives to the scientific viewpoint have been ridiculed and suppressed. Science is no longer one tradition among many, providing people with choices on how to live their lives: it is the only accepted tradition.

But "this naive and almost childlike trust in science", Feyerabend argues, is undeserved: we have no real reasons to justify why science should be given a privileged position in society (Feyerabend 1975: 188). The reason why science dominates the western world is not because it is right or because it is successful but because, through "a little brainwashing" (Feyerabend 1975: 19), we have been led to believe that it is the only accurate way of gaining knowledge about the world. In chapter 2, we examined Feyerabend’s arguments that science is not superior to other forms of enquiry because science cannot guarantee its results, its truth-value, through method. More importantly, however, science should not be allowed to dominate our lives because it is harmful.

71 In his introduction to Against method, Feyerabend claims that although "[i]t is thus possible to create a tradition that is held together by strict rules and that is also successful to some extent", it is not desirable "to support such a tradition to the exclusion of everything else" (Feyerabend 1975:19). Quoting Mill, he claims that science’s role in society “is in conflict 'with the cultivation of individuality which alone produces...well-developed human beings'” (Feyerabend 1975: 20). Our scientific education suppresses our autonomy, trying to shape our ideas into collective homogeneous opinion. What is thus harmful about science is that it undermines the quality of life of those who practise it by stripping them of their autonomy, by denying them their capacity as individuals.

The idea that science continues to be liberating, Feyerabend argues, is laughable. It stifles diversity and tries to homogenise thought: “late 20th-century science…has become a powerful business that shapes the mentality of its practitioners... Let somebody make a great step forward - and the profession is bound to turn it into a club for beating people into submission” (Feyerabend 1975: 188).

Other traditions, other ways of life have not been allowed to co-exist with science. They have been dismissed, destroyed. Science, legitimated by rationalist philosophy, has tried to contain, even eliminate, any tradition, any way of life, which does not conform to its standards of objectivity and reason. Western forms of life are sweeping through other societies, eradicating their own unique ways of doing, destroying cultural difference. The dominance of science has encouraged uniformity and homogeneity.

Science is, therefore, no longer liberating: it doesn’t encourage people to think freely or independently; it refuses to recognise that cultural variety provides us with many different ways of understanding and examining the world. Science is revered above any other form of understanding the world such as religion, for example, because of politics and social context, not because science holds the

72 key to truth: “today science prevails not because of its comparative merits, but because the show has been rigged in its favour” (Feyerabend 1978: 102). Science and rationalism, he claims, are the dominant traditions in the western world today firstly because their perceived success has led to their institutionalisation (Feyerabend 1978: 102). And secondly, they are glorified as the only means of gaining knowledge because they have suppressed their rivals:

[other traditions] have disappeared or deteriorated not because science was better, but because the apostles of science were the more determined conquerors, because they materially suppressed the bearers of alternative cultures. Feyerabend 1978: 102

This, Feyerabend argues, is tyranny. If we truly want to live in democracies that value personal liberty and diversity, we will have to transform science and its role in society.

73

Freeing society from science

I am convinced that Mankind and even Science, will profit from everyone doing his own thing. Feyerabend 1975: 215

To maximise freedom and diversity, Feyerabend argues, we will need to radically change our societies in three different ways. Firstly, we will need to democratise science itself and secondly, we will need to restructure our educational systems. Most importantly, however, we will have to transform science’s role in society, ensuring that it is only one of many alternatives that we can choose from freely.

1. SCIENCE IN A FREE SOCIETY Feyerabend argues that we have replaced political dictatorship with scientific dictatorship. Individual freedom is being stifled by the dominance of scientific ideas. To increase freedom of opinion, we need to increase the variety of ideas available to us and we need to curb science’s influence. This would mean no longer providing science with a privileged position in society. We would have to think of science as a tradition, or part of a tradition. The next step would then be to acknowledge that science is only one of many different traditions, and that it cannot be judged as better than these traditions. This does not mean, however, that science is in any way inferior to other traditions: ”Traditions are neither good nor bad - they just are. They obtain desirable or undesirable properties only for an agent who participates in another tradition and projects the values of this tradition upon the world” (Feyerabend 1978: 81).

We should not replace the ideology of science with something else but rather encourage a freedom, an abundance of different cultures and traditions that people can choose from. Feyerabend claims that his solution to the problems surrounding science are not prescriptive: all ideologies, all methodologies have limitations (Feyerabend 1978: 32; 1975: 32). Thus, we must encourage a variety

74 of opinions, a multiplicity of methods. Such variety, he claims, is a prerequisite for obtaining objective knowledge and for practising a science that is humanitarian (Feyerabend 1975: 46): if we want to master our physical surroundings, then we must use all ideas, all methods” (Feyerabend 1975: 306). A society dominated by science and reason cannot be free because people are forced to accept the tenets of only one tradition and to conduct research, even to live their lives, according to those principles.

Once we provide all traditions, all ways of life with equal rights, people can choose how they want to live their lives and in which traditions they want to participate. This provides citizens with the freedom denied to them in contemporary scientific societies. Once we recognise that all ways of life can have value, Feyerabend argues, then we can live in a truly free society.

However, this society could still not be called a genuinely free democracy if individuals do not have the freedom to choose between these different traditions. To increase freedom, we should not only be encouraging greater freedom of opinion by promoting a variety of views, we also need greater power in implementing our own decisions of how to live our lives. If we want to participate in genuine democracies, we need to do precisely that: participate.

Currently, Feyerabend argues, the most important decisions in society are made, not by the citizens, but by scientific experts and intellectuals: “intellectuals determine the structure of society, intellectuals explain what is possible and what not, intellectuals tell everybody what to do” (Feyerabend 1978: 9-10). This forces the opinions of an elite minority onto citizens, curbing their autonomy. In a free society, in a genuine democracy, citizens need to participate more directly in decision-making: “Problems are not solved by specialists (though their advice will not be disregarded) but by the people concerned, in accordance with the ideas they value and by procedures they regard as most appropriate” (Feyerabend 1978: 9-10).

75

This means that if citizens want creation science to be a part of the school curriculum or if they want traditional healing to influence government health policy, then it makes no difference whether these ideas are scientifically valid or not: they should be implemented. If that’s what people want, that’s what they should get. Many colleges and universities are state sponsored, which means they are funded by taxpayers. They should thus be responsible to these taxpayers “and not to the judgement of the many intellectual parasites who live off public money” (Feyerabend 1978: 134).

Once we stop giving experts the power to dominate our lives, we will enjoy a genuine autonomy to decide our lives for ourselves. This will transform science in society. Instead of having dominant scientific opinions imposed on us, we can enjoy an abundance of alternatives, and the freedom to decide between these alternatives ourselves.

Feyerabend goes even further than this. Not only should we have the freedom to decide which important policies should be implemented within society: we should have the freedom to decide which scientific theories we want to accept. We should democratise science. This, Feyerabend claims, is a logical extension of the freedom that the individual is already accorded within society (Feyerabend 1978: 86).

2. DEMOCRATISING SCIENCE If we supposedly have all these freedoms of belief and choice, why then, Feyerabend asks, do individuals have these rights but they cannot practise them when it comes to decisions within science itself? Why should ‘experts’ determine what is taught in our curricula?

Modern society is ‘Copernican’ not because Copernicanism has been put on a ballot, subjected to a democratic debate and then voted in with a simple majority; it is ‘Copernican’ because the scientists are Copernicans

76 and because one accepts their cosmology as uncritically as one once accepted the cosmology of bishops and cardinals. Feyerabend 1975: 302

Once we recognise, however, that scientific theories are not guaranteed by scientific method, we cannot accept that a scientific theory should be accepted because it has been proven true. “Scientists do not solve problems because they possess a magic wand - methodology, or a theory of rationality” (Feyerabend 1975: 302). The fact that there is no special method for determining science has two important implications. Firstly, scientists need to be given the freedom to practise science outside of the prescriptions of methodologies. And secondly, citizens themselves should be able to decide which scientific theories they should accept.

In chapter 2, I claimed that Feyerabend’s problems with methodology were twofold. Firstly, no method can be defended under all circumstances, and therefore all methods are flawed, and thus expecting a scientist to follow any method absolutely is unrealistic. But more importantly, I argued that Feyerabend’s biggest problem with methodology is that it prescribes rules and models of science to scientists. In this chapter, we can see that for Feyerabend this prescription is not only unrealistic: it is damaging. It interferes with a scientist’s freedom to decide for themselves. Philosophers of science, and any other methodologists or scientists who insist on regulating science according to their rules, try to control science and scientists, interfering with the autonomy of these scientists within their own research. But they also interfere with the general population’s freedom to choose to which scientific theories they want to subscribe.

Feyerabend claims that, although scientists deny it, subjective choice does play a role in accepting scientific theories. Scientists claim that it is through scientific fact or by means of logic that we determine which theories are good theories (Feyerabend 1975: 303). But Feyerabend claims that: firstly “facts alone are not

77 strong enough for making us accept, or reject, scientific theories, the range they leave to thought is too wide” (Feyerabend 1975: 303). And secondly, if science was determined according to “the strict injunctions of logic or pure mathematics”, it would leave us with a set of ideas so limited that we would lose much of what we today call science (Feyerabend 1975: 303). So, if scientific theories are not determined by facts and logic, or not determined by these factors alone, what else plays a role in the scientific process?

In between these two…lies the ever-changing domain of human ideas and wishes. And a more detailed analysis of successful moves in the game of science…shows indeed that there is a wide range of freedom that demands a multiplicity of ideas and permits the application of democratic procedures…but that is actually closed by power politics and propaganda. Feyerabend 1975: 303

Science and democratic procedures are perfectly compatible. Scientists already subject science to processes that are far from objective. But why should they be the only ones to ‘subjectively’ decide which scientific theories should be accepted, should be researched, should be taught at schools? Surely, these decisions affect the lives of the citizens within society, and thus surely they should be the ones making the final decisions, and not the so-called experts.

However, if we asked citizens right now to determine which scientific theories they want to accept, or to choose between science and its alternatives, Feyerabend claims that the status quo would remain. We have been so influenced by dominant scientific opinions that we would not be able to make such choices freely. To fully realise this free society, we would need to change education, so that the choice between one idea and another could be made impartially.

3. IDEOLOGICALLY NEUTRAL EDUCATION If citizens are taught that science provides us with the only means of solving problems, if the fairy-tale of science continues to be taught, then the dogma of

78 science will perpetuate itself. Without exposure to other ways of dealing with reality, citizens will not know about (or choose) alternatives to science. This would mean that education would have to be changed radically. Science cannot be allowed to dominate education. In fact, no single tradition should be allowed to dominate. The general education of citizens would have to be ideologically neutral.

Thus, education would have to include as many traditions, as many ways of thinking about the world as possible. And these traditions cannot be taught as truth; they should be taught according to what they are: historical phenomena (Feyerabend 1975: 308). Education should expose pupils to different types of propaganda, to help them to resist propaganda: “It is only after such a hardening procedure that he will be called upon to make up his mind on the issue of rationalism-irrationalism, science-myth, science-religion, and so on” (Feyerabend 1975: 308).

Thus for citizens to be able to make free decisions, they will need an education that does not afford one tradition any special position above others. Once all traditions are given equal rights within our systems of education, citizens will be able to decide which traditions they choose to adopt, which spectacles they choose to see the world through, without being forced to accept a specific ideology. Citizens would have absolute autonomy:

A mature citizen is not a man who has been instructed in a special ideology…and who now carries this ideology with him like a mental tumour, a mature citizen is a person who has learned how to make up his mind and who has then decided in favour of what he thinks suits him best. Feyerabend 1975: 308

Feyerabend does not believe that this would make science obsolete. Citizens are free to make choices about traditions that they find valuable, and if they decide that science is valuable, it will continue to play a role in our societies. But they can only make this decision autonomously if they have not been forced to accept

79 the truth-value, the superiority of science. Feyerabend claims that he thinks that science will probably continue to be a practice with many ardent supporters: “By now everyone knows that you can earn a lot of money and respect and perhaps even a Nobel Prize by becoming a scientist, so, many will become scientists” (Feyerabend 1981: 164).

Feyerabend believes that a society that promotes an ideologically neutral education and has a variety of equal traditions that can be freely chosen by its citizens is the only society in which we can achieve true freedom and democracy.

80

Conclusion

Although initially Paul Feyerabend’s aim in his texts may have been to criticise our ideas about scientific practice, his later aims serve as a critique of the influence that science has on our lives. In Against method, Feyerabend claims that his aim is to demonstrate “that anarchism…is certainly excellent medicine for epistemology, and for the philosophy of science” (Feyerabend 1975: 17). In this text, he poses the two questions, is it possible to live with the rules of science, and is it desirable? He claims that although he considers the second question to be more important than the first, his aim in Against method is to answer the question of possibility (Feyerabend 1975: 175). Compare the difference between the aim of this text, and the aim of later texts.

The aim of Science in a free society is “to remove obstacles intellectuals and specialists create for traditions different from their own and to prepare the removal of the specialists (scientists) themselves from the life centres of society” (Feyerabend 1978: 7). And in retrospect, he claims that Against method had precisely the same aim (Feyerabend 1978: 7). We find the aim of ‘How to defend society against science’ (1987) in its title. The aim of Farewell to reason is “to show that diversity is beneficial while uniformity reduces our joys” (Feyerabend 1987: 1). It is within these texts that Feyerabend addresses the second question, the more important question, fully: is it desirable to live according to science and its rules? And as we have seen in this chapter, he claims that it is not desirable because science suppresses freedom and diversity.

In this chapter, I have demonstrated that Feyerabend believes that science’s dominance can be described as tyranny. In homage to Mill, Feyerabend argues that prevailing scientific opinions are imposed on society, marginalising alternatives and stifling our autonomy to make our own decisions. He claims that

81 the only way in which we can maximise freedom is by transforming science and its role in society. This would mean, firstly, that we would have to eradicate science’s dominant role in society. Science cannot have a privileged position in society. It needs to be seen as equal to non-scientific alternatives. And citizens, not scientists, should choose between these alternatives. Secondly, Feyerabend argues, even scientific theories should be subjected to citizens’ decisions. And thirdly, he claims that we can only achieve this free society if we divorce science, and any other ideology, from education.

To fully understand and evaluate Feyerabend’s ideas we cannot ignore the most significant problem that Feyerabend has with science. This most significant problem has little to do with scientific method. This chapter has explained that Feyerabend’s major concern is that science’s privileged position is encroaching on our freedom and our expression of diversity. And in fact, as I will argue in the next chapter, this is where the value of Feyerabend’s ideas lies.

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CHAPTER FOUR Interlude: What can we say so far?

83

Introduction

Equating science with "religion, prostitution and so on" (Feyerabend 1975: 24) has not made Feyerabend the most popular of 'theorists'. His contempt for certain ideas and the emotional zeal with which he expresses his ideas have made him even more subject to criticism. In his study of irrationalism in contemporary philosophy of science, imagines how Feyerabend would rewrite the sentence "'Cook discovered Cook Strait". Although excessive, one has to admit that Stove has captured some of Feyerabend's style:

Long before the constipated and boneheaded Cook…rationally imposed…the myth of Cook Strait on the 'educated' world, Maori scientists not only 'knew' of the existence of the Strait but often crossed it by turning themselves into birds. Now, however, not only this ability but the very knowledge of the 'existence' of the Strait has been lost forever. This is owing to the malignant influence exercised on education by authoritarian scientists and philosophers…who have not accepted my criticisms and should be sacked. Stove 1982: 19

Feyerabend's texts should perhaps be accompanied by the warning, ‘may offend sensitive readers’. Feyerabend is an extremist. His views and his ways of expressing his views are extreme. And these views provoke extreme reactions. As demonstrated by the above example, a typical extreme reaction to him is to claim that his ideas are ludicrous, absurd, meritless, “ultimately nonsense” (Harris 1992: 193). In fact, Feyerabend himself makes it easy to dismiss his ideas, claiming in his foreword to Against method (1975) that the book is merely “a long and personal letter”, “written tongue in cheek” (Feyerabend 1991: 489). He also calls the philosophical position he adopts in this letter a joke (Feyerabend 1991: 489).

Although he may express his ideas more vocally and more vehemently than other theorists, those ideas, in general, are neither ludicrous nor idiosyncratic.

84 Although other contemporary philosophers of science may not agree with the details of his ideas about science, Feyerabend is far from being alone in challenging the so-called universal validity and supremacy of science: “Science has been pushed off its pedestal… It no longer commands universal respect, and inevitably its monopoly claims to knowledge are being questioned” (Trigg 1993: 4).

Chapters 2 and 3 served as an analysis of Feyerabend’s ideas about science and its role in society. In this chapter, I will examine what we can say so far about some of Feyerabend’s ideas. Firstly, I will discuss what is valuable about what Feyerabend says. I will argue that Feyerabend’s emphasis on diversity and his contribution to the politics of difference is significant. Secondly, I will claim that there are two considerable problems with Feyerabend’s ideas. I will argue that although I agree with Feyerabend that we cannot allow science to dominate society, we can provide it with a privileged position. I will also argue against Feyerabend’s claims that our methodologies necessarily stifle the diversity of science and scientist’s autonomy. If we are going to be committed to diversity, we definitely cannot accept all of Feyerabend’s conclusions.

85

The politics of difference

Simply put, I believe that the most valuable contribution that Feyerabend has made is to emphasise the importance of difference, of diversity, and to demonstrate how diversity is being hampered by science and rationalism’s role in contemporary societies. This contribution has more to do with Feyerabend’s political ideas than his ideas about scientific method.

Some critics may be surprised at this emphasis on the significance of Feyerabend’s politics. Although Feyerabend became increasingly more interested in society, or perhaps more accurately, in the quality of life of individuals within society, and increasingly less interested in science, his ideas about science are generally considered more sophis ticated than his ideas about politics. Michael Williams expresses a typical criticism of Feyerabend: “the political dimension of his thought amounts only to a vague and romantic utopianism” (Williams 1998: 642).

Furthermore, Feyerabend’s political ideals are also generally considered more extreme than his ideas about scientific method. Although initially Feyerabend’s attack on method may have been highly controversial, many of his ideas about science have become more acceptable:

At the time of their publication, Feyerabend’s writings, especially his book Against Method (1975), enjoyed a considerable success de scandale. They have come to seem less outrageous. While some of his views may strike some philosophers as overstated, their general spirit has some claim to be seen as today’s conventional wisdom. Williams 1998: 641

In fact, Gonzalo Munévar argues that Feyerabend’s arguments about the limits of method and the conflict between methodology and history are so widely accepted that his ideas about science must seem like truisms to many

86 philosophers of science (Munévar 1991: xi). On the other hand, what continues to set Feyerabend apart from other theorists is not so much his ideas about science, but rather science’s role within society: thus more his social and political philosophy. Although many may agree, for example, that all scientific methodologies are limited, they are unlikely to agree with Feyerabend’s conclusions that this means that science should not be afforded a dominant role within society.

Although I agree that Feyerabend’s political ideas are often not adequately substantiated or particularly thorough, I do believe that they are significant. And I am not alone in this belief. Noretta Koertge, for example, although adamantly opposed to Feyerabend’s epistemological anarchism, claims that “even if we…adopt a more traditional methodology…we are nevertheless stuck with his political conclusions” (Koertge 1991: 226-7). Let me explain why I claim that aspects of Feyerabend’s political and social philosophy are valuable in greater detail.

1. THE POLITICS OF DIFFERENCE I claimed that I believe that Feyerabend’s most valuable contribution is to emphasise the importance of diversity, and to demonstrate how diversity is being suppressed by science’s dominance. Emphasising the value of diversity is, on its own, not a significant contribution. Recognising that human societies are diverse is not particularly controversial. How important this diversity is and what we need to do about it is where debate really begins. What is significant, then, about Feyerabend is the link that he draws between the suppression and marginalisation of difference, and science; his merger of the philosophy of science and political philosophy.

Contemporary thought, especially political thought, tends to emphasise the importance of diversity. Generally understood and put very simply, the claim is that there are ultimately many things: that societies, identities, ‘truths’ are plural.

87 This emphasis on difference has two important implications: firstly the ‘oneness’, universalism and so-called impartiality of modernity and liberalism need to be condemned, and secondly, diversity and alterity (otherness) need to be accommodated, even celebrated:

the term ‘difference’, and its more metaphysical permutations, ‘différance’ in the work of Jacques Derrida, and ‘le différend’ in the work of Jean- François Lyotard, have become rallying points for two issues: a philosophical critique of Enlightenment-type rationalism, essentialism and universalism, and a cultural battle cry for those who insist on the experience of alterity, otherness, heterogeneity, dissonance, and resistance. Benhabib 1996: 5

1.1 The critique of ‘oneness’ Postmodernism, literally defined, is a movement beyond the modern. Historically, postmodernism follows modernity. Postmodernism “is a wide-ranging cultural movement which adopts a sceptical attitude to many of the principles and assumptions that have underpinned western thought and social life for the last few centuries” (Sim 1998: 339). One of these assumptions that postmodernism rigorously opposes is modernity’s emphasis on ‘oneness’, on .

Modernity asserted “that a common denominator can be found for all systems of belief and value: that the world is a unified field, explicable by a single explanatory system” (Ermath 1998: 587). This, postmodernists insist, is an impossible aspiration. The world is not unified; it consists of relative and radically diverse systems that can never be finally transcended. There are no absolutes, no universal values to be found; no single systems could ever explain the world.

For Jean-François Lyotard, for example, there are no meta-narratives, no universal theories, which we can use to legitimate our political ideals (Sarup 1998: 122). For Roland Barthes, texts do not have central unified meanings; they are open to various interpretations (Sim 1998: 336). “Postmodernism denies

88 absolute status to any truth or nature or reality. The question always remains – what truth, which nature, whose reality?” (Ermath 1998: 589).

More importantly, however, the aspiration to unify, to structure, to totalise, is not only impossible, its attempts to transcend diversity marginalise and suppress difference. This totalisation, this forced unity, is equivalent to totalitarianism (Haber 1994: 116). The western world has not discovered ultimate Truth; it has not discovered a unified world or a unified means of examining this world. Rather, it has universalised its own cultural values, claiming that these are the objective truth, and in the process, it has marginalised and suppressed alternatives or alterities, whatever is different, is other than these values. The rational, the masculine, the white, for example, are revered and considered to be the homogenous norm. Their perceived opposites, the irrational, the feminine, the non-white, are degraded and rejected:

This persistent commitment creates pressure for hardening boundaries, simultaneously fostering conformity among those who fall on the ‘correct’ side of the dividing lines, and marginalization and denigration for those on the ‘wrong’ side. White 1998: 591

Far from being value-neutral, as traditional liberals would argue, western democracies are based on these oppositions, promoting their own religious, gender and ethnic values and agendas under the banner of impartiality, and marginalising whatever they believe does not fit in with these values (White 1998: 591; Young 1990: 96-121).

1.2 Multicultural solutions: accommodating difference Significant debate within contemporary political philosophy centres on how to accommodate diversity. Political philosophy that aims at accommodating cultural diversity fairly is known as multiculturalism (Ripstein 1998: 599). Many theorists argue that although modern democracies uphold freedom and equality, they continue to either marginalise certain social groups or force these groups to be

89 assimilated into dominant cultures (see, for example, Young 1990; Schwarzmantel 1998).

Although liberal democratic states may claim to be neutral towards cultural values, arguing that culture is private, and anyone has the freedom to believe or practise whichever cultures they like, they cannot be truly impartial. Political institutions will always bear the values of some particular culture (Ripstein 1998: 601). Will Kymlicka, for example, argues that simply choosing certain days as public holidays will betray cultural affiliation (1995: 114-5). In most western democracies, Christian holidays such as Easter and Christmas are public holidays whereas Jewish, Muslim and other religious holidays are not. This cannot be impartiality: certain specific religious ideals are promoted whereas others are ignored. In fact, the very ideal of impartiality, of cultural neutrality, is a cultural value: “trying to maximize cultural neutrality, as well as claiming it, expresses a culturally specific value” (Harding 1998: 61).

As certain cultural values are promoted, are understood as the norm, the particular and diverse circumstances and lifestyles of women, non-whites, non- westerners, and many other social groups are often ignored, even marginalised. Equality is not achieved through the recognition of difference, but through its attempted elimination: either diversity is forced to assimilate into dominant culture or it is rejected as ‘abnormal’, ‘irrational’ and so forth. To rectify either the separation of certain social groups from dominant culture or the forced homogenisation of others, measures such as group rights, which recognise, even celebrate difference, are being discussed and implemented (see Young 1990; Kymlicka 1995). Examples are affirmative action and group representation in government.

Although Feyerabend also acknowledges diversity in society, and he agrees that this diversity is being suppressed, he has a different approach. He claims that one of the major causes of marginalisation is science. If we really want to live in

90 heterogeneous societies that respect difference, group rights, he would argue (although most of his work predates multiculturalism) can only take us so far.

2. FEYERABEND’S POLITICS OF DIFFERENCE One of the most significant contributions that Feyerabend has made is to highlight that science is a social concern. The ethical and social implications of science “have traditionally been relegated to the status of non-problems or at best peripheral ones” (Ravetz 1991: 355). As science supposedly follows strict objective method to achieve its results, which guarantees its neutrality and truth- value, then ethical and social concerns have nothing to do with science itself, but rather with ‘bad’ science, with science that has not been properly conducted or applied. Feyerabend has been instrumental in arguing that this is not the case.

He claims firstly that science is not unified by objective method; this is only what the fairy tales, the philosophies of science, wrongly tell us. And secondly, he claims that science’s dominance in society, is not only false, because it is legitimated by fairy-tales, this dominance is homogenising and marginalising because it suppresses alternatives. Science suppresses diversity because we falsely believe that it is a unified objective explanatory system, the one system for discovering truth in the world.

2.1 Feyerabend’s critique of oneness When Feyerabend states, for example, that “there is no single procedure” (Feyerabend 1978: 98) that governs science, most critics focus on the word ‘procedure’. They will argue that Feyerabend rejects procedures in science or that he is trying to change our conceptions about procedure in science. For me, the most important word in that sentence is not ‘procedure’; it is ‘single’. Feyerabend’s most pertinent critique deals with the homogeneity, the uniformity, of science and of society.

91 In his introduction to the essays collected in Farewell to reason, Feyerabend claims that the contemporary emphasis on diversity worries some critics. Diversity has led to fragmentation, or as Jurgen Habermas claims, to “a new unsurveyability: it is impossible to find one’s way in the flood of styles, theories, points of view, that inundate public life” (Feyerabend 1987: 1). But far from truly promoting and valuing diversity, Feyerabend argues, we are threatened with homogeneity. For Feyerabend there are two major threats to diversity: the homogenisation of science through philosophy and the homogenisation of society through science.

2.1.1 The homogenisation of science through philosophy Philosophies of science that define science according to the rules and principles of scientific method are suppressing diversity within science. Feyerabend claims that our models and theories of science are fairy tales. These fairy tales force uniformity on science and scientists. When science is defined according to its rules, its rationality, its objectivity alone, then the differences, the human elements, the complexity, the chaos in knowledge are made to look uniform and simple.

In fact, the very idea that there is such a thing as ‘science’ that can be defined and modelled only contributes to suppressing diversity. There are no rules, no structures common to all scientific investigations that we can use to identify science as science (Feyerabend 1987: 281). Thus there is no such thing as a unified, a whole of science. There are only individual research projects and “all sorts of rules of thumb which may aid us in our attempt to further the process but which may also lead us astray” (Feyerabend 1987: 283). Any theories, any models, any structures of science, force a false unity and uniformity onto the complexities and diversities of concrete and particular research projects. And anything that does not fit into the frameworks we force onto science becomes marginalised and denigrated as ‘non-science’, irrationality, or subjectivity.

92 2.1.2 The homogenisation of society through science Philosophical claims of scientific unity and inviolable rules of method contribute to legitimating science’s role in society. Science is dominant, is unquestioned, and is glorified because it follows objective rules to arrive at objective truth. While philosophies of science homogenise scientific practice, Feyerabend argues, the dominance of science in society homogenises our very societies.

Feyerabend claims that science is the primary culprit in marginalising and suppressing diversity in society. Despite the emphasis on difference and the perceived fragmentation in contemporary societies, the drive towards monism, towards one truth, one way of doing things, is stronger than ever. Western science and technology encourage uniformity and marginalise alternatives.

For Feyerabend, science’s dominance is a type of colonising force that is destroying other ways of life and ideas about the world. The uniform views and practices of western science are being imposed on cultures throughout the world: “Cultural differences disappear, indigenous crafts, customs, institutions are being replaced by Western objects, customs, organizational forms” (Feyerabend 1987: 2-3).

And the homogenising effect of science is not limited to non-western societies. Within western societies dominated by science, ideas are only accepted if they fit in with rational scientific ideals. Equality only exists within assimilation. Commenting on the USA, Feyerabend argues:

‘Racial equality’ does not mean equality of traditions and achievements; it means equality of access to positions in the white man’s society...A black man, an Indian can become a medical specialist…he can advance to positions of eminence and power…but he cannot practise the ‘scientific’ subjects that are part of his own tradition…This attitude…rests on an unexamined belief in the excellence of Western science and Rationalism. Feyerabend 1978: 177

93 Science is so influential, so powerful, Feyerabend argues, because it has substantial economic and political backing. Multiculturalists argue that the state is not neutral because it proposes specific cultural, religious, ethnic and sexual values at the expense of other values. Feyerabend’s argument is that the state promotes science at the expense of other values, at the expense of diversity.

In fact, Feyerabend claims that science and rationalism have nearly become the foundation of western states. The basic structure of these democracies, Feyerabend argues, rests on “an unholy alliance of science, rationalism (and capitalism)” (Feyerabend 1978: 144). Although, this structure grudgingly allows other ideas, other lifestyles the freedom to express themselves, they are not allowed “a role in the planning and completion of fundamental institutions such as law, education, economics” (Feyerabend 1978: 144). Besides the usual religious, cultural and gender values that contemporary democracies promote, they are based, Feyerabend claims, on the cultural values of western science and rationalism. And while these specific cultural values dominate, our alternative beliefs and choices are being seriously hampered and suppressed. Instead of individuals deciding on their own ways of living life, on their education, on their own laws, on their own values, scientific values and the beliefs of scientific and rationalist experts are homogenising our societies.

3. SO WHY DOES THIS MAKE FEYERABEND SIGNIFICANT? What Feyerabend has done is to move science from the exclusive realms of epistemology, from theories of knowledge, into politics and social theory. Most philosophers of science, even those who criticise traditional ideas about science, either encourage science’s dominance in society (like Popper) or ignore the social implications of science (like Lakatos). Feyerabend has been instrumental in questioning received ideas about science and its position in society.

More specifically, Feyerabend has contributed to the politics of difference, to the attempts to acknowledge and accommodate diversity in both science and in

94 societies. And as Vine Deloria argues, Feyerabend is not simply arguing for the toleration of difference, for the weak acceptance of different ideas within the established scientific framework of western societies. Feyerabend is arguing for the recognition that human knowledge should be defined according to the “discontinuous arrangement of smaller bodies of knowledge derived from the many human traditions represented in planetary history” (Deloria 1991: 390-1).

Feyerabend has been instrumental in breaking down the idea that science is culturally neutral. Science is a specific cultural system that is promoted according to specific cultural values. And as such, its dominance can lead to the marginalisation, even the destruction, of other values. Feyerabend is not the only theorist to associate science with politics, difference and marginalisation, but his work has been groundbreaking in promoting these ideas (see, for example, Munévar 1991: ix-xix).

More recent theorists, such as Sandra Harding, support his general claims that science needs to be adapted to accommodate diversity in society. Harding (1991; 1998a; 1998b) argues that science is often shaped by masculine and eurocentric values, to the detriment both of science and society, and that science can and should be reshaped to accommodate gender and cultural differences. In societies where science has become equated with worth, in societies where differences have so often been stifled, I find Feyerabend’s unpacking of our assumptions about science, even more than 25 years after Against method was published, thought-provoking and significant.

Although Feyerabend’s views are often dismissed as nonsense, there are many scientists and theorists, however, who appreciate Feyerabend’s break from staid and traditional views of science. Feyerabend’s focus on irrational elements in science, his emphasis on diversity, his criticism of rational methodology can also be described as refreshing, even (at least at the time that Against method was written) as a revolution in our understanding of science. I have distanced myself

95 from critics who have ridiculed Feyerabend. Am I now going to associate myself with Feyerabend’s admirers who believe that he is revolutionising our ideas about science and philosophy?

A revolutionary aims at extreme change, at overthrowing the established. In his study of revolutions within science, John Krige claims that Feyerabend is far from revolutionary. Feyerabend’s suggestions for changing science will not result in violent change; they will maintain the status quo: “anything goes … means that in practice, everything stays…Dadaists who believe that ‘anything goes’ leave the establishment alone” (Krige 1980: 142; 146).

I do not think that Feyerabend is a revolutionary. But my criticism differs from Krige’s assessment. Although I have argued, that Feyerabend’s emphasis on difference is valuable, there are numerous aspects of his work with which I disagree.

4. SO WHERE DOES FEYERABEND GO WRONG? Although I agree that we need to treat any threat to diversity seriously, this does not mean that I agree entirely with Feyerabend’s claims about science and the philosophy of science. I will highlight two significant problems that I have with Feyerabend’s claims about science and method so far. Firstly, Feyerabend is right in his claims that science should not dominate society, but I disagree with his claims that science should have not be privileged in any way. Secondly, I disagree with Feyerabend’s claims that any models of scientific method interfere with scientific autonomy.

4.1 Science’s privilege The first primary problem that I have with Feyerabend’s claims is that science should not have a privileged position in society. Where I agree with Feyerabend is that science should not be considered the one and only means to solve problems. I also agree that science should not dominate societies, if we

96 understand this dominance, very generally, as restricting freedom and suppressing non-scientific alternatives. I am making a distinction between privilege and dominance, and I argue that although science should not dominate, it should be privileged. Let me explain what I mean.

Feyerabend has argued that if we examine actual scientific practice, we will find that it contradicts the ideals of philosophical claims about scientific method. I argue that if we look at actual everyday life, we will find that it contradicts Feyerabend’s claims that science should not be accorded any greater role in society than other traditions.

Both so-called ‘developed’ and even many ‘developing’ societies revolve around technology, the practical application of science (Elliott et al 1993: 739). Some of the most basic aspects of any reasonably technologically advanced society, such as turning on a light, cooking food, or making a phone call, are products of science. Our needs tend to be focused on scientific products. This may not be the best or the healthiest or the happiest way to live our lives, but it is the way in which we live our lives. And as such, if we continue to demand more technology and improvements in technology, it seems reasonable to suggest that science, in general, should be privileged above non-scientific alternatives. It seems only practical that a society that relies a lot on science, should privilege science.

This does not mean that science should always be privileged nor does it mean that this makes science inherently superior to anything else. “That prominence is not inherent, however, but relative to the exigencies of research in our historical period and to the wants of modern societies (even if both standards and wants arose together with modern science)” (Munévar 1991: 194-5).

In chapter 1, I referred to a quote that claimed, despite scientific advances, superstitious beliefs, such as belief in astrology, are still widespread in contemporary societies (Claassen 2001: 9). Now, Feyerabend would claim that

97 this is proof that science should not be privileged in society, as the public believe in things like astrology, and this belief should thus be reflected by the state. And for Feyerabend, this would mean that the state should use and fund scientific and non-scientific resources or projects equally.

I find it difficult to believe, however, that the majority of people in, at the very least, a technologically advanced society, would want the state to base public health policy as much on astrology and witchcraft, for example, as on science, no matter what superstitious beliefs they may have. I may be passionate about certain beliefs and interests, but I am not going to demand that these beliefs should necessarily be considered equally, when practical public policies need to be considered and implemented.

Feyerabend is right when he claims that I should have the freedom to differ from scientific opinion. Feyerabend is right when he claims that I should have the freedom to practise astrology or to consult a witchdoctor. Feyerabend is even right when he claims that the state should consider non-scientific alternatives. However, he has not demonstrated that those non-scientific alternatives should necessarily be given equal consideration. For Feyerabend to convince us that non-scientific alternatives should necessarily be considered equal to scientific alternatives, he should have demonstrated how practical these alternatives could be in our technologically driven societies. Nothing that he has said about voodoo or astrology or creation science etc. (and he says very little about any of these) has demonstrated that they could, in general, serve our needs as well as science can.

Feyerabend has conflated privilege with dominance. I believe that there is a difference. However, this still leaves us with many questions. The most self- evident question is ‘What is the difference between dominance and privilege?’. If I claim that although science should be privileged, it should not dominate, how

98 can we establish what is privilege, and what is dominance? Let us examine this according to an example.

In chapter 1, I claimed that although a majority of South Africans consult traditional healers, these sangomas or inyangas are often ignored when government health policy is formulated (Jordan 2001: 5). I think it would be reasonable to argue that in this case, traditional healers cannot be ignored at the expense of science alone. That would be classified as an example of scientific dominance: we would be stifling the diversity of ideas and choices available to us, and ignoring, perhaps even marginalising, the beliefs of a number of citizens. However, I would also not agree with Feyerabend that these traditional healers should necessarily have as much of a say as scientists.

Although we can quite easily determine these two boundaries, extreme dominance and Feyerabend’s obligatory equality, what lies in between is not as distinct. All sorts of problems arise. Look at the word ‘necessarily’ that I used in the last sentence of the above paragraph. I have used the word ‘necessarily’ because in certain cases non-scientific alternatives should have as much of a say, or more of a say, than science in determining policy, if, for example, they are better able to address an issue than science is. Although I have claimed that there is nothing wrong with privileging science, in general, this does not mean that science should be privileged in each case. Circumstances would need to dictate whether or not science should be privileged. So our first tricky issue that we would have to tackle is ‘should science be privileged in this case?’. If we have decided that science should be privileged, a number of complicated issues arise. How should science be privileged? Which scientific ideas should be privileged? How much of a role should the traditional healers play? How much attention should we pay to difference within traditional healing?

Although these are challenging questions, and although I do not believe that our answers to these questions will ever be fully satisfactory, answering these

99 questions, even inadequately, is better than allowing science either to dominate or denying science any privilege. Feyerabend has taken the ‘easy’, and yet impractical, way out. He has identified that science may dominate certain government decisions, and in turn, stifle difference and marginalise certain beliefs and experiences. This is a significant contribution. However, his solution of considering science as equal to other alternatives is impractical in a world in which we demand so much of science.

In chapter 6, once we have examined Feyerabend’s ideas more thoroughly, I will demonstrate that there is a better solution to accommodating diversity, which could help us to answer some of the tough questions that science’s privilege poses.

Feyerabend’s claim that science should not have a privileged position in society is not the only claim that I dispute. The primary reason that Feyerabend believes that science should not be privileged is because it suppresses the diversity within society. However, he has also argued that our descriptions of scientific method are flawed, and thus we cannot expect scientists to conform to method nor can we justify scientific results. I believe that these claims are also problematic.

4.2 Scientific methodology In chapter 2, I argued against some typical interpretations of Feyerabend’s criticism of scientific method, claiming that they underestimate Feyerabend’s sensitivity for diversity and his condemnation of the philosophy of science. Few critics recognise the emphasis that Feyerabend places on freedom and difference, and the distinction between science and the philosophy of science that he draws to uphold these values, and yet these are central to his work. In his criticism, Feyerabend implies that any methodology, in fact any philosophy of science, is either meaningless or, if enforced, it will stifle the diversity and freedom within science. Feyerabend dismisses the ‘rules’ of science according to the positivist and falsificationist models of science, or Lakatos’s lenient guidelines

100 for scientific research programmes. Feyerabend advocates two extremes: our models of science are destructive or they are meaningless; either there is one strict scientific method or there is none.

Perhaps if Feyerabend’s two choices that he offers us were correct, we would agree with him that methodologies and philosophies of science are all problematic. However, it seems unlikely that these two extreme options he provides us with are the only options. I agree with critics such as Chalmers (1982), Margolis (1991), and Schnädelbach (1991), that Feyerabend’s definitions of rationalism and method are far too strict. Feyerabend’s case against the rationality of science is that if science is not entirely rule-based and objective then we cannot describe it according to a rationalist model of science. His case against method is that if methodological rules are not applied universally, then there is no such thing as method, and there is thus little to distinguish science from other traditions. More importantly, for him, however, is if we apply these problematic models of rationalism and methodology, we will be interfering with the diversity and autonomy within science.

I disagree with Feyerabend. There is such a thing as scientific method, although it differs from the way in which he describes it. This method does distinguish science, in some way, from other traditions, and makes its results defensible. And precisely because Feyerabend’s understanding of scientific method is flawed, methodologies that try to describe or even prescribe this method, are not necessarily suppressing difference or autonomy.

If scientific method prescribed fixed principles that had to be strictly applied by scientists in any situation regardless of judgement or circumstance, then, yes, I would agree with Feyerabend that methodologies and philosophies that prescribed this method would suppress freedom. I would also agree with Feyerabend that there is no such method guiding all scientific practice. What I fail to understand is how Feyerabend then comes to the conclusion that this

101 means that we cannot describe science as having any method, and that if we do, we will be trying to curb autonomy and diversity within science. Summarised Feyerabend’s argument looks like this: there is no fixed universal method in science; therefore, we cannot claim that science has any method. There is a logical gap here. Surely, something lies in between a singular fixed method and no method?

Look at this description of scientific method from a methodological textbook:

The term scientific method is a misnomer because this ‘method’ is not synonymous with any single, fixed procedure; it is instead a philosophical outlook as much as an evolving collection of tools and techniques. Rosenthal and Rosnow 1996: 6

Rosenthal and Rosnow go on to describe this outlook as being mainly characterised by empirical reasoning, and they claim that it includes a variety of techniques and procedures (Rosenthal and Rosnow 1996: 6). ‘Outlook’, ‘evolving’, ‘mainly’, ‘variety’: scientific method does not have to be defined according to a singular set of fixed rules. Scientific method can be conditional, changing, varied, and it can provide scientists with strategies, rather than inflexible rules, to guide, rather than control, scientific practice. If we recognise that scientific method can be based on revisable guidelines, then Feyerabend’s claims that any philosophy that promotes scientific method will stifle a scientist’s freedom are flawed. As long as scientists are free to use their judgement and to choose between a variety of techniques according to the needs of a specific scientific research project, then the diversity and innovation in science is not going to be stifled.

And just because method in science is open to judgement, to diversity, to revision, this does not mean that we cannot rationally justify its results at all. Typically, a distinction is made between the contexts of discovery and justification in science. The context of discovery deals with how we discover

102 scientific generalisations or laws (Couvalis 1997: 82). The context of justification deals with how we justify those generalisations or laws (Couvalis 1997: 82). Many philosophers of science claim that although the context of discovery is open to subjectivity, to politics, to accidents, and is not really governed by logic, scientific method provides us with a logic of justification (Feyerabend 1975: 165).

Feyerabend conflates the context of discovery with the context of justification. He claims that because method in science is not singular or fixed, there is no logic of justification: we cannot rationally justify scientific theories (Feyerabend 1975: 165-7).

However, if we recognise that there are scientific methods, rather than a single fixed procedure, we can claim that we can rationally defend scientific results in some way. Scientific method does not only provide a scientist with guidelines for conducting research and drawing conclusions about that research. More significantly, scientific method provides the scientific community with guidelines for assessing the results of scientific research. Evaluation criteria such as internal and external validity, generalisability, reliability and help us to determine the credibility of scientific claims (Goldenberg 1992: 93).

Methods of producing or testing scientific results cannot guarantee that these results are the absolute truth. However, these methods give us something: they provide us with standards and conventions to test and replicate scientific results so that we have a basis, not a foundation, to rationally defend or reject scientific theories. There may not be an absolute logic to our justification, but this does not mean that there is no logic to justification:

Methodology then is not everlasting, revealed Truth. It is a living body of ideas that changes with time…It would be nihilistic to use this mutability of methodological criteria as an argument for doing away with all methodological judgments. At any given time, one has to decide by the standards of that time. Hirschi and Selvin c.f. Goldenberg 1992: 20

103

If we are going to accept Feyerabend’s contributions to accommodating diversity better in society, we are going to have to qualify them. Feyerabend has demonstrated that science’s dominance is not in keeping with a diverse and free society. He has demonstrated that we need to guard against scientific method restricting autonomy within science. However, we cannot agree that science should not be privileged. We also cannot agree that all descriptions or prescriptions of scientific method are necessarily inhibiting nor can we agree that scientific claims cannot be rationally justified.

Feyerabend’s extreme options, either dominance or equality, either fixed method or no method, problematise his attempts to transform science and society. In chapter 2, we saw another of these ‘either or’ options: Feyerabend seems to think that philosophies of science that promote method suppress freedom, thus we have a choice, either we can uphold freedom and diversity by not theorising about science, or we can continue denying complexity and diversity through our philosophies. In this chapter, we have demonstrated that this choice is unfair: method does not have to be fixed, and thus, philosophies that promote method are not necessarily problematic. What we have not is established is why Feyerabend insists on this very narrow definition of the philosophies of science. Why does he draw such an extreme distinction between the philosophy of science and scientific practice, between method and diversity?

Many critics stop right here in their analysis of Feyerabend’s ideas, concluding that these extreme distinctions are inconsistencies. Whether or not Feyerabend realises it, he is only challenging rationalist accounts of science that universalise their rules and method. I am not satisfied, however. I believe that Feyerabend’s unsubstantiated condemnation of seemingly any philosophy of science has to have a reason beyond the inadequate reasons we have discussed so far. Is it possible that Feyerabend could reject the entire programme of the philosophy of

104 science? Is it possible that Feyerabend is rejecting the entire programme of philosophy?

As a philosophy student, I want to explore this issue further, and examine whether Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy influences his attempts to accommodate diversity better. In the next chapter, I will explore Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy. And it is within this understanding of philosophy that I believe we find the principal problems with Feyerabend’s work. We will find that Feyerabend blames philosophy for the homogeneity in science and in society, for the elitism that has stifled democratic participation and individuality. And ironically, I will argue that these ideas about philosophy undermine the valuable aspects of his work. I have commended Feyerabend for his sensitivity for diversity. I have commended Feyerabend for his contribution to the politics of difference. But I believe that his views about philosophy impede his sensitivity for diversity and his politics of difference.

105

Conclusion

I shall accompany Feyerabend a good distance, but then depart from him walking straight ahead while he follows some side roads. Diederich 1991: 214

In this chapter, I have argued that far from being ‘monstrous’ or ‘ludicrous’, Feyerabend’s ideas are valuable. He has demonstrated that science is not culturally neutral. He has contributed to our ideas about how to accommodate difference in our multicultural societies. He has demonstrated that differences that are marginalised and suppressed are not based solely on gender, religion, ethnicity, and so forth. We must guard against ideas and lifestyles that do not fit in with scientific frameworks from being stifled. He has contributed to encouraging the recognition of the complexity and variety in our societies, and this variety, I agree, can only enrich our lives.

I have, however, qualified my agreement with Feyerabend, claiming that I do not agree that science should necessarily be considered equal to other traditions, nor do I agree that our descriptions of scientific method necessarily inhibit autonomy and diversity. If we are going to be committed to diversity, we cannot accept Feyerabend’s extreme conclusions that science should not be privileged at all. We also cannot accept his claims that philosophies of science and ideas about scientific method are problematic because they are unrealistic and because they stifle the complexity of scientific practice. These extreme conclusions have led me to question Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy.

Some critics have argued that what is valuable about Feyerabend’s work is that he is inspiring us to revive our philosophies of science, to liberate them from outdated and prescriptive rationalism: “These ideals prompt the overthrow of existing rationality for an enlightened and liberal form of rationality” (Kekes 1991:

106 160). John Horgan claims that philosophers like Feyerabend are trying to provide the philosophy of science with a new role. Whereas the positivists and logical positivists claimed that philosophy is a second order discipline that should serve to substantiate and legitimate science, Lakatos and Feyerabend’s ideas have provided the philosophy of science with a different relationship to science:

These philosophers realized that in an age when science is ascendant, the highest calling of philosophy should be to serve as the negative capability of science, to infuse scientists with doubt. Only thus can the human quest for knowledge remain open-ended, potentially infinite… Horgan 1996: 33

I do not agree. Feyerabend, I will argue, is not trying to devise a new philosophy of science. He is not trying to liberate philosophy from outdated philosophies of science. He is trying rather to liberate both science and society from philosophy. I do not believe that Feyerabend is simply criticising specific philosophies of science. I do not even believe that he is criticising all philosophies of science. Feyerabend is criticising philosophy, any philosophy. And it is within this condemnation of philosophy that we will find some of the most challenging but also most problematic aspects of his work. In the next chapter, I will substantiate my claims that Feyerabend condemns philosophy.

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CHAPTER FIVE The absurdity of the abstract: condemning philosophy

108

Introduction

The aim of the first known philosophers in Ancient Greece is typically described as an attempt to explain nature in natural terms. These philosophers began to break free from divine explanations for natural phenomena, explaining the world according to material substances (see, for example, Tarnas: 1996: 20). The earliest philosophers were specifically concerned with explaining change, trying to find a primary natural element underlying all phenomena to explain transformation and stability. Thales claimed that this underlying element was water, Anaximines thought it was air, Heraclitus believed that it was fire (Palmer 1989: 6-23).

When I described the break between science and religion in chapter 2, I claimed that Feyerabend would disagree with the way in which I had compared science to religion. He would also disagree with the way in which I have just described the earliest philosophers. What he would disagree with is my claim that philosophers distinguished themselves by describing nature in natural terms. The early philosophers, Feyerabend claims, began a trend of rejecting what was apparent, what was commonsense, and relying on abstract that have nothing to do with natural reality to describe the ‘genuine’ essences underlying appearances.

In chapter 2, I argued that critics tend to believe that Feyerabend’s problems with philosophy are limited to specific rationalist philosophies that justify science’s dominance in society. And yet, I claimed that if we recognise the distinction that Feyerabend draws between the practice of science and the philosophy of science, his problem seems to lie rather with any philosophy of science, because these philosoohies describe science according to their idealised models and rules. In chapter 3, I demonstrated that Feyerabend’s primary problem with

109 applying rules or principles from outside of science, or outside of a specific case, is not because those rules are necessarily inaccurate but because they interfere with liberty, autonomy and diversity.

In this chapter, I will explain that Feyerabend’s problems with philosophy are much more wide-ranging than many critics believe. I will argue that Feyerabend condemns any philosophy because he believes that philosophy is inherently at odds with the values of the free society that he wants to uphold.

In the first part of this chapter, I will introduce evidence for Feyerabend’s condemnation of the whole programme of philosophy and begin discussing what reasons he could have for dismissing philosophy. In the second section, I will analyse Feyerabend’s understanding of the initial development of philosophy to elucidate the distinction that Feyerabend draws between the concrete and the abstract. This distinction leads Feyerabend to conclude that philosophy necessarily ignores or suppresses the richness, complexity and diversity in the empirical world. In the third section, I will explain how Feyerabend’s condemnation of philosophy underlies his criticism of science and his ideals for a free society.

110

The worst enemy of philosophy?

Through his criticism of science and reason, for many the backbone of western ‘civilisation’, Feyerabend has achieved notoriety. He is particularly unpopular among scientists. The British physicists T. Theocharis and M. Psimopoulos have dubbed him "the worst enemy of science" for attacking the truth-value of scientific knowledge (Psimopoulos and Theocharis 1987: 596). And when his widow, physicist Grazia Borrini, first heard about his 'attack' on scientific knowledge, she was enraged. Her reaction was, "’Someone was taking away from me the keys of the universe’" (Horgan 1997: 51). Could we justifiably claim that Feyerabend is an ‘enemy of science’?

1. IS FEYERABEND ANTI-SCIENCE? With articles entitled ‘How to defend society from science’ (1981), it is understandable that scientists may feel that Feyerabend is attacking, denigrating, their field of expertise. Although it is true that Feyerabend wants to rob science of its special status in western society, wants to rid of it of any delusions of grandeur, this in no way implies that he is anti-science. He does not believe that science is a worthless enterprise. Neither does he claim that science is necessarily damaging.

In fact, Feyerabend has expressed surprise (albeit wryly) at the violent way in which many scientists reacted to his ideas:

I asked why Feyerabend thought scientists were so infuriated by his writings. ‘I have no idea,’ he said, the very picture of innocence. ‘Are they?’ Horgan 1997: 51

111 Feyerabend feels that he is doing science a favour by debunking the myths surrounding it. The whole point of his attack on science is to improve both science and society.

Feyerabend wants to return to science its complexity and diversity: instead of trying to capture science in simplistic theories, forcing scientists to blindly obey rules and principles, we must allow those who are really affected by or involved with science (citizens and scientists) to decide for themselves. Once we do this, Feyerabend believes that science, scientists and society will all be better off.

Science will have more room to develop because once we recognise that we can practise science without absolute recourse to scientific method or in fact, in accordance with any philosophical ideals of science, we are opening up a multiplicity of new possibilities and opportunities for the growth of science. These do not sound like the sentiments of someone deservedly labelled ‘the worst enemy of science’.

Many of Feyerabend’s critics would be more likely to call him an ‘enemy’ of philosophy than an enemy of science. Most of them, however, claim that Feyerabend is only arguing against a specific manifestation of philosophy. Werner Diederich, for example claims that Feyerabend is criticising Popper’s critical rationalism (Diederich 1991: 216). Jerome Ravetz maintains that Feyerabend goes further than this. He claims that Feyerabend is actually criticising “the whole program of philosophy of science” (Ravetz 1991: 370).

2. IS FEYERABEND ANTI-PHILOSOPHY? In chapter 4, I claimed that one of the biggest problems with Feyerabend’s ideas that we had seen so far is that he seems to condemn any philosophy of science. We saw that he argued that either a philosophy of science is too strict because it prescribes rules or it is meaningless. And we saw that Feyerabend’s major concern with philosophies of science was that they tried to encroach on

112 scientists’ freedom to practise science as they saw fit, forcing them to conform to the theories and principles that philosophers subscribed to. And we saw that he argues that science is never practised in the way that any philosophy of science claims that it is. And he argues that if we tried to make science like the philosophies of science describe it, we would destroy science. It seems that Feyerabend is arguing against the whole programme of the philosophy of science. Could this really be true?

Yes, I agree with Ravetz. Feyerabend is rejecting any theories, any philosophies of science: “I am not looking for new theories of science. I am asking if the search for such theories is a reasonable undertaking and I conclude that it is not” (Feyerabend 1987: 283).

I would like to go even further than this. Examine these claims:

Ø Feyerabend maintains that a political dictator “’who simply kills people’” is better than “’the sweet-talking rationalist who insidiously gains their confidence and destroys their souls’” (Feyerabend c.f. Schnädelbach 1991: 445). Ø Feyerabend argues that theories about society are either nonsense or false (Feyerabend 1987: 279). Ø Feyerabend claims that Plato, Kant and Marx should be considered “’among the greatest criminals in history’” (Feyerabend c.f. Schnädelbach 1991: 445). Ø He claims that philosophies do not “sharpen our vision or…enrich our existence but…push us into narrow and dark passages” (Feyerabend 1991: 494).

Feyerabend does not seem to be only criticising the whole programme of the philosophy of science. He seems to be criticising the whole programme of

113 philosophy. And yet, we still do not know why. Why do rationalists, theories, philosophies bother Feyerabend so much?

Feyerabend’s vehemence towards philosophy may surprise some readers. Surely, Feyerabend cannot be ‘the enemy’ of any way of life or thinking as this would not be in keeping with his emphasis on diversity. If Feyerabend’s problem with science is the suppression of diversity, surely, he will not condemn any choices, any approaches to the world?

Well, he is unlikely to condemn anything, unless of course it interferes with diversity and the values he upholds in his free society. In chapter 4, I argued that Feyerabend’ claims that scientific methodologies promoted by the philosophies of science suppress the autonomy of scientists and the diversity of science are unsubstantiated as long as we recognise that scientific method is neither fixed nor singular. Now although these claims are unsubstantiated, we can see that Feyerabend is drawing a link between philosophy and the suppression of diversity. Could it be that Feyerabend believes that philosophy clashes with diversity?

So far, most of Feyerabend’s claims about philosophy that we have examined have centred on the philosophies of science. But these are not the only philosophies that Feyerabend discusses. Feyerabend’s texts are saturated with references to the earliest known philosophies. When Feyerabend discusses the incommensurability of worldviews, he refers us to the ‘beginnings’ of logic (Feyerabend 1975: 223-285). When Feyerabend discusses where we got the idea that an elite few hold the key to knowledge, he refers to Plato (1987: 56). When Feyerabend discusses where we got our dominant contemporary understanding of knowledge from, he refers us to Ancient Greek philosophy (Feyerabend 1987: 103-107). Underlying Feyerabend’s critique of science is a repeated reference to early philosophy. It is in his understanding of the initial development of philosophy that we will find the reasons why Feyerabend

114 believes that philosophy conflicts with diversity. So, let us examine Feyerabend’s interpretation of the development of philosophy.

115 The problem with philosophy: the abstract and the concrete

In Feyerabend’s descriptions of the initial development of philosophy, he contrasts two worldviews: an archaic worldview which is rooted firmly in the complexity of the concrete world, rooted firmly in what is ‘real’, and the beginnings of what he calls the abstract tradition and philosophy, entrenched in an abstract world far removed from reality and complexity.

1. THE ARCHAIC WORLD: THE CONCRETE Before the rise of philosophy, Feyerabend claims that the world was seen as a complex entity. Instead of trying to explain this complexity, members of this ‘archaic world’ embraced its complexity, describing it according to a variety of different methods.

This archaic worldview recognised that many different entities existed, and these entities were precisely such: different (Feyerabend 1975: 238-244). They could not be explained in terms of each other. They could not be connected logically. They had no underlying essences. They could not be subordinated to each other. Any entity was connected to a specific situation. That situation could not be generalised to other similar situations. Each situation, each entity was in some way unique. Thus, this worldview was characterised by complex ideas that “apply in special circumstances only, are rich in content but poor in similarities and therefore in deductive connections” (Feyerabend 1978: 20).

This complexity of ideas and objects had an important influence on knowledge. In this ‘archaic’ world, knowledge was not a unified entity. There was not one accepted way of approaching the world. Knowledge was not characterised by any specific methods or procedures. Knowledge was characterised by diversity and by particular human events.

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And this archaic worldview, Feyerabend argues, was never bothered with problems of reality. The idea that some things were real and others not was unheard of: “In such a universe the problem is not what is ‘real’ and what is not: queries like these do not even count as genuine questions” (Feyerabend 1987: 64). Phenomena were not classified according to whether or not they were real; the worth and uniqueness of each phenomena was valued.

Feyerabend argues, however, that variety in the world did not satisfy everyone: “The social groups who prepared what is now known as western rationalism and who laid the intellectual foundations for western science refused to take this abundance at face value” (Feyerabend 1987: 115).

2. THE PHILOSOPHERS’ WORLD: THE ABSTRACT Early theorists, Feyerabend claims, denied that the world was as diverse and knowledge as intricate as the archaic worldview implied (Feyerabend 1987: 115). They were disturbed by the messiness, the chaos of the archaic worldview. They wanted to find an ahistorical, an objective, means of explaining the world: a way of understanding reality that would not be subject to the diversity of human circumstance. They aimed to discover principles, formulas, theories that would apply not to one specific event or phenomenon but to a multitude of cases.

But how could they translate the variety and complexity of objects and events in the world to more standardised understandings? By means of abstraction. Instead of treating each phenomenon as unique and specific to context, they realised that they could use abstract concepts to describe a multitude of differing phenomena. Knowledge moved from being focused on specific cases, on local understanding, to generalisations. The trend towards focusing on abstract theoretical concepts was spurred on by “the discovery…that statements composed of concepts lacking in details could be used to build new kind of stories, soon to be called proofs” (Feyerabend 1987: 66). Reason and argument

117 could thus be used to connect theoretical constructs into theories used to prove certain ideas about the world.

Early philosophers believed that they had put an end to the confusion created by variety by discovering a means of formulating ideas that transcended diversity. But far from providing a better way of discovering and representing concrete reality, Feyerabend argues that the beginnings of philosophy moved away from the world it was trying to describe and created a new world of abstract theory.

Although abstract concepts and generalisations were used to represent reality, Feyerabend argues that they did not and could not characterise concrete reality accurately. Because these abstractions were so simple and so general to fit the ahistorical criterion, they could not possibly encapsulate the complexity of the phenomena that they described. “Xenophanes, Parmenides, Melissos”, Feyerabend argues, “had discovered that concepts can be connected in special ways and had constructed new kinds of stories (today we call them ‘arguments’) about the nature of things” (Feyerabend 1978: 53). These concepts, he claims, were not about concrete entities: “they were about ‘theoretical entities’” (Feyerabend 1978: 54). These theoretical entities were not used because they reflected the world better; they were used because they fitted more neatly into the arguments.

Theories that used these abstractions were thus not about the world, they were about abstract entities. A theory about politics, was not, for example, really related to politics in the concrete world, it was about a theoretical, abstract : politics. Thus, it is a theory about a theory.

The complex, diverse concrete phenomena that these arguments supposedly referred to did not fit the abstract descriptions. Philosophers were thus confronted with a choice, either they must reject their newly developed abstract theories or reject the reality of the empirical world. They chose to reject the reality

118 of the concrete world around them. They argued that the empirical world that we experience with our senses is not reality. The abstract world of theory that they had created was for them the true reality: “They distinguished between a ‘real world’ and a ‘world of appearances’” (Feyerabend 1987: 115). They claimed that this real world “was simple, uniform, subject to stable universal laws and the same for all” (Feyerabend 1987: 115).

These views, Feyerabend argues, were not limited to the philosophers. They came to underlie an entire worldview that influenced all aspects of society. Languages and their syntactical rules reflect the cosmology of an age (Feyerabend 1975: 223). Thus, even the syntactical structures of the archaic and early philosophical worldviews reveal their differing ways of approaching the world.

Feyerabend claims that Homeric poetry, a representation of the archaic worldview in which the complexity of reality is accepted, consisted mainly of paratactic clauses, “separate, grammatically co-ordinate propositions” (Feyerabend 1975: 240). Paratactic clauses are thus autonomous: one is not seen to cause the other, or to be related to the other. In paratactic clauses, terms that we might find contradictory could be placed next to each other. And Feyerabend argues that this is precisely what happened in Homeric poetry: “Aphrodite is called ‘sweetly laughing’ when in fact she complains tearfully…Achilles is called ‘swift footed’ when he is sitting talking to Priam” (Feyerabend 1975: 241).

In this style of poetry, words and ideas are added onto each other, without an underlying flow of logic, without reference to a whole to which the separate entities belong. Each clause, each entity is independent and unique: its reality is recognised. Thus, the earlier approach could list opposing ideas in sequence without contradiction. Achilles could be swift-footed and walking slowly.

119 However, Feyerabend argues, early philosophers insisted on distinguishing between appearance and the abstract reality or underlying essence of phenomena. They would claim that either Achilles is swift-footed or he is walking slowly; he cannot really be both. One of the alternatives is only an appearance. Each object, according to these theorists, has some underlying essence, some universal, which determines its reality (Feyerabend 1975: 264). Certain aspects of an object are simply what appear to be but are not actually real aspects of that object. Appearances are thus subordinated to the reality, the essence of an object, whereas the paratactic makes no such distinction (Feyerabend 1975: 264).

Feyerabend illustrates the different viewpoints of these traditions by examining how each would perceive an oar immersed in water. If one views an oar in water, it looks bent and indistinct. If it is viewed outside of water, it looks straight and solid. These two cosmologies would come to different conclusions about these seemingly different states of the oar. Feyerabend claims that according to the archaic worldview an oar “is a complex consisting of parts some of which are objects, some situations, some events” (Feyerabend 1975: 263). And each of these aspects of the oar is as important, as real and as independent as the other. Thus, the oar is both broken in the water and it is straight when it is not in the water.

Early philosophy, Feyerabend argues, would claim that the supposed ‘brokenness’ of the oar is merely an appearance. In reality, the oar is straight. The shift from the archaic world to the world of the philosophers led to a shift from the concept that phenomena consist of equally important, diverse, and even inconsistent parts, to the concept that an abstract essence underlies all diverse phenomena (Feyerabend 1975: 264).

By identifying these essences, philosophy believed that it could explain the world according to rules and theories that would always be applicable, not to specific

120 human circumstances. And this, Feyerabend argues, led to the creation of an abstract world of theory, which reduced the complex world of particular entities and events to simple concepts and procedures. Instead of focusing on the particular world of events around them and the abundance within it, philosophers translated reality into abstract concepts that they would interlink in a simplistic theory of the world. By means of reason, these early philosophers argued, we can determine the true essence of any object or event; we can “describe the inherent structure of an entity that remains unaffected by human opinions” (Feyerabend 1987: 120). Their abstract, simpler worldview came to replace the complex and diverse archaic world.

This shift led to a radical redefinition of knowledge and how to establish it. Knowledge became associated with the ‘real world’ of stable theoretical concepts, and not with the ever-changing world of sensory appearance. Truth could only be established through procedures that tried to transcend the flux of the concrete world. Feyerabend argues that Parmenides was a proponent of this view.

Parmenides claimed that two procedures were typically used to establish truth. One procedure equated human opinion, based on habit and experience, with knowledge (Feyerabend 1987: 67). The other procedure transcended human circumstance. This second procedure was the only genuine way to establish truth (Feyerabend 1987: 120). Feyerabend calls this identification of truth with abstract theories the theoretical or abstract tradition: “theoretical traditions identify knowledge with universality, regard theories as the true bearers of information and try to reason in a standardised or ‘logical’ way “ (Feyerabend 1987: 118). According to this abstract tradition, “[t]heories identify…what is permanent in the flux of history and thereby make it unhistorical. They introduce genuine, i.e. non- historical knowledge” (Feyerabend 1987: 118).

121 The abstract tradition found its most influential ally in Plato. In Republic (1998), Plato argues that we can divide phenomena into two categories: that which is visible (what can be seen literally) and that which is intelligible (what can only be understood according to the mind) (Plato 1998: 509d). The visible realm can be divided into two: images of objects and objects themselves (Plato 1998: 509d- 510a). The intelligible can also be divided into two: concepts about tangible objects and the type or original perfect form of these objects (Plato 1998: 510b- 511c).

Plato used this to clarify his epistemology. He claimed that genuine knowledge could only come from knowledge of the forms (Plato 1998: 511e). And he claimed that we could only gain knowledge of the forms by using pure reason (Plato 1998: 511b). He dismissed what we could discover through our senses in the visible world as mere opinion (Plato 1998: 511b).

In his famous allegory of the cave, Plato compares the human world of our senses to a cave in which we believe that the flickering shadows on the wall of the cave are truth. If we could escape from our bonds, we would realise that there is a world of truth beyond our senses, and that this abstract realm is reality (Plato 1998: 514a-518b). It is through abstraction, through theory, through philosophy that we can discover the truth. What we consider reality, the world around us, is only a poor reflection of the truth:

Is it possible for anything actual to match a theory? Isn’t any actual thing bound to have less contact with the truth than a theory… Plato 1998: 473a

Plato epitomises the abstract tradition’s glorification of the abstract above the tangible. For Plato, the intelligible realm of thought and forms is more real and truer than the empirical world around us. Real knowledge comes not from the human world, not from the shadows on the wall, but from a divine realm of the abstract.

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3. AGAINST THE ABSTRACT Even though the abstract tradition inspired by philosophy came to replace the archaic approach, and became very influential, this does not mean that there was consensus about the validity of this new approach. Dissidents have objected to the principles of the abstract since its instantiation. Their primary objection was that the abstract concepts introduced by the theorists were not real. The essences that they had identified as real had no bearing on reality:

‘Although these opinions appear to follow if one looks at the arguments… still to believe them seems to stand next door to lunacy when one considers practice…’ c.f. Feyerabend 1987: 117-8

For Aristotle, the ideas promoted by the early philosophers made sense logically but they did not make sense as soon as one compared them to the empirical world. For Aristotle, the distinction between the real and the unreal became reversed: our reasoning does not fit the empirical reality around us, thus our reasoning is not correct. Our reasoning does not reflect genuine reality. In response to Plato’s idea of the Good, the ultimate form, the source of reality’s being, Aristotle claimed that even if such a Good existed, he failed to understand how knowledge of the Good could be practical (Feyerabend 1987: 70-1). Even if Plato’s forms were ‘real’, they have no influence on ‘reality’, on the empirical world around us.

Feyerabend agrees with this dissident trend: the theoretical formulations of the abstract approach are not better descriptions of the material world. The success of the abstract approach had nothing to do with its validity; its success is related to its tidiness: “The authority of the new enterprise…did not lie in the ideas and their connections themselves, but in the decisions of those who preferred neat constructions to analogies” (Feyerabend 1987: 67).

123 The abstract approach was not better, only simpler. Feyerabend argues that we can agree that abstract notions and principles can fit into arguments better than practical concepts. If we look at the work of Parmenides, Zeno and Plato, we can see how well their abstract notions fit into their arguments. But these abstract notions are not better than the empirical, they are only uncomplicated. These philosophers ignored the rich complexity of the empirical, and as such, their ideas are removed from actual reality. Their works show “what wonderful dream castles could be built from ideas no longer contaminated by the idiosyncrasies of the particular” (Feyerabend 1987: 67).

The world, Feyerabend argues is not simple, it is complex and diverse, and this problematises the abstract approach. Feyerabend argues that variety in the world demonstrates “that it may well be impossible to reduce our ways of being in the world to a few simple, context (observer-) independent and therefore ‘objective’ notions” (Feyerabend 1987: 135).

4. BACK TO LIFE, BACK TO REALITY Feyerabend revealed that the early philosophers believed that there are two procedures typically used for acquiring knowledge. One is focused on the concrete world and it cannot provide us with genuine knowledge; it is merely opinion. The second is focused on acquiring knowledge of the abstract world through reason, and this is the only way of establishing truth.

Interestingly, Feyerabend accepts this distinction. For him there are two different worlds: one abstract, the other concrete. But he reverses the ‘reality’ of these two worlds. For Plato and Parmenides the abstract world is the ‘real’ world, the empirical world is only a poor reflection, an appearance of this reality. For Feyerabend the concrete is real and the abstract is only a poor reflection of the concrete. He accepts that there are two typical ways of trying to establish knowledge: focusing on the concrete and focusing on the abstract. He claims,

124 however, that the only way of establishing truth is by focusing on the concrete, not on the abstract as the philosophers claim.

In later texts, Feyerabend distances himself from relativism, claiming that he does recognise that there is such a thing as reality: “Different forms of life and knowledge are possible because reality permits and even encourages them and not because ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ are relative notions” (Feyerabend 1991: 516). But this reality is not the reality of the philosophers. What the philosophers reject as mere appearance, the confused paradoxical world of sensation, is what Feyerabend defines as reality: the concrete tangible world around us. What is not real to Feyerabend, or at the least, what cannot interact sufficiently with this real world is the abstract world of theory and philosophy. Feyerabend has no problem with accepting that there is such a thing as reality, what he objects to is the abstract attempt to capture reality in a theory or a principle (Feyerabend 1991: 513-4).

In fact, philosophy, he claims, cannot have anything to do with the truth, with knowledge, precisely because it tries to separate itself from the real world of the concrete. Philosophy rejected the empirical world as a source of knowledge and created its own abstract world to ‘better’ describe the sensory appearances prevalent in the concrete world. But in agreement with the dissidents against the abstract approach, Feyerabend argues that this abstract world has nothing to do with the concrete. The abstract does not refer to, does not better describe or explain, the concrete. It only refers back to itself: theories are about theoretical entities not about empirical realities (Feyerabend 1978: 53-4).

In examining the concrete world and trying to describe it, theories translate the elements of the tangible into abstract terms. But because the concrete is subjected to an abstract conceptual system, the abstract does not refer to the concrete but only back to itself. Thus, the abstract and the concrete are entirely separate worlds. There is no bridging gap between them and therefore the

125 abstract will fail in its description of the concrete, because it cannot interact with that concrete world:

We may lay down ideal demands of knowledge and knowledge- acquisition…Almost all epistemologists and philosophers of science proceed in this way. Occasionally they succeed in finding a machinery that might work in certain ideal conditions, but they never enquire…whether the conditions are satisfied in this real world of ours. Feyerabend 1975: 259

The problem with the abstract approach is that it has nothing to do with the practical reality around us. It deals with a simplistic non-existent world. The abstract approach has given us categories and theories to explain the empirical world. But these categories and theories have nothing to do with the empirical world. For Feyerabend reality has nothing to do with generalisations, concepts, theories, it has to do with buildings, works of art, the concrete world around us. He claims that painters, architects and engineers may not have theorised about knowledge but they have left us concrete legacies that “show that their knowledge of space, time and materials was more progressive…than anything that emerged from the speculations of the philosophers” (Feyerabend 1987: 118).

Not only is Feyerabend arguing that the abstract is separate from reality. He believes that it cannot be otherwise. When we practise philosophy or we participate in some extended abstract approach, we will always be removing ourselves from concrete reality. The abstract, he argues, is intrinsically at odds with the concrete. In Farewell to reason, Feyerabend claims that his main purpose in writing this collection of essays was to “show that diversity is beneficial while uniformity reduces our joys and our (intellectual, emotional, material) resources” (Feyerabend 1987: 1). The problem with the abstract world is that it insists on uniformity and simplicity and cannot recognise diversity and complexity.

126 When theorists try to translate the concrete world into abstract terms, they are usually “replacing complex problems they do not understand by simplistic caricatures they can make sense of” (Feyerabend 1978: 38). Theories about the world make the complexity of the world look simple (Feyerabend 1975: 19). And these theories cannot make them anything except simple. Because of the disassociation between the abstract and the concrete, the abstract can only describe the concrete according to its general categories and theoretical constructs. Thus, a move to describe the concrete through the abstract will always lead to translating the complex into the simple, the diverse into the uniform.

Experience, Feyerabend argues, is not stable and it is constantly changing (Feyerabend 1975: 89). This means that the abstract can never describe experience properly, because it tries to stabilise, it tries to fix, by means of definition, that which cannot be fixed. This means we need to choose. We cannot rehabilitate extreme abstract approaches. They cannot be a part of a world that recognises and encourages difference and complexity.

5. THE WORTHLESSNESS OF PHILOSOPHY For Feyerabend the distinction between the abstract and the concrete renders philosophy, at the very least, empty. Philosophy is an extreme form of the abstract, removed from human life and complexity, characterised by generalisations and simplistic understandings, which means it has nothing to do with the diversity of reality. But Feyerabend claims that philosophy can also be “tyrannical” (Feyerabend 1991: 494). If we force people to live their lives according to the simplified ideals of philosophers, we will destroy their individuality and uniqueness, “people must mutilate their lives to fit in with the stories” (Feyerabend 1991: 494).

Admittedly, some philosophers do not conform to this general abstract philosophy, however, they cannot redeem the discipline: “There are individuals

127 who call themselves philosophers and yet dislike, even detest a standardized discourse. But they have chosen the wrong medium for their complaints and they address the wrong audience” (Feyerabend 1991: 495).

Philosophy, as it aims to be abstract, to theorise, will always be problematic. For Feyerabend philosophy is intrinsically at odds with complexity and reality. Even though there may be philosophers, such as Aristotle, who recognise the limits of extreme abstract approaches, they do not realise that all philosophical approaches, whether absolute or context-dependent, use the same problematic abstract general language. The problem is that the practice of philosophy will always be abstract, no matter what the content of the approach. As soon as philosophy, and also for that matter any of the social sciences, attempt to theorise about more than just one specific case, they move into abstractions and generalisations which cannot reflect the complexity of reality. Their attempts to theorise, to explain, to describe reality will fail, precisely because they are attempts to theorise. As soon as we try to theorise we are removing ourselves from the concrete and delving into an abstract world that does not reflect reality: it can only ever refer back to itself.

In condemning philosophy, Feyerabend has reversed Plato’s theory of the forms and turned Plato’s epistemology on its head. For Plato, the highest form of knowledge is philosophy: through the pure reason of philosophy, we can discover the genuine knowledge of the abstract world. For Plato the lowest expression of knowledge is art as art is only a reflection of an object that in turn is only a poor reflection of its genuine form, of its essence, of its truth. Not only does Feyerabend argue that the sensory world of experience is reality, and not the abstract, he elevates art above philosophy: “the arts are towering above philosophy and why? Because the arts, rightly understood, try to create or recreate the emotional, ideological, religious embedding of individual events” (Feyerabend 1991: 512).

128 Because art deals with the real world, a human world, and not an imaginary world of abstract essences and pure reason, art is far superior to philosophy. In fact, philosophy is the poor reflection of reality, and this makes philosophy worthless. Philosophy uses an abstract approach to the world that necessarily divorces it from reality and from the genuine experience of everyday people.

We should not philosophise about reality or about knowledge:

A: This argument cannot possibly be correct! Applying it to knowledge and reality you might as well say that there cannot be any theory of knowledge and of reality B: But this is precisely what I say! Feyerabend 1991: 513-514

We should not be philosophising about anything, because as soon as we do, we are rejecting the diversity of the concrete world and trying to simplify and homogenise it. Philosophy is intrinsically at odds with diversity.

Feyerabend’s condemnation of philosophy underlies his criticism of science and of politics. We can now re-read Feyerabend’s problems with the philosophy of science and with science’s dominance in society according to the distinction that Feyerabend draws between the abstract and the concrete.

129 Philosophy, science and the free society

1. PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE If philosophy is inherently removed from reality, any relationship between philosophy and science is problematic. It is not that Feyerabend has a problem with a specific philosophy of science; his problem lies with any attempt to capture science in abstract theory. Philosophy has made science abstract by associating it with reason, method and theory. Science has been identified “with the explicit features of its theories” (Feyerabend 1987: 294).

Science, however, is not abstract: it deals (or it should deal) with the empirical reality around us, with practice, not with theory. Even if a philosophy of science recognised that science is more complex, Feyerabend would still be dissatisfied. Whether the descriptions and theories about science are right or wrong is irrelevant. These theories and descriptions of science are inherently problematic because they are such: theories. And thus, they are focused on an abstract world that has nothing to do with the reality of scientific practice: “we must distinguish between the practice of science, which…seems to get results and philosophical ideas…which have no influence whatsoever on that practice” (Feyerabend 1991: 491).

Science can be salvaged precisely because it deals with what is real, with the concrete world. The philosophy of science or any type of rational background to science cannot be because they are too abstract: “I tried to show that not even the practice of science could be captured by general concepts, except in a vague and superficial manner” (Feyerabend 1991: 493).

From the case studies of actual scientific practice, we have seen that Feyerabend argues that the way in which philosophers describe science and the reality of science are far-removed. In fact, Feyerabend even compares the

130 philosophy of science with madness because it is has so little to do with real science:

This alleged difference between scientific reality and the castles in the air built by philosophy of science has led Feyerabend to ask the rhetorical question whether philosophy of science is an unknown kind of insanity. Andersson 1991: 281-2

By trying to define science in the abstract, by claiming science as their own, philosophers have dragged it into their abstract world. They have tried to remove science from reality, from history, from what science can do for the world.

If we tried to force these abstract principles onto science, we would interfere with science, not help it, and stifle the of scientists. If we tried to suppress the diversity and richness of scientific practice by subjecting it to the idealised understandings of philosophers, we would destroy science. The accidents, the broken rules, the subjective whims, the propaganda, these are parts of science; they make up science. If we try to practise science according to philosophical, science will cease to exist. Either theories of science are empty or they stifle and destroy. For this reason, Feyerabend believes that science and philosophies, the concrete and the abstract, cannot and should not co-exist (Feyerabend 1991: 504).

Feyerabend’s condemnation of philosophy not only complexifies philosophy’s relationship to science. We can also use it to re-examine his understanding of a free society. In chapter 3, we saw that Feyerabend believes that science’s dominance in contemporary societies interferes with freedom and diversity. When science dominates education and public policy, the diversity of public opinion and the individual’s autonomy are muted.

Besides certain philosophies of science that directly legitimate science’s dominance in society, Feyerabend believes that philosophy and the abstract tradition that it inspired are to blame for the more fundamental idea that there can

131 be one explanatory system for establishing truth and a special group of people for understanding that truth.

2. PHILOSOPHY AND THE FREE SOCIETY The idea that truth resides not in the empirical world but in the abstract, and that this truth can only be discovered through reason, spawned the idea that only experts in reason have access to the truth. And thus, these experts should make decisions for the others. For Plato, philosophers were the logical choice to be rulers because only they had access to knowledge: they saw the permanence of true essence beyond sensory appearance. The public could not:

‘Is it possible for the masses to accept or conceive of…anything in itself, rather than the plurality of instances of each thing?’ ‘Not at all’, he said. ‘It’s impossible, then, for the masses to love knowledge,’ I said. ‘Yes it is.’ Plato 1998: 493e-494a

The diversity of the empirical world is not the source of truth, according to philosophers. Knowledge of the abstract world is genuine truth; so, only those with access to genuine truth should make important decisions in society. Feyerabend believes that this idea underlies scientific dominance. Many scientists believe that science is the truth, and that they have special access to this truth (Feyerabend 1987: 67). Feyerabend claims that philosophers, and, now in contemporary societies, scientists believe that they possess knowledge that ‘ordinary’ people cannot possess. And they believe that anything that does not fit in with their ideas of genuine knowledge is worthless. Their work, Feyerabend argues, often includes “combating, ridiculing and…eliminating ideas and practices which, though well established, successful and advantageous for many people, [do] not conform to their idiosyncratic standards” (Feyerabend 1987: 115- 6).

132 This “intellectual fascism”, reveres certain truths, certain procedures above any others, and often prevents people from living their lives in their own way (Feyerabend 1978: 207). So-called democracies, Feyerabend argues, contradict their democratic principles by allowing these ‘experts’ to dominate society:

It is absurd first to declare that a society serves the needs of ‘the people’ and then let autistic experts (liberals, Marxists, Freudians and sociologists of all persuasions) decide what ‘the people’ ‘really’ need and want. Feyerabend 1987: 57

There is no room in Feyerabend’s free society for the idea that an elite few should make decisions for the rest of society. Feyerabend argues that typically in western democracies, intellectuals determine what is possible, what is good, what society should look like. And yet, their dominance stifles the autonomy of individuals. Problems should be solved, not by intellectuals, not by experts, but by the individuals involved (Feyerabend 1987: 9-10).

Now although Feyerabend has argued that science can be separated from this intellectual fascism, as long as we do not allow it to be privileged in society, philosophy is rooted in this fascism. If philosophy defines knowledge in an abstract world removed from the commonsense of everyday life and the sensory world, then it necessarily promotes the idea that knowledge is something only a specialised group can discover. Science, Feyerabend argues, does not necessarily conflict with cultural variety. Diversity does conflict, however, with philosophies (Feyerabend 1987: 13). It is time to bid ‘Reason’, to bid the abstract reasoning of philosophy farewell:

And, Reason, at last, joins all those other abstract monsters such as Obligation, Duty, Morality, Truth…which were once used to intimidate man and restrict his free and happy development: it withers away… Feyerabend 1975: 180

133 3. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE THEORY-LADENNESS OF EXPERIENCE? Those well-acquainted with Feyerabend’s work, especially his earlier work, such as Against method (1975), might object to my description of Feyerabend’s opposition between the abstract and the concrete. Feyerabend is well-known, together with Kuhn, for arguing that facts are theory-laden. Feyerabend actually goes further than this claiming that it is not that observation statements are theory-laden “but fully theoretical” (Feyerabend 1991: 526). And this seems to problematise my claim that Feyerabend distinguishes between an extreme world of abstraction and theory and the concrete empirical world around us. In fact, a statement such as the following seriously contradicts my claims: “Experience arises together with theoretical assumptions not before them” (Feyerabend 1975: 168).

I could argue that this contradiction is not mine, but Feyerabend’s: that he recognises the relationship between theory and experience and then contradicts himself by arguing that theory is purely abstract and lacks a relationship to experience. But I do not believe that this would be entirely fair. I believe rather that for Feyerabend there are different types of theories and they have different types of relationships to experience, even though these ideas are rather vague.

Feyerabend’s ideas differ chronologically. Up to and including Against method (1975), Feyerabend focuses on the practice of science and how this practice contradicts theories about science. From Science in a free society (1978) this focus shifts to science’s role in society. We could say that his focus shifts from philosophy of science to social and political philosophy. Although there are elements of both within all his texts, the shift in focus is clear.

It is within his philosophy of science that we find his discussions of the intimate connections between theory and fact, but it is within his ideas about society that we find his condemnation of philosophy and theory, in general, which becomes more and more overt as his texts become more and more recent. Although he

134 does not explicitly explain the distinction he seems to be making between the close interaction between theory and fact within science and the lack of interaction between abstract theory such as philosophy and the concrete world, we can infer this distinction.

Feyerabend appears to believe that there are different types of theories. Some theories are unavoidable; some theories can and should be avoided. Again, which theories are avoidable and which are not is not particularly clear. A major distinction that Feyerabend does make which may make this issue slightly clearer is a distinction between theories within science and theories about science. Feyerabend accepts that theory within science is both necessary and inevitable. Feyerabend never claims that scientific theories, such as Einstein’s theory of relativity or quantum theory, are problematic in of themselves. His problem with theory in science is that we cannot regulate these theories according to other theories about science or rationalism. These theories about science are the ones that are immersed in the abstract world and are not related to the actual practice of science. They are theories about a theoretical concept, science, which does not really exist. Examine this quote:

a theoretical discourse makes sense in the natural sciences where abstract terms are summaries of readily available results but…theoretical statements about social affairs…become either nonsensical or trivially false… Feyerabend 1987: 279

In fact, we can relate this back to my claims in chapter 2, that the problem Feyerabend has with method, is not that method itself is necessarily problematic, but it is problematic when it is imposed from outside. We can say the same about theory. Theory is fine as long as an individual practitioner directly involved in one specific concrete case develops it, and this theory flows from this concrete situation and is not applied generally outside of it. But as soon as theories are imposed externally or generalised beyond specific circumstances they become abstract ideals.

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So, it appears that Feyerabend is not condemning all theories, or claiming that any theory is disassociated from experience. His problem is precisely with theories that do not recognise the interaction between theory and experience, such as the philosophy of science, and in disregarding this interaction attempt to remove themselves from experience, and thus become meaningless and abstract, devoid of human and real content.

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Conclusion

In this chapter I have examined why Feyerabend condemns any philosophies. Through his analysis of Ancient Greek philosophy, Feyerabend argues that the early philosophers drew a distinction between the concrete and the abstract, claiming that the abstract is genuine reality, and that truth can only be established through access to this abstract world. Feyerabend accepts this distinction, and yet argues the reverse. The abstract is far-removed from the genuine reality of the concrete empirical world. Knowledge cannot come from the abstract; it comes from the concrete.

Philosophy’s abstract approach, Feyerabend argues, makes it intrinsically at odds with diversity. In identifying reality with a simple uniform abstract world, philosophy necessarily oversimplifies the complexity and richness of reality. This explains why Feyerabend dismisses any philosophy of science: it necessarily oversimplifies the diversity and complexity of the practice of science. And, he claims, philosophy interferes with the ideals of a free society because it identifies truth with an abstract world. By denying the reality of everyday life, philosophy is entrenched in an elitism that suppresses the variety in public opinion and encourages uniformity by expecting individuals to conform to established ‘truth’.

The significance of this chapter is that we will find one of the primary problems with Feyerabend’s work in his condemnation of philosophy. I have argued that Feyerabend’s value lies in his sensitivity towards difference and his attempts to better accommodate difference. In the next chapter, I will argue that Feyerabend’s condemnation of philosophy and the distinction that he draws between the abstract and the concrete undermine this sensitivity for diversity. If

137 we truly want to accommodate diversity, we cannot accept Feyerabend’s solutions.

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CHAPTER SIX Complexifying diversity: democracy and philosophy

139 Introduction: What is wrong with inconsistencies?

One of the most frequent objections I meet is that there are ‘contradictions’ or ‘inconsistencies’ in my book. Almost everybody makes the remark, nobody explains why one should take it seriously. The accusation ‘inconsistency!’ – the mere sound of the word is supposed to act like a spell that paralyses the opponent…what is wrong with inconsistencies? Feyerabend 1978: 190-1

Feyerabend’s notion of the abstract and philosophy is open to related standard objections. He uses rational arguments to criticise rationalism. He uses abstraction to attack the abstract. We find his condemnation of philosophy on the philosophy of science racks of a library. These are some of the ‘inconsistencies’ of his ideas.

One of the ways in which Feyerabend defends himself from these accusations of inconsistency is by claiming, “the number of contradictions in [Against method] is much smaller than is believed by the critics” (Feyerabend 1978: 190). He argues that many of the so-called inconsistencies in his texts are based on misunderstandings of his ideas. He claims that critics ascribe points of view to him, which are not his points of view: they are merely propositions that he uses to refute a rationalist understanding of science.

All he has done, he argues, is used reason to persuade rationalists that they do not hold the only key to knowledge. This, he claims, does not mean that he agrees with the arguments that he has put forth or that he believes that reason and argument are successful ways of defending ideas. He has merely used the tools in the rationalist’s toolbox to show her that her ideas are flawed. “An argument is not a confession, it is an instrument designed to make an opponent change his mind” (Feyerabend 1978: 156).

140 Superficially, I can accept this defence. Feyerabend is using rationalism’s own rules to point out its flaws. And he does not have to agree with those rules to do so: you can “write an account of one kind of life, live another, belong to a group that is connected with still another and make propaganda for a style that is different from all three” (Feyerabend 1978: 179). This may not be a congruent lifestyle but it is perfectly possible.

But this argument is still not entirely satisfactory. It may work as a means of pointing out mistakes but then it will not work for making positive suggestions. Feyerabend cannot criticise abstract theory and then use it to describe his utopian free society. If we agree with his diagnosis, we cannot accept his solution.

So, the easiest way to criticise Feyerabend’s distinction between the abstract world of theory and concrete reality would be to argue that Feyerabend is very much immersed in this abstract world that he criticises. Feyerabend is, however, aware of this contradiction. He recognises that while he criticised other philosophers for speculating about phenomena that needed close involvement to be properly understood, he did precisely the same when he advocated his free society (Feyerabend 1991: 508).

But he feels that he has recognised this mistake and claims in the last paragraph of Farewell to reason:

I shall have to cut the remaining strings that still tie me to the abstract approach or, to revert to my usual irresponsible way of talking, I shall have to say FAREWELL TO REASON. Feyerabend 1987: 319

If Feyerabend had truly cut ties to the abstract approach, if he had really said farewell to reason, he should have stopped theorising about how we should not be theorising. But he did not. In 1991, his article “Concluding unphilosophical

141 conversation” was published in a book of essays about his work. It is written as a rather bizarre dialogue, which includes a fly and a sheep as sporadic participants in the conversation. Although at times absurd, it is not, according to Feyerabend’s own standards, beyond reason or abstraction.

In this conversation, Feyerabend discusses his ideas about science, knowledge, philosophy and his free society. And he continues to theorise, to define, to generalise, to argue about these theoretical concepts. And despite its title, it is not particularly unphilosophical. If you criticise philosophy, this does not make your work unphilosophical. In fact, surely any extended (mainly) rational analysis and evaluation of philosophy is philosophy? “Not to care for philosophy is to be a true philosopher” (Pascal c.f. Cohen & Cohen 1960: 278).

Not only does this problematise Feyerabend’s position, it points to an even more significant inconsistency, an inconsistency that he cannot dismiss with a flippant, ‘what is wrong with inconsistencies?’. Feyerabend constantly attacks critics, claiming that they misunderstand his work. He accuses them of ascribing philosophical positions to him, when he claims that he has no philosophical position; he accuses them of taking his rhetoric too seriously and ignoring his arguments.

Although this may be true of some critics, his protests are suspicious. These ‘misunderstandings’, combined with his inconsistent theorising about theory, point to something other than his insistence that the majority of his critics are “not too bright”, “incompetent” (Feyerabend 1978: 183) and “illiterate” (Feyerabend 1978: 195). The primary problem is not that critics misunderstand his work, although this may often be true. The primary problem is that he misunderstands his work.

Feyerabend denies that he has a philosophical position because he misunderstands philosophy. Feyerabend unsuccessfully tries to break ties with

142 an abstract approach because he misunderstands abstraction. He has accused philosophy of defining science too narrowly; he has accused philosophy of denying difference and complexity. I argue that his oppositions between the abstract and the concrete defy their complexity. I argue that he is simplifying philosophy: that he has ignored the complexity of philosophy.

In this chapter, I aim at substantiating these claims. In the first section, I want to qualify and specify Feyerabend’s problems with an abstract approach. I will identify two specific problems that Feyerabend has with the abstract. Firstly, he claims that abstract principles imposed from the outside suppress difference. And secondly, he claims that any highly theoretical or abstract discipline such as philosophy suppresses difference.

In the second section, I will begin my criticism. I will firstly criticise the opposition he draws between the abstract and the concrete based on an examination of the individual and ideology. This in turn will problematise Feyerabend’s free society. I will explain that communicative democracy will accommodate diversity better than the ‘free society’.

Secondly, I will criticise Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy by focusing on a reading of Plato’s Republic. This reading will demonstrate that philosophy does not necessarily simplify and suppress difference. I will also refer to Feyerabend’s understanding of his own texts to demonstrate that the problem seems to lie with Feyerabend’s interpretation of texts rather than with philosophical texts themselves. I will also demonstrate that philosophy is currently transforming itself to better accommodate difference.

143 Qualifying the abstract

Before we start criticising Feyerabend, I would like to qualify his ideas about the abstract. In chapter 5, I claimed that Feyerabend distinguishes between an abstract world of generality and simplification and the real world of concrete objects and events. We discovered that the primary problem that Feyerabend has with the abstract is that it suppresses difference, over-simplifying phenomena and smoothing over diversity and dissent. Although Feyerabend tends to be scathing every time he mentions the abstract, I do not believe that he is arguing against all forms of abstraction. Such a position would be incoherent.

Simply identifying a singular object as part of a group means we are using abstraction. We are looking beyond the particular features of an object to an abstract classification of that object. Without abstraction, we could not use language. Language does not deal with objects in themselves. Language associates objects and actions with general abstract concepts. Abstraction is a fundamental and inevitable aspect of understanding, of language, of communication. I do not believe that Feyerabend would deny this.

So, although his condemnation cannot be absolute, it is difficult determining to what extent Feyerabend does condemn abstraction. This is partially because the distinction that he draws between the abstract and the concrete is not the focus of his texts: it is rather a sub-text that underlies his criticism of scientific method. But this is also partially due to Feyerabend’s own elusiveness. When he does talk directly about the abstract, he avoids defining or properly explaining what he means. This makes it difficult both to establish what he means by the abstract and what exactly his problems with it are. We can, however, identify two significant problems he has with abstraction that he refers to frequently.

144 1. Abstract principles or theories should not be imposed on individuals from the outside because they suppress difference. People’s lives, careers, education and political systems of organisation should not be determined by a philosophy imposed by somebody else. This means, for example, that scientists should not be forced to conform to scientific method. Abstract principles can guide scientists if they choose to be guided but they should not be compelled to use them: they “must be given complete freedom” and not forced to conform to the rules and understandings of science devised by armchair philosophers (Feyerabend 1978: 117). I argued in chapter 4 that Feyerabend’s claims about scientific method are flawed because scientific method does not necessarily imply a singular and fixed method to which scientists must conform. However, we have not yet addressed the more general version of this claim: autonomy and diversity are stifled when abstract ideas are imposed on people from the outside.

Feyerabend argues that citizens’ lives and values should not be determined by someone else’s ideas of the ‘good life’, of education, of political structure. In a truly democratic society, social and political structure should not be determined by theories but by the citizens of that society: “Free societies will [not] arise…from ambitious theoretical schemes. Nor is there any need to guide their development by abstract ideas or a philosophy” (Feyerabend 1978: 10). Citizens can use ideas to guide their actions. These ideas may form theories or ideologies, “But such ideologies will come from decisions in concrete and often unforeseeable situations, they will reflect the feelings, the aspirations, the dreams of those making the decisions” (Feyerabend 1978: 10). Specialists should not determine these ideas, these theories, in advance, and expect them to apply to particular and unique circumstances. If we impose abstract principles on others, we are suppressing their freedom to differ, to disregard the norm, and forcing uniformity on their lives.

145 The abstract is then only acceptable, as long as it flows from a particular concrete situation, as long as the concrete is prior to the abstract, and as long as people outside of that particular situation do not impose their own principles and theories. This leads us to his second problem with the abstract.

2. Any discipline or practice that prioritises the abstract is unrealistic because it cannot reflect the diversity of reality and, secondly, it is harmful because it suppresses diversity. Abstraction is only acceptable if it is unavoidable or if it emerges from a particular concrete situation and is not generalised beyond that situation. Philosophy, and any attempt to theorise systematically, is intrinsically unrealistic because it always attempts to generalise beyond specific situations: it theorises about science in general, reality in general, human nature in general, and so on. And this means that it is totally immersed in abstraction and removed from reality: it theorises about theoretical concepts, not about concrete situations.

The same applies to many other such as sociology, which is problematic because it is a theory about society, i.e. according to Feyerabend a theory about a theory, an abstract scheme of an abstract concept. These abstractions only seem to work because differences, because ambiguities, because complexities, are smoothed over or ignored. Science becomes simplified and uniform, not because it is, but because the differences between one science and another, one research project and another, are ignored.

And not only are they unrealistic: they are harmful. They are harmful because they simplify the diversity and complexity of the concrete world, they remove themselves from human elements and historical circumstances, and they silence difference and dissent. Abstract theories or practices stifle diversity and freedom, encouraging specialists to create the norm, and anything that does not conform to this norm, which differs from the accepted, is suppressed or marginalised.

146 By qualifying his ideas about the abstract, we have enough information that we can use to criticise Feyerabend’s ideas more extensively. My criticisms will be divided in two, roughly to match these two specific problems that he has with the abstract.

In the next section, I will begin my criticism. My first criticism is that the distinction that Feyerabend draws between the abstract and the concrete is flawed. In turn, I will use this criticism to problematise Feyerabend’s free society. At the heart of Feyerabend’s free society lies the first specific problem that he has with the abstract: abstract principles or theories imposed from the outside suppress difference and thus to achieve a society that recognises and promotes difference we need to get rid of these principles. Let us begin with my first criticism.

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The concrete v the abstract: the individual v ideology

A frequent objection to Feyerabend’s ideas is that they are not constructive: he breaks down ideas but does not offer positive solutions: he diagnoses problems without trying to solve them (see, for example, Werner Diederich 1991: 216). Feyerabend claims that this is intentional: “According to my critics, I make a lot of noise but achieve little…These remarks are certainly correct. I have indeed no positive suggestions to make” (Feyerabend 1987: 305).

The reason why he makes no positive suggestions, he claims, “is not that I have forgotten about the matter, or cannot compete with the speculative talents of my fellow academics – the reason is my respect for the traditions I am supposed to bless with my intellectual gifts” (Feyerabend 1987: 305). He argues that he is not making positive suggestions because he does not want to do what intellectuals typically do: solve problems from armchairs.

But despite the author’s affirmation, claims that Feyerabend does not make positive suggestions are untrue. When it comes to science, Feyerabend avoids committing himself to a ‘theory’ of science. But when it comes to society, he has plenty of ideas. Although his texts primarily criticise, he offers many solutions to the problems he identifies: he promotes a new social structure, his free society, as a solution to the undemocratic dominance of science. And he goes into some detail to explain this free society.

1. THE FREE SOCIETY Feyerabend has argued that science’s dominance in contemporary society interferes with democracy and individual liberty because it does not allow for diversity, for anything that differs from what science and rationalism has proclaimed to be true. Our commitment to science denies both scientists and

148 citizens freedom: they are forced to think uniformly according to what science deems true or false, or according to the rules of scientific method, denying the diversity and uniqueness of each individual. Instead of deciding how to live our own lives, as citizens of a democracy should, our education, policies, laws, our ways of life are chosen for us by scientific and social ‘experts’.

Feyerabend argues that Enlightenment, according to Kant’s definition, means peoples’ ability to think for themselves, to think without guidance from others (Feyerabend 1987: 11). And this is precisely what is missing from contemporary societies: “Citizens take their cue from experts, not from independent thought. This is what is now meant by ‘being rational’” (Feyerabend 1987: 11). This is not autonomy. This is not freedom. This will only stifle difference and create a forced homogeneity. Genuine autonomy and freedom can only be achieved when citizens start shaping their own society, instead of having “power-hungry intellectuals” shaping it for them (Feyerabend 1978: 182). And we can only do this if we disassociate ourselves from the ideologies that bind us.

A free society, Feyerabend claims, will be similar to the democracy of Periclean Athens, where citizens do not simply live in a state, they run it (Feyerabend 1987: 58). He calls this democratic relativism. It is relative because it acknowledges that different societies have different, and yet entirely acceptable, lifestyles and values (Feyerabend 1987: 59). It is democratic because citizens make all the important decisions (Feyerabend 1987: 59).

A basic premise of this type of society is Protagoras’s statement that “’Man is the measure of all things; of those that are that they are; and of those that are not, that they are not’” (Protagoras c.f. Feyerabend 1987: 44). Feyerabend claims that this statement can be translated practically to mean that the citizens of a society, not “abstract agencies and distant experts”, should judge every important issue in that society, including its laws and even including facts (Feyerabend 1987: 48). This would mean, for example, that “[i]f the ‘important matters’ are health and

149 illness, then it is the individual patient, not a doctor engulfed in abstract theories, who ‘measures’ well being” (Feyerabend 1987: 48).

Of course, this society could not just suddenly come into being. If we asked citizens as they are today, to make more decisions, the status quo would probably remain the same. This is because science is dominant in society. We are led to believe that science is better than non-science and as long as we continue to believe this, science will continue to dominate. So, before we begin encouraging greater democratic participation, we need to get rid of this ideology. Feyerabend argues that we can accomplish this by ensuring that in our free society all traditions are equal.

This would firstly mean that all traditions within that society be given equal opportunities and equal rights ”i.e. equal access to federal funds, educational institutions, basic decisions” (Feyerabend 1987: 39). This would mean that science would no longer be the standard against which other ideas, other traditions are judged. It is simply one tradition: no better and no worse, than any other (Feyerabend 1987: 39-40).

For Feyerabend it is not simply a question of eliminating a specific ideology, one that supports science, we need to rid ourselves of all ideologies. If people are unfettered by ideological principles, if they have not been ‘brainwashed’ into believing the ideas of a specific tradition, then they can make their own autonomous decisions.

Of course Feyerabend recognises that if people are educated to believe that specific traditions or ideologies are true, they will not be able to judge these traditions neutrally. If you were taught that science is the truth, it would be difficult for you to accept any idea to the contrary. We thus need to a society that is ideologically neutral, that does not promote one ideology or set of ideologies. To do this, we would have to restructure education.

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Presently, Feyerabend argues, education is definitely not ideologically neutral. It accepts the precepts of scientific rationalism, and forces everyone else to accept these precepts as well. It does not encourage individuals to think critically, to think autonomously. It irons out difference and encourages a standardised way of approaching the world. Feyerabend argues that the entire process of enculturation, especially though education, is dedicated to forcing society’s ideas, society’s values onto children. And he claims that the result of this enculturation is servility (Feyerabend 1978: 175). We are taught to conform, and that is what most of us do. Instead of thinking for ourselves, instead of differing from the norm, we follow it unthinkingly.

The solution is not to replace the ideology that currently imbues education with another, but to rid it of any ideological preconditions that force people to accept a specific point of view. Feyerabend’s aim is not to create a new ideology, a new truth to be followed blindly: “to liberate people not to make them succumb to a new kind of slavery, but to make them realise their own wishes, however different these wishes may be from our own” (Feyerabend 1981: 166)

Education should not aim at teaching people how to think or what to believe of the world. Ironically, education should help individuals to resist education, to think for themselves: “the best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education” (Feyerabend 1987: 316). Instead of teaching any type of tradition as the truth, this type of education would mean exposing children to different types of traditions, telling stories about these traditions, without promoting any one.

This education would include scientific stories about the world, but these scientific stories would not be taught as the truth or as better than any other stories. Education would acquaint pupils with reasons for these stories, and expose them to reasons that would contradict the stories. “Both reasons and

151 contrary reasons will be told by the experts in the fields and so the young generation becomes acquainted with all kinds of sermons…and every individual can make up his mind which way to go” (Feyerabend 1981: 164).

Once we have broken down ideological assumptions citizens would be able to “consciously … choose the business that seems to be most attractive to him rather than being swallowed by it” (Feyerabend 1975: 308). Feyerabend wants to increase individual liberty and autonomy by sacrificing ideology:

In the face of…mind-killers and reason-mongers…I try to defend the liberty of the individual…his right to reject ‘truth’, ‘responsibility’, ‘reason’, ‘science’, ‘social conditions’ and all the other inventions of our intellectuals, and also his right to an education that does not turn him into a mournful ape, a ‘bearer’ of the status quo… Feyerabend 1978: 176

I have already argued, in chapter 4, that although Feyerabend is right when he claims that science should not dominate society, we can provide it with a privileged position. It should not necessarily be seen as equal to other traditions. Now that we have expanded on his ideas about the abstract and the influence that it has on Feyerabend’s free society, we can expand our criticism.

2. CRITICISM OF FEYERABEND’S INDIVIDUALISM Feyerabend’s emphasis on individual liberty has been criticised. Chalmers, for example, argues that Feyerabend, relying heavily on Mill’s defence of liberty and individuality, believes that the institutionalisation of science interferes with individual freedom (Chalmers 1982: 142). We can free individuals from this constraint by separating the state from science and thus ensuring that citizens can make free choices for themselves without being fettered by ideological presuppositions (Chalmers 1982: 142-3).

Chalmers argues that this conception of the individual and freedom is “open to a standard objection”: Feyerabend and other liberals are ignoring the constraints of social structure (Chalmers 1982: 143). Chalmers believes “If we are to change

152 contemporary society for the better then we have no alternative but to start with the society we are confronted with” and this means that “Feyerabend’s utopian ideal of a free society is of no help” (Chalmers 1982: 144).

Although this criticism is valid, we can complexify it. In the next section I will argue that Feyerabend’s emphasis on the individual is a function of the opposition that he draws between the abstract and the concrete, between ideology and the individual.

3. THE ABSTRACT V THE CONCRETE In chapter 5, I explained Feyerabend’s opposition between the abstract and the concrete. I elucidated this opposition mainly through discussing Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy. But his emphasis on the distinction between the abstract and the concrete is not limited to his analysis of philosophy.

Although mainly indirect, this distinction pervades his texts. He uses this distinction to categorise and evaluate the different ideas and terms that he discusses throughout his arguments. Whether we associate a term with the concrete or the abstract becomes the standard against which Feyerabend judges that term. On the next page, I have listed a series of terms that we find throughout Feyerabend’s work.

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Column A: The concrete Column B: The abstract specific general particular universal historical theoretical practice theory experience theory local general part whole individual abstraction science reason complex simple subjective objective individual ideology

The terms in column A represent a series of related terms that Feyerabend contrasts to the set of related terms in column B. I have called them related because Feyerabend believes that the terms in each column correspond. This is evident for two reasons. Firstly, he uses many of the terms in each column interchangeably. For example, he implies that the abstract and reason are the same thing (Feyerabend 1987: 319).

Secondly, the close relation that he sees in the meaning and association of these terms is also reflected in the oppositions he draws. I have listed these terms as oppositions: Feyerabend contrasts the specific, for example, to the general. But these oppositions are also interchangeable. He contrasts the particular to the universal (1987: 118), but he also draws an opposition between the particular and the abstract (305-6), for example. So what is this correspondence between the two sets of terms?

154 The terms in column A represent phenomena that Feyerabend associates with the concrete: anything that is tangible or in the case of historical traditions and science, for example, deal with what is tangible. The terms in column B are all extreme products of the abstract. And because the terms are divided according to this distinction, they are judged accordingly. Whether he refers to these terms on their own or in relation to their ‘opposites’, Feyerabend endorses the terms in column A and disparages the terms in column B. We should be focused on particulars (Feyerabend 1987: 35) and local consultation (Feyerabend 1987: 28), whereas we need to avoid the general (Feyerabend 1978: 127) and the tyranny of the universal (Feyerabend 1987: 99).

Often he directly contrasts one of the terms to the other: particular traditions rather than universal truths (Feyerabend 1987: 61); the complex as opposed to the simple (Feyerabend 1987: 135). It is positive to focus on the specific, the particular, and the fact, not on the general, not on theory. In more practical terms this means, for example, if a disease breaks out in a specific area, a positive response would be to consult locals, rather than distant experts who would generalise the case. By contrasting these terms, Feyerabend sets up an ‘either or’ position: either we must choose the particular or the universal, either the complex or the simple, reflecting his idea that the concrete and the abstract are two different systems which cannot interact.

The most important problem that Feyerabend has with the abstract is that it stifles difference. In chapter 5, I claimed that Feyerabend argues that as soon as we try to represent reality through abstract theory, we cannot possibly capture the complexity and diversity within reality. When we focus on finding similarities, essences, laws beyond particular cases, we will necessarily simplify and homogenise reality. Instead of capturing reality, we are devising a different reality that fails to recognise difference, and has nothing to do with the genuine reality of the concrete world. It is only when we deal with a particular event or a single

155 individual that we respect difference, the difference between one event or one individual and another.

The last term in column A is the individual. I have contrasted this to the term ideology. Of all the terms in these columns, their relation to the abstract and the concrete is probably, at face value, the most obscure. But Feyerabend’s emphasis on individual autonomy and freedom as opposed to ideological indoctrination is a function of his opposition between the concrete and the abstract. Throughout his texts, Feyerabend posits individuals against abstract ideologies. He draws an opposition between the individual scientist and the abstract rules she is expected to comply with according to an abstract ideological framework for science. This framework bridles her ingenuity and autonomy, forcing her to conform to an inhibiting methodology. It is against this abstract ideology that she must rebel, formulating her own method, her own rules, her own ways of doing things.

Feyerabend also draws an opposition between individual citizens and the abstract philosophies, ideologies, which are imposed on their lives. He argues, that mainly through education, we are indoctrinated into believing that these ideologies are not mere ideologies, but the truth, forcing rules and structure onto our lives without recognising our diversity and complexity. It is against these abstract ideologies that we must rebel, formulating our own ways of doing things. These oppositions between individuals and the abstract do not only apply to individual people, but to any individual entities: an individual subjective desire is posited against objective rules; individual hypotheses and individual facts against general theories.

For Feyerabend reality is a muddle of individual units: a muddle about which we should avoid making generalisations, from which we should avoid deriving universal rules, and which we cannot amalgamate into artificial abstract collectives such as ‘science’ and society’ through abstract ideology. As soon as

156 we try to move beyond these individual concrete units, trying to establish laws, looking for similarities, we are disregarding their complexity and diversity.

These lists of examples of the concrete and the abstract, the individual and ideology, the particular and the general, give us a starting point for our criticism. They lead to two important points: firstly, the terms that Feyerabend uses are problematic and secondly, and more significantly, the oppositions between these terms are problematic.

3.1 Feyerabend is guilty of ambiguity and equivalence The terms that Feyerabend uses are very vague. This is at least partially intentional. Feyerabend believes that if we try to capture an idea in a precise definition we will necessarily oversimplify it. In some way, I agree with him. Trying to capture a wide-ranging and often ambiguous term such as reason in a simple definition is problematic. But going to the opposite extreme of barely explaining terms at all is not a successful alternative either.

I have read three books and numerous articles written by Feyerabend, which all deal in some detail with reason. And yet, I am still not sure what he means by this term because he uses the term in different ways in different contexts while assuming that its meaning remains the same and that this meaning is clear. Much of the time that he uses the word reason he is referring to a strict adherence to methodological rules. But he also uses it often according to a more standard dictionary definition to refer to logical argumentation. Although the link between these two definitions can be inferred, this link is not clarified sufficiently.

Besides equating different definitions of one term reason, Feyerabend also equates the word reason with other terms: philosophy, abstraction, science, method, rules, objectivity, the universal. Again, we could fill in the logical gaps for Feyerabend by inferring the links. But this equivalence, demonstrates that Feyerabend does not have the respect for difference and complexity that he is

157 advocating, as he haphazardly equates different notions based on the often vague similarities that he perceives in them, and then sweepingly dismisses them all as abstractions removed from reality and diversity.

3.2 The oppositions between the concrete and the abstract are oversimplifications If I asked someone what the opposite of the word ‘simple’ is, the answer would probably be ‘complex’. Some of the oppositions that Feyerabend draws are uncontroversial. But some of them are not. Opposing theory to experience, for example, raises many questions. And equating these oppositions is also problematic: the complex concrete world is opposed to a simple abstract world. The opposition between the individual and ideology demonstrates these problems well.

I would like to use the individual versus ideology as a ‘case study’ to show, not only that this specific opposition is problematic, but also to problematise his simplistic opposition between the concrete and the abstract, and to provide critique for Feyerabend’s free society.

4. THE INDIVIDUAL V IDEOLOGY In qualifying Feyerabend’s criticism of the abstract, I claimed that Feyerabend has two distinct problems with the abstract. The first of these is that abstract principles or theories should not be imposed on individuals from the outside. This idea is a function of the opposition he draws between the individual and ideology, and the corresponding concrete and the abstract. By criticising these oppositions, we can problematise one of the two distinct and significant problems that he has with the abstract.

My criticism is quite straightforward: the individual is not prior to ideology because the individual does not exist separately from ideology. Thus at times we cannot draw a distinction between the individual and ideology, we often cannot

158 draw a distinction between ideas imposed from outside, as opposed to ideas that originate from the individual, and we cannot draw such a severe distinction between the concrete and the abstract.

Like the other terms that he uses, Feyerabend’s conception of ideology is vague. He equates ideology with philosophy, enculturation, socialisation and theory. Looking at the different ways in which this word is used commonly, combined with how Feyerabend uses them, we can develop a clearer understanding of what he means.

Feyerabend uses the word ideology in two different ways depending on how it develops. If ideologies flow from the concrete experience of individuals in particular situations, Feyerabend uses the term according to its more neutral contemporary definition: it is a “set of beliefs, attitudes…etc. that embody the basic values of some social group and that group’s conception of the political order appropriate to those values” (Barkhurst 1993: 192). Although, considering Feyerabend’s emphasis on the individual as opposed to some abstract collective, he would be more likely to understand ideology as a set of beliefs that embody the basic values of some individual as opposed to a social group. For Feyerabend this type of ideology is acceptable, as it is not generalised beyond specific circumstances and it is not imposed from the outside: it is both an individual ideology and an individual’s ideology.

But when abstract ideas are imposed on individuals from the outside, ideology for Feyerabend takes on a more Marxist definition, not because it is related to socio- economic conditions but because it necessarily misrepresents reality. Ideology here becomes a philosophy. And for Feyerabend, philosophy is always a misrepresentation, even an inversion of reality because it prioritises the abstract above the concrete, inevitably divorcing itself from reality. Intellectuals, Feyerabend argues, construct these ideologies that misrepresent reality, suppressing diversity and controlling individual thought.

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Feyerabend believes that we need to move away from ideology as a misrepresentation of reality towards an individualistic ideology that prioritises the concrete individual and her experiences above the abstract. Ideology must be dependent on the individual, but the individual should not be dependent on ideology. To accomplish this, we must remove intellectuals and their ideologies from the centres of society. Education should not be imbued with their specific ideologies, as this would lead individuals to internalise these misrepresentations of reality. Education needs to be ideologically neutral so that individuals have the freedom of thought to design their own ideologies to apply to their own particular lives.

There are many problems with Feyerabend’s ideas about ideology and its function in society. These problems mainly flow from his highly oversimplified understanding of ideology:

4.1 Ideologies do not develop purely from the theorising of intellectuals Feyerabend implies that ideologies can only develop in two ways. Either an individual constructs them as rules of thumb according to particular circumstances or intellectuals develop them, and they are passed on to individuals through education. For Feyerabend then, the entire process of socialisation, our introduction to and internalisation of social beliefs and values, can be summed up as ideological indoctrination through formal education. This is a very poor understanding of the complexity of socialisation. Feyerabend conveniently ignores the influence of parents, siblings, extended family members, peers, colleagues, the media and many more in this process.

His insinuations that experts seem to ‘control’ ideology, and consciously enforce their abstract ideas on society are also highly simplistic. Social beliefs and values are not simply spread through someone deciding what these beliefs and values

160 are, and then consciously enforcing them on others. Feyerabend seems to be confusing intellectuals with the illuminati.

4.2 Ideologies are complex and not easily identifiable Our sets of social beliefs and values are innumerable and often contradictory. They differ not only from society to society, but from one small social group (such as the family) to another. An individual is not exposed to one or two clearly distinguishable ideologies, she is exposed to numerous ideologies which can originate from and/or be influenced by any conceivable social group that she belongs to or comes into contact with: her family, racial group, language group, dialect, sexuality, gender, profession/s, political organisation/s, and so on.

Feyerabend’s free society is based on the idea that ideologies are necessarily dominant, that they are easily identifiable and limited in number. Feyerabend identifies one major ideology in western democracies: the ideology that underlies science’s dominance. As long as we remove this ideology and ensure that another does not replace it, we will live in an ideologically neutral society. He does not consider the sheer number of ideologies that will differ not only from one western democracy to another, but within these societies themselves. He also does not consider the idea of counter-ideologies, and that ideologies are so complex and numerous that they are often contradictory, ambiguous and definitely not easily identified.

4.3 Feyerabend’s ideologically neutral society is not ideologically neutral It has become a truism to claim that a critique of ideology also originates from an ideological viewpoint. Marx and Engels, for example, as well as the Frankfurt school, have been criticised in this way. And of course, we can criticise Feyerabend in this way. Feyerabend’s idea that we can make society ideologically neutral by making all traditions equal is not ideologically neutral: his legitimation of this idea is based on a set of liberal beliefs that privilege freedom.

161 This also means it would be impossible for all traditions to be equal because the tradition of freedom is privileged and thus not equal to other traditions. In fact, any plea for a society to be ideologically neutral cannot be ideologically neutral because it will be based on some set of beliefs that attempt to justify why society should be ideologically neutral. And this points to my final and most significant criticism: ideological neutrality is impossible.

4.4 Ideological neutrality is impossible because the individual does not exist separately to ideology Social structure, social beliefs, social values: for Feyerabend these are all abstracts imposed from the outside that need to be replaced by individual rules, individual beliefs, individual values. What he does not seem to understand is that individual beliefs cannot simply develop from ideologically neutral experience. All beliefs not only exist within a social structure, they can only develop and attain meaning from that social structure and the ideologies and beliefs that underlie that structure. An individual cannot function as a human being in society without that social structure. We cannot make decisions for ourselves in a vacuum. The choices we make and how we make those choices, indeed the fact that there are even choices and that we can make them, presuppose a social structure.

We are not singular individuals who exist as islands unto ourselves. Others and others’ ideas are at least a part of our . We cannot fully separate ourselves from other people or beliefs. Outside and inside are not clearly distinguishable terms when it comes to human beings. What we are inside comes from outside. Brian Fay, for example, argues that this is true of our most basic decisions and intentions. He claims that if I state an intention to marry, or to deposit money, for example, these intentions will always be a function of social meaning: they will always refer back to some social institution such as marriage or banking. “In forming our most characteristic intentions and performing our most typical actions other persons are absolutely crucial” (Fay 1996: 40).

162 An individual human being cannot be viewed merely as a tangible biological entity. It is an entity that exists within a context and that context determines that entity. We cannot construct our own private worlds. We live in worlds that have already been constructed for us, by others, providing us with our common means of communication and systems of symbols from which we can derive meaning and interact with other selves.

The fact that individuals exist in and are formed by social structure means that ideological neutrality is not possible. Ideologies as sets of beliefs that embody our values are not simply abstract theories that are imposed on us from outside. They are a part of us. And they cannot be separated from us entirely. “We examine ideologies as fellow sufferers, not as neutral observers” (Vincent 1992: 20). Feyerabend’s free individuals cannot be entirely separated from ideology, and then simply choose whichever ideology suits them best: “Before any critical distance, we belong to a history, to a class, to a nation, to a culture, to one or several traditions” (Ricouer 1981: 243). Far from existing prior to society or ideology, the individual human being is always encased in some social structure and ideology, or more realistically structures and ideologies. This Feyerabend chooses to ignore.

5. SO HOW EXACTLY DOES THIS PROBLEMATISE FEYERABEND’S IDEAS? Firstly, the distinction that Feyerabend draws between the individual and ideology does not work. His distinction relies on the idea that the individual can exist in isolation to ideological affiliations: an unsustainable position. Secondly, this also implies that the extreme distinction that Feyerabend draws between the abstract and the concrete is, at the very least at times, untenable. Sometimes the abstract elements that Feyerabend refers to, such as ideology, are so much a part of the actual concrete object that we cannot coherently claim that they are easily separable.

163 Although she does not state the oppositions that I have identified in the same way, Margherita Von Brentano criticises Feyerabend similarly. She argues that Feyerabend diametrically opposes certain concepts such as philosophy and practice, rationalism and common sense (Von Brentano 1991: 202). She argues that Feyerabend associates all the ‘negative’ terms such as philosophy with western societies and the ‘positive’ terms such as practice with non-western societies. And yet, she argues, “All the pairs of opposing concepts you describe belong to our own tradition, and delineate not so much totally different and irreconcilable but rather complementary aspects of that complex tradition” (Von Brentano 1991: 203).

Instead of criticising the oppositions between the concrete and the abstract world that he claims were drawn in early philosophy, Feyerabend accepts these oppositions, and simply reverses them. Instead of the abstract world of similarities and lawfulness being genuine reality, Feyerabend claims that the diversity of the concrete world is the genuine. But the problem is the opposition itself. Sometimes the abstract and the concrete are linked in a complex relationship where one is not easily distinguished from the other.

I am not arguing that no distinction can be drawn between these features, however I question how far this distinction can be taken. It is not simply a question of trying to draw a distinction between an individual element and its context: that still implies the possibility of a great deal of separation between phenomena. Rather we are talking about separating an individual entity from itself. This calls into question the distinction between the individual and the collective of which it is a part, but which is also a part of it. And it calls into question Feyerabend’s entire conception of a free society, which is based on these untenable oppositions and ideas. So the third, and most significant, of Feyerabend’s ideas that our discussion of ideology problematises is his political solution to the problems he identifies: his free society.

164 6. FEYERABEND’S FREE SOCIETY AND COMMUNICATIVE DEMOCRACY In chapter 4, I argued that I agree with Feyerabend’s claims that science, or any other dominant practices or cultural values, could interfere with diversity. And I agree with Feyerabend that we will have to adapt our democracies and our systems of education to improve how we deal with diversity.

While I was writing this chapter, I heard a perfect example of Feyerabend’s problems with democracy over the radio. A talk-show host on a Johannesburg radio station was interviewing a government official about a new policy that government wants to implement to encourage South Africans to use public transport. Part of this policy will include penalties to reduce the private use of cars. Although this description of the interview is not a direct quote, the conversation ran something like this:

‘Are you going to consult the public on this policy?’ ‘We are the government. We have a mandate to implement our policies.’

Statements like these indicate that at times democracies do not seem very democratic. I cannot see how a democracy that values freedom and diversity can consider that it has a mandate to do what it wants, simply because it has been elected by a majority of citizens. We need greater consultation between government and citizens. We need citizens to be more involved in political processes, not simply electing a government. We need greater accountability from government.

So what I agree with is Feyerabend’s diagnosis: we need to promote diversity, we need to be attentive about promoting certain cultures, we need to work on avoiding the marginalisation and suppression of certain cultures and values, we need to increase participatory democracy, and we need to examine how to recognise and respect diversity within education. What I do not agree with is Feyerabend’s solutions to these problems.

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For someone who complains about simplicity and uniformity, Feyerabend seems oblivious to the complexity of the social and political structures he is describing. His political solutions are simplistic and naïve. At the beginning of this chapter, I identified two significant problems that Feyerabend has with what he calls the abstract. The first of these is that abstract principles and theories imposed from the outside suppress diversity. Feyerabend wants to rid society of these abstract principles. And this provides a good summary of Feyerabend’s political solution: if we rid society of the ideologies constructed by intellectuals, and rather consider all ideas and traditions equal, thus making society and education ideologically neutral, we will achieve a free society that respects and promotes diversity.

As it stands, the claim that abstract principles should not be imposed from the outside is uncontroversial. I would not disagree with it. And yet, it proves to be a poor basis for social structure. On its own, it is vague. If we unpack this idea, we find that Feyerabend provides us with two alternatives: either we are ‘enculturated’, i.e. brainwashed, by abstract principles and theories, or we are individuals who have neutral ideological backgrounds and we can simply choose whichever ideology we want to subscribe to. Confronted with only these two alternatives, I would also choose the latter, but these are extreme caricatures of the situation. Neither of these options are accurate descriptions of how society works or can work. We have a choice between being brainwashed and an extreme individualism that seems to recognise no social bounds. The situation is much more complex than that. If we genuinely want to respect and encourage diversity in society, we will have to find a better solution than simply claiming that if we get rid of abstract principles that are used to brainwash people into conformity, we will achieve a better society.

Human beings in societies, however Feyerabend may dislike this idea, will be socialised, will be bearers of cultures, of religions, of ethnicity, and a multitude of other affiliations and unique combinations of those affiliations. These affiliations

166 presuppose certain ideological commitments and social values, many of which we can never be fully aware of because they are a part of our identities, not simply something forced upon us by intellectuals. Any conception of social structure has to take this into account, and yet Feyerabend ignores any of the processes of socialisation besides what he refers to as ‘ratiofascism’: intellectuals forcing us to conform to rational and scientific ideas.

Furthermore, the state will also always be the bearer of some ideals and values. A government will always favour certain values over others, promote certain ideas at the expense of others. The idea that a democratic government that promotes diversity can be neutral is incoherent. At the very least, it cannot be neutral about democracy or diversity; it has to promote both of these values.

Besides the obvious problem that Feyerabend’s free society is not as ideologically neutral as he claims it should be, we can also problematise Feyerabend’s insistence that direct democratic participation is the key to improving freedom and respecting diversity. He is silent about any other commitments or structure to society besides this direct democratic participation, including any commitments to either freedom or diversity. So, to improve freedom and diversity, we need no safeguards for freedom and diversity, only majority rules? I don’t think that this is feasible:

It takes more than majority rule for a society to be free; it takes a commitment to allow others an opportunity to express unusual points of view and to pursue life styles of their own choosing. Munévar 1991: 195

Yes, government and elite groups can stifle democracy, freedom and diversity. But so can basing social structure entirely on majority rules. Feyerabend’s free society is based on tallying individual wishes. It provides no helpful solutions to problems facing democracies such as demands for recognition by minority groups (including non-scientific traditions), demands for recognition by illiberal groups, and the right not to participate directly in political decisions. What we

167 need is a balance. Yes, we need to encourage greater participation from citizens, but this cannot be the entire solution. We need to have a social structure that actively defends diversity, freedom and democracy, and even, at times, constraints to prevent freedom, especially the freedom of minorities, from being stifled.

This does not mean that I believe that we need foundations to democracy with universal and absolutely binding rules. But there is not only one alternative to absolute foundations and timeless rules: Feyerabend’s majority rules with no other commitments or principles, besides Mill’s ‘do no harm to others’. We need some conditional principles, some conditional structures, to commit government and citizens to freedom and diversity. Feyerabend’s free society conceives of no such structures.

An idea more successful than Feyerabend’s free society is ‘communicative democracy’. Communicative democracy is closely related to models of deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy is not a new system of democracy to replace the democracies we already have. It supplements democratic systems to encourage, among others, greater citizen participation and diversity. Although there are different conceptions of deliberative democracy, I am going to use some general, fairly uncontroversial ideas about deliberative democracy collected from Seyla Benhabib (1996), Joshua Cohen (1996) and Amy Gutmann (1996) to explain what I mean by this term.

Deliberative democracy is a means of devising, justifying and defending policies, principles and decisions within a democracy without recourse to fixed foundations. Instead of simply tallying isolated individual wishes for majority rules, deliberative democracy consists of citizens discussing and arguing about important issues in a free and equal context.

168 Conclusions reached in deliberation should be used to measure the legitimacy of public policies, to revise policies and to devise new policies. Although some decisions may still be formulated according to majority rules (as consensus will probably rarely be reached), at least these decisions are not the sum total of isolated subjective whims, they have been reached with the help of relevant information, though exposure to dissent and through practical reasoning.

Benhabib (1996) believes that deliberative democracy is the key to transcending oppositions between advocates of liberal rights and principles, and advocates of majority rules. She argues that although deliberative democracy presupposes certain basic rights, such as freedom of speech, the meaning, extent and jurisdiction of these rights can be debated:

The normative conditions of discourses, like basic rights and liberties, are to be viewed as rules of the game that can be contested within the game but only insofar as one first accepts to abide by them and play the game at all. Benhabib 1996: 80

Communicative democracy is a term I have borrowed from Iris Marion Young. Communicative democracy is almost identical to deliberative democracy. The difference is that it does not approve of the ‘deliberation’, understood only as rational argumentation to the exclusion of all else, of deliberative democracies. Young argues that there are various forms of communicating, such as story- telling, which do not necessarily employ formal logic, but which cannot be ignored if we are really going to provide a platform for diversity through equal and free communication (Young 1996: 122-132).

Communicative democracy is a means of increasing the legitimacy of public policies by testing them through the public. It provides a much better arena for citizen participation and diversity than Feyerabend’s free society. The ideological neutrality of Feyerabend’s society is infeasible and resorting to pure majoritarian politics is too simplistic an answer to protect diversity and freedom.

169 Communicative democracy balances a commitment to diversity and freedom with democratic participation.

In chapter 4, I argued that although I accept that science should not dominate society, we can afford it a privileged position as it is well-suited to address our needs in technologically driven societies. I claimed, however, that determining science’s privilege, as opposed to dominance, would be challenging. Communicative democracy could provide us with a forum for discussing how and when science should be privileged. And it will also provide us with opportunities to express and discuss non-scientific alternatives to science, and to judge when scientific privilege oversteps its bounds: when it dominates our beliefs and choices.

Interestingly, I believe that we can improve our education systems to encourage greater communicative democracy by paying attention to Feyerabend’s suggestions for education. I believe that his general suggestions for education are useful for guarding against specific sets of beliefs dominating all others.

Feyerabend makes two useful suggestions. Firstly, he argues that we should include more ‘stories’, more alternatives in our education system. I agree with this. This I feel is already happening in education outside of scientific subjects. In South Africa, religious studies used to mean Christian studies. Today, there is a move towards exposing pupils to a variety of different religions instead of just one. We could even apply something similar to this to scientific subjects. Within scientific subjects, we could reveal differing scientific answers to the same scientific problems to demonstrate the diversity within science, for example. Instead of teaching one truth, one procedure, we could encourage a greater variety of ideas, even within the sciences, to accommodate diversity better.

The second useful suggestion that Feyerabend makes is that education should not consist of only providing pupils with information, no matter how diverse such

170 information is. Feyerabend argues that we need to expose pupils to reasons and contrary reasons for accepting the information they are taught. What Feyerabend is suggesting is that we increase critical thinking in education. I believe that this is a valuable suggestion. Instead of expecting pupils simply to learn information and reproduce this information in exams, we should be encouraging them to evaluate the information. Within each subject, we could encourage pupils to deliberate about the information they are being taught, questioning its assumptions and its value. This deliberation would help pupils to question and better understand their own beliefs and expose them to different beliefs. This could even help students to better evaluate the justification of scientific claims, and to judge when non- scientific alternatives would be preferable to science. This would provide a good basis for communicative democracy where citizens are encouraged to express their views and to consider the views of others.

Although Feyerabend has some useful suggestions for education, the basis of his free society undermines his emphasis on diversity and complexity. Feyerabend ignores complex ideological commitments, principles, and social structures, dismissing them as abstract ideas applied by intellectuals. Ironically, he does not even seem to recognise the complexity of the concrete individuals he wants to defend. Either individuals are servile entities brainwashed by others’ ideas or individuals are ideological neutral beings who have no deep commitments to any cultures of lifestyles, and can choose and change their ideologies whenever they want.

Although Feyerabend successfully argues that we should guard against rational and scientific dominance encroaching on freedom and diversity, his opposition between the individual and ideology does not work. And this in turn problematises his entire conception of a free society.

The distinction that he makes between the abstract and the concrete also seems suspect, as at least at times, the abstract and the concrete interact in a complex

171 way, and are not two diametrical opposites. This problematises Feyerabend’s insistence that the abstract suppresses diversity. Let us explore this issue in more detail by focusing on Feyerabend’s second primary problem with the abstract: any discipline that prioritises the abstract is unrealistic and harmful because it simplifies reality and suppresses diversity.

In the next section, I will address this claim by demonstrating that if we examine Plato’s Republic, we will find evidence not of Plato simplifying reality, but of Feyerabend simplifying philosophy. And ironically, besides simplifying ancient Greek philosophy, Feyerabend simplifies his own philosophy.

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Complexifying philosophy

Feyerabend claims that philosophy is immersed in a non-existent abstract world, which silences difference, which suppresses history, which exalts dry reason over human beings. In their attempts to reflect reality, philosophers have replaced a complex world with a simple caricature (Feyerabend 1978: 38; Feyerabend 1987: 135). In this section, I argue that Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy is a simple caricature of a complex subject. And I will use Plato’s Republic (1998) as evidence for this view.

One of the most obvious criticisms of Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy is that he uses Ancient Greek philosophy to define contemporary philosophy. His link between philosophy then and philosophy now is unclear. I could examine this flaw in detail and use it to criticise Feyerabend’s ideas about philosophy. I am not going to do so. I do not think we need to go that far.

Criticising the link between Ancient Greek philosophy and contemporary philosophy would assume that Feyerabend’s understanding of Ancient Greek philosophy is accurate. Never mind the genetic fallacy: Feyerabend’s most significant error is that he uses an over-simplified understanding of Ancient philosophy to define philosophy over the ages.

1. COMPLEXIFYING PLATO Before I examine the Republic I need to justify why I am focusing on Plato and this specific text. I have said that Plato epitomises Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy. Note: I have said. Feyerabend says nothing of the sort. Although Feyerabend mentions Plato in his criticism of philosophy and its influence on science, he does not directly consider Plato as central to his argument, and he barely mentions Republic.

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To demonstrate that Feyerabend’s understanding of the origins of philosophy is flawed, I could have used one of a number of different philosophers or another of Plato’s texts, but there are significant reasons why I am focusing on the Republic:

Ø Firstly, many of Feyerabend’s problems with science’s dominance can be traced to the Republic. Democracy, public opinion and the empirical world are ridiculed in Republic at the expense of the super-experts of reason, the philosopher-kings, who hold the key to the abstract world of truth.

Ø Secondly, many of Feyerabend’s claims appear to be direct reversals of comments from Republic. For example, Feyerabend maintains that philosophy is a poor reflection of reality, we would do better without it and that poetry is far superior to philosophy. Plato claims that poetry is a poor reflection of reality, we would do better without it and that philosophy is far superior to poetry.

Ø Thirdly, Feyerabend uses examples to explain the abstract tradition of philosophy that are similar to examples we find in the Republic. He uses an oar’s bent appearance in water to explain the difference between philosophy’s focus on appearance versus reality and the archaic world’s acceptance of sensory appearance as reality (Feyerabend 1987: 263-4), for example. In Republic, Plato refers to how “the same objects look both bent and straight depending on whether we look at them when they’re in water or out of it” to demonstrate how sensory appearance can be removed from true reality (Plato 1998: 602c).

Republic is an ideal text to explain Feyerabend’s problems with philosophy because it contains the key elements of Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy. However, Republic contains much more. And this is why it is an ideal text to criticise Feyerabend.

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In chapter 5, I demonstrated that Feyerabend’s problem with philosophy is that it has tried so hard to transcend human circumstance that it has become meaningless. In some way, philosophy has achieved what it set out to achieve: it is removed from the human, from history. But this is precisely its problem: if it is removed from historical circumstance, from empirical reality, from human elements, it is also removed from the truth, from the reality that it aims at describing. Philosophy uses simplified abstract concepts and theories to try to capture a complex, constantly changing and very diverse world. Such an enterprise is doomed to fail.

In the previous section, I highlighted problems with Feyerabend’s justification for this conclusion about philosophy: he uses a simplistic understanding of the abstract and the concrete. Although this criticism already problematises his understanding of philosophy, I would like to go further. By examining Republic, I would like to show how Feyerabend underestimates the complexity of philosophy.

Feyerabend has claimed that no matter the content of a philosopher’s approach, that approach itself, the practice of philosophy, is flawed because it aims at being ahistorical: it is “ahistorical in intention and formulation” (Feyerabend 1987: 121). This means that in its aims to be ahistorical it uses abstract notions removed from reality and suppresses diversity and all ‘human aspects’. I claim that Feyerabend is not referring to the practice of philosophy but to some of its content.

Feyerabend’s fault lies in identifying philosophy with explicit aspects of its content, without recognising how it is practised. He looks at how Plato and Parmenides, for example, define philosophy, rather than how they practise philosophy. He would read statements that Plato makes about philosopher-kings and the abstract nature of knowledge, accept these at face value, and then claim

175 that this is how all philosophy is practised. But Plato does not practise philosophy in the way in which Feyerabend describes it: he is not a ‘barren and illiterate logician’ who adheres to strict logical rules and dry arguments at the expense of all else, suppressing human elements and delving in a purely abstract world. The way in which Plato practises philosophy demonstrates that it is not a simplistic caricature, it is rich and complex, and open to difference.

1.1 Plato’s practice of philosophy demonstrated by Republic reveals its complexity Republic is not written, as one would imagine philosophy to be written according to Feyerabend, in dry syllogisms of abstract logic. It is a conversation. The first book is a typical Socratic dialogue. Socrates invites Thrasymachus and Glaucon to reveal and question their ideas about morality. As they reveal these ideas, Socrates challenges the assumptions underlying their beliefs. His role is mainly negative. He does not prescribe answers himself. He claims to have no special knowledge, to have no philosophical answers to their questioning. Rather, he encourages them to think critically about their beliefs, to question their deepest assumptions. Socrates’ critical questioning seems far-removed from Feyerabend’s criticism of philosophy. He does not claim to have all the answers, he invites different ideas, he probes without prescribing.

Admittedly, the other nine books of Republic, although they are still written as a dialogue, are more like a monologue. Socrates moves from questioning and claiming ignorance, to revealing his ideas about morality through a description of an ideal society. The other participants in the conversation no longer argue with him, they tend to function mainly as soundboards. For example, Glaucon’s typical contributions reveal his often-unquestioning consensus: “That’s a perfect analogy, Socrates…You’re quite right” (Plato 1998: 579d); “Definitely” (Plato 1998: 579d); “That’s beyond reasonable doubt” (Plato 1998: 580a).

176 Although this conversation becomes very one-sided, the fact that it is a conversation is still significant. It is not written, as Feyerabend argues that philosophy is written, as a tightly knit, highly rational dissertation that suppresses and aims at transcending difference: “Republic is a sprawling work. It is written as if it were the record of an actual conversation, and to a certain extent it meanders like a true conversation” (Waterfield 1998: xi).

Written as a conversation, Republic is not formulated as an ahistorical dissertation, which is immersed in purely abstract notions, suppressing human elements and difference. It implies that philosophy is a natural extension of typical human actions of conversation that invite various ideas, and that does not necessarily follow a tightly knit, purely logical argument.

The importance of the conversational nature, the questions and challenges, the dissent and agreement, within Plato’s work is undermined when critics insist on equating Plato’s philosophy only with one character, with Socrates. This is a common problem: Findlay, for example, in his analysis of Republic, refers to “Socrates-Plato” (Findlay 1974: 169-206). Because there is no direct authorial voice in Plato’s work, we cannot be sure which of the differing, even contradictory, philosophical positions adopted by his characters are Plato’s philosophical positions.

In fact, I would argue that attempting to determine which specific positions Plato definitely ascribes to, is a futile exercise. The dialogues are not a mistake, a careless elusiveness, from which we should try to decipher what Plato really meant, but could not express properly. The fact that Republic is a dialogue is the salient point, not what his specific philosophical positions are. In fact, the dialogue is a philosophical position. The dialogue indicates a commitment to discussion, to challenges, to deliberation, to questioning assumptions, to critical thinking.

177 Despite Plato’s critique of poetry and the arts, we can call Republic philosophical literature. It is literature partially because it is a dialogue, but also because it relies heavily on metaphor. The most well-known of these are Plato’s allegory of the cave and simile of the sun (Plato 1998: 514a-518b). But there are many other metaphors besides these two: he compares absolute freedom to wine (Plato 1998: 562c-d); he compares the majority of citizens in a democracy to bees (Plato 1998: 564d-e). These metaphors are significant because they show that philosophy does not consist of an adherence to dry logical rules, rules that Feyerabend believes philosophers defend to the exclusion of all else.

The language that Plato uses at times also does not imply that he has tried to formulate Republic ahistorically as if it is universal and absolute, suppressing any doubt or dissent. No matter how dogmatic some of the statements that Socrates makes, his way of speaking is often hesitant. Socrates makes statements such as “But I’m afraid it will be more than I can manage, and that my malformed efforts will make me ridiculous” (Plato 1998: 506d) and “’I think I’ll have to leave a lot out,’ I said, ‘but I’ll try to make it as complete as I can at the moment’” (Plato 1998: 509c). Combined with his initial claims of ignorance, these statements reveal his hesitance. These hesitant statements do not sound like statements that would be made by Feyerabend’s arrogant philosophers who claim that their views are comprehensive, absolute and fixed.

In fact, the occasional dogmatism and extremes that Plato can go to in Republic point not necessarily to arrogance or authoritarianism but to his desire for debate, for inspiring dissent and questioning. Julia Annas claims that although, today, we may be outraged by some of Plato’s statements, this is not simply the effect of time: his contemporaries would probably have been even more shocked by his ideas (Annas 1981: 1-2). Plato’s aim is to disturb, to provoke, to scandalise his readers: he “is passionately concerned about a number of issues, and prefers to jolt us into awareness of them and their shocking consequences, rather than keeping the discussion at a harmless level” (Annas 1981: 2).

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Plato is not dryly arguing here about abstract solutions to general problems, he is ardently arguing about issues of morality and politics that had everything to do with the very real functioning of the social structure in which he lived. Plato’s philosophy is neither removed from historical context nor does it attempt to remove itself from the practical world. We can trace many of Plato’s ideas from his specific historical context. For example, his scathing attack on democracy was highly influenced by his own personal experience of democracy.

Plato lived through Athens’s Peloponnesian war against Sparta. Athens, a democracy, was defeated by Sparta, a strict oligarchy (Chambers et al 1995: 60). Athens’ humiliation and the loss of its empire precipitated its loss of pride in democracy. Athens’s political structure seemed central to its defeat: Athenian democracy seemed chaotic in comparison to the strict discipline of Sparta. And so, many philosophers, among them Plato, became disillusioned with the Athenian system of government (Chambers et al 1995: 60). The democratic Athenian city-state was also responsible for the execution of Plato’s mentor, Socrates (Waterfield 1998: xiii). Plato’s criticism of democracy needs to be understood as a reaction to the particular events that he experienced, not as some abstract theory that he constructed in a vacuum.

Republic is thus an attempt to answer important questions that arose from the particular circumstances of Ancient Athens. W. K. C. Guthrie emphasises that Plato was defending the idea of the city-state (Guthrie 1967: 81-86). He claims that the city-state of Athens was under threat. Firstly, it was under threat politically because of Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian war and the tyranny that had followed the defeat (Guthrie 1967: 81). Secondly, prevailing philosophical thought attacked the traditions and conventions on which the city- state was based (Guthrie 1967: 82). Plato’s Republic was a solution to the problems Athens was experiencing: “a reformed society based on the strengthening, not on the abolition, of the city-state” (Guthrie 1967: 85).

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So far, I have been focusing on the way in which Republic has been written: as a conversation, using metaphor, with hesitant language and flowing from historical context. I have claimed that the primary problem with Feyerabend’s views is that he equates some of the content of philosophy, some of the grandiose and authoritarian statements made by philosophers, with the practice of philosophy. Although some of the ideas expressed in philosophy may be simplistic, even arrogant, the way in which they are expressed do not have to be simplistic or arrogant. The practice of philosophy can be highly complex.

In some way, this discussion implies that the way in which Plato practises philosophy contradicts its content. Although at times this is true, I am not arguing that the content of Republic is simplistic and dogmatic but the way in which it is written is not. The complex practice of Plato’s philosophy and the number of multifaceted ideas that he discusses makes for rich content.

1.2 The content of Republic reveals its complexity I have argued that Feyerabend misunderstands philosophy because he defines it narrowly according to explicit features of its content and not its practice. However, even if we had to focus on the content of Republic, we would still not find justification for Feyerabend’s condemnation of philosophy.

Many of Feyerabend’s descriptions of philosophy can be traced to claims that Plato makes in Republic. For example, Plato’s philosopher-kings have greatly motivated Feyerabend’s claims that philosophy is inherently undemocratic: it supposes that only certain experts in reason know the truth and need to decide for others. But even these aspects of the actual content of Republic belie Feyerabend’s narrow understanding of philosophy.

Plato’s discussion of philosopher-kings can be understood in a way that, far from proving Feyerabend’s claims, reveals the greater complexity of his philosophy.

180 Feyerabend argues that Plato was an important advocate of the idea that experts should make the most important decisions in society because they have access to the truth, which the public does not. This stems in part from Plato’s claims in Republic that philosophers would be ideal rulers in a just society. And this idea, along with Plato’s ideal society, has been severely criticised mainly for being idealistic and authoritarian. However, there is some argument about what Plato intended with his political and social philosophy.

Some critics take Plato’s ideas about a just society and philosopher-kings at face value. But other critics disagree. The difference lies in the opposition between the idea that Plato believed that philosophers should really replace leaders, or, as for example, Stephen R. L. Clark states it “The possibility that kings might become philosophers” (Clark 1994: 24). Is Plato really suggesting that only philosophers should become rulers? Or is he possibly suggesting that rulers should become more like philosophers? Robin Waterfield defends the latter idea.

In his introduction to his translation of Republic, Waterfield (1998) doubts that Plato was trying to write a feasible political philosophy. He argues that like any complex work of literature, Republic has many layers: it has text and it has sub- texts (Waterfield 1998: xv). The actual words of the text in Republic, he argues, often deal with politics whereas the sub-texts tend to deal with individual psychology (Waterfield 1998: xvi). And he argues that these sub-texts are more important to Plato than the politics.

In fact, he claims that the political dimension of Plato’s work can be read as an extended metaphor to describe the psychology of an individual (Waterfield 1998: xvi). Plato’s utopian society becomes a metaphor to explore individual psychology: “he invites us, as we read, to use features of the community he constructs as a map or key for understanding our own psyches” (Waterfield 1998: xix).

181 If Plato’s politics are a metaphor, then we can reinterpret his philosopher-kings. Waterfield argues that Plato’s suggestions that philosophers should rule are not meant to be understood as a political ideal, but rather as a recommendation that we should strive towards goodness through philosophy and through helping other people (Waterfield 1998: lviii).

This depoliticising of Plato’s ideas, Waterfield argues, is the best explanation for what appears superficially to be an unsophisticated and disjointed political philosophy: “As a metaphor, the politics of Republic is stimulating and coherent; as a manifesto, it is naïve and fragmentary” (Waterfield 1998: xvi).

I am not necessarily discussing Waterfield’s ideas because I believe that they are the view of Plato’s political philosophy that we should adopt. But his ideas are definitively plausible. Of course, you could still choose to read Plato’s ideas as a political treatise. However, what conclusions you would come to are open to many, even contradictory, interpretations. Plato’s ideal society has been described as revolutionary, conservative, fascist, communist, even as democratic (see Findlay 1974: 159; Annas 1981: 1). The point is that Republic is a rich and multi-layered text that provides evidence for varying and even contradictory interpretations. These differing ideas demonstrate that even trying to identify philosophy with what seems to be the explicit content of Republic is problematic because it is not as explicit and straight-forward as it would seem.

Through this analysis, I have aimed to show that neither the way in which a text such as Republic has been written nor its content can justify Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy. I am not arguing that philosophy is necessarily complex or that we should equate contemporary philosophy with the way in which Plato practised it. Rather I am responding to Feyerabend’s claims that philosophy is inherently problematic and simplistic because it attempts to emulate the practice of philosophy identified by some Ancient Greek philosophers, among others Plato, Parmenides and Xenophanes. Republic

182 cannot justify Feyerabend’s understanding of Ancient Greek philosophy or his claims that philosophy is necessarily simplistic and suppresses diversity.

In fact, it appears that the person who does not seem to recognise complexity and difference, the person who is over-simplifying, is Feyerabend. The way in which Feyerabend describes ancient Greek philosophy, raises less problems for ancient Greek philosophy, than it does questions about Feyerabend’s interpretations. Examine Jon Moline’s statement, “Plato had a remarkably broad selection of intellectual tools, and to appreciate their use in his work one has to adopt similar tools as an interpreter” (Moline 1981: xii).

Are the failings that Feyerabend identifies failings with philosophy, or with his interpretation of philosophy? From what we have seen of our discussion of the Republic the problem seems to lie with Feyerabend, not with Plato. Let us examine Feyerabend’s interpretation of his own philosophy to see if we can find more evidence for this view.

2. FEYERABEND’S INTERPRETATION OF FEYERABEND At the beginning of this chapter I claimed that one of the clues that we have to Feyerabend’s narrow understanding of philosophy is his narrow understanding of his own philosophy. Feyerabend appears to do to his own ideas what I have accused him of doing to Plato’s: he often identifies his ideas with isolated explicit statements that he makes, while ignoring the many layers of his own texts. For example, Feyerabend attacks critics for claiming that he is an empiricist. His defence? That he has stated that he is not an empiricist: “the authors never took seriously my warning… that I intend to play ‘the game of [empiricist] Reason in order to undercut the authority of Reason’” (Feyerabend 1978: 156-7 [Feyerabend’s brackets]).

Now although I probably would not go as far as saying that Feyerabend is an empiricist, empiricism appears to be the logical implication of his rich sub-text in

183 which he opposes the concrete to the abstract and prioritises the concrete. Now I say this based on a multitude of clues from his text. I would not change my mind simply because Feyerabend has denied that he is not really adopting an empirical position. And note, in the original quote that Feyerabend is referring to he did not even use the word empiricist. He has filled it in now as if it was obvious that that was what he meant to say.

Feyerabend seems to believe that he can write whatever he likes, and then in one sentence deny that he agrees with anything that he has written, and we should take this one sentence more seriously than the entire text. This seems similar to what he does to Ancient Greek philosophy: he defines a text according to a few sentences, instead of the complexity of different features of the text. This is in keeping with his claims that we should be focused on the particular, at the expense of the general; at the individual, at the expense of the whole. But it shows how necessary it is to link the particular to the general, the individual to the whole, otherwise, we are not going to recognise the rich layers, the complexity of a text.

Furthermore, Feyerabend criticises rationalism and philosophy for suppressing human and subjective elements. And then he criticises the reviewers of his own work for focusing on his rhetoric and his subjective whims and not exclusively on his rational arguments, claiming that they do not understand how logic and rationalism is supposed to work. But he is the one who claimed that philosophy has to do with an adherence to strict rational rules at the exclusion of all else, not them. “Feyerabend continually confuses the rational and the obsessive- compulsive” (Schnädelbach 1991: 435) and then seems surprised that his critics do not do the same.

In the longest part of Science and a free society (1978), Feyerabend defends his ideas from critics. This section is called “Conversations with illiterates” (Feyerabend 1978: 123). By calling his critics ‘illiterate’, Feyerabend tells us more

184 about himself than about his critics. He has one interpretation of his texts, and seems to think that this can be the only valid interpretation. Now firstly, as I have argued above, Feyerabend’s interpretation of his own texts does not always appear to be sufficiently substantiated. Sometimes he identifies what he says with one or two isolated sentences, ignoring the rich layers of his own argument. But secondly, and more significantly, even when his interpretations are substantiated, they are specific interpretations; they are not the one and only truth about his texts.

For someone who complains about uniformity, about single truths and procedures, who glorifies difference above all else, Feyerabend seems oblivious to the multitudes of explicit ideas and sub-texts in a text, and the varied, and yet substantiated, interpretations that this diversity can reveal.

If I walk into a room filled with people, and claim that the room is not very diverse, I may be right. The situation itself, this collection of people, may not be highly diverse. But there is another possibility: the way in which I am reading, am interpreting the situation, is inadequate. Perhaps I am the one who is homogenising the subjects in the room. Perhaps I am recognising only their similarities, and ignoring their differences. Feyerabend is accusing philosophers of doing precisely this. They look at a complex and diverse world and recognise only the similarities and the regularities in the world, ignoring and suppressing the diversity. Ironically, Feyerabend proves to be precisely the type of philosopher that he is criticising.

He reads a text and insists that it oversimplifies, that it suppresses diversity. But when we examine an example of such a text, Plato’s Republic, we find that it is Feyerabend who is oversimplifying. He reads a text (his own) and sometimes interprets it according to only isolated sentences and he insists that his reading is the only valid reading. Here we find evidence that it is not the text, or not philosophy, that is the problem, but Feyerabend’s interpretations. Far from

185 showing sensitivity and respect for complexity and diversity, Feyerabend’s interpretations ignore complexity and diversity.

3. POST POST-PHILOSOPHY Although I have been emphasising the importance of interpretation when it comes to respecting diversity, this does not mean that I am denying that philosophical texts never suppress diversity. So far, I have been arguing that they do not necessarily suppress diversity, as Feyerabend insists. This does not mean that they necessarily encourage diversity or that they are entirely innocent of Feyerabend’s accusations.

Feyerabend is not alone in attacking philosophy. Although the scope and meaning of philosophy have been debated endlessly over centuries, the last century has produced a new phenomenon: persistent proclamations that philosophy is dead (Sim 1998: 341). This phenomenon has been called ‘post- philosophy’. Post-philosophers claim that philosophy can no longer be defined according to the Enlightenment ideals of “autonomous rationality, historical progress and metaphysical truth” (Sim 1998: 341). Once we accept that this understanding of philosophy is inadequate, we are faced with two choices: either we should reject the entire discipline of philosophy or we must transform it (Baynes et al 1987: 2).

Like Feyerabend, many post-philosophers argue that one of the primary problems with philosophy is that is suppresses and marginalises diversity. Philosophy is harmful, because in its attempts to impose structure on the fluidity and complexity of human life with all its diversity, it excludes and alienates whatever doesn’t fit into its self-imposed structures (Tarnas 1996: 400). Two examples of theorists who have attacked the canons of along these lines are Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard.

186 Derrida argues that western philosophy is logocentric: that there is some singular ‘word’, or essence, or truth to the world (Sarup 1988: 40). We can discover this truth through philosophical reflection. But this idea, Derrida claims, is flawed. Any attempt to describe reality “necessarily conceals as much truth as it reveals” (Turnbull 1999: 166). Philosophy continually silences and marginalises difference. For example, Marx’s emphasis on class struggles ignores issues such as race or gender (Turnbull 1999: 166-7). Whatever issue we focus on in philosophy, we will always be silencing another or even a range of issues.

Lyotard also argues that philosophy suppresses diversity. He claims that philosophy is problematic because it relies on meta-narratives to describe the world. Meta-narratives are stories used to legitimate certain ways of life. They generalise human nature and circumstance without considering difference and context. Examples of meta-narratives are the myths “of the liberation of humanity and…of the speculative unity of all knowledge” that are used to legitimate science’s position in contemporary society (Sarup 1988: 122). But Lyotard argues that we can no longer trust these meta-narratives. The societies we live in are fragmented, fluid and diverse. Any grand narrative that attempts to generalise about these societies will impose a totalising structure on them that will ignore culture and difference.

Lyotard, Derrida and Feyerabend reach similar conclusions. We should reject philosophy because it necessarily suppresses difference. They choose the first option in the choice After philosophy: end or transformation (Baynes et al 1987).

Now although I have addressed Feyerabend’s claims, and demonstrated that they are problematic, I agree that at times the relationship between philosophy and diversity has not been harmonious. I will agree, at the very least, that many philosophies have systematically silenced specific forms of difference. A salient example is gender. Firstly, the content of philosophy tends to favour one gender, the male, and marginalise the ‘other’ gender, the female. For example,

187 philosophies that speculate about the nature of humanity often assume humanity to be ‘mankind’, centring the male as subject, and disregarding and marginalising the experiences of women (see, for example, Miles 1989). A second problem relates to the style of philosophy. Philosophy has been accused of focusing on a masculine oriented ‘rationalism’ at the exclusion of any other form of enquiry or discourse (Turnbull 1999: 184-5).

This silencing of difference does not, however, lead me to the same sceptical conclusions as Feyerabend or Lyotard, for example. I would rather choose the second option: transformation. Philosophy can be successfully employed as a vehicle for respecting and encouraging difference. We can use it to provide a voice for those who have been marginalised.

3.1 Philosophy can be a vehicle to promote difference Luce Irigaray has also criticised philosophy. She claims that western philosophy has excluded women as subjects, focusing only on male subjectivity, and defining women negatively, according to their lack of ‘masculine’ attributes (Sim 1998: 285). But instead of lapsing into an extreme scepticism about philosophy, Irigaray views the silence of feminine voices in philosophy as an opportunity. She believes that women should use this opportunity to take over and reconstruct their own philosophies through feminine writing or l’ecriture feminine (Sim 1998: 286; Turnbull 1999: 185).

While Feyerabend, Lyotard and others, have quibbled about the irrelevance of philosophy, feminist philosophers such as Irigaray have been using philosophy as a vehicle to provide a voice to women, a voice to differ from traditional masculine perspectives and assumptions, a voice to express their own varying perspectives. Carol Gilligan’s (1982) feminist analysis of morality and Sandra Harding’s (1991; 1998a) postcolonial and feminist readings of science are examples of other philosophers attempting to present radically different perspectives on morality and science.

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Of course, my claims that philosophy can be a vehicle for difference still does not address the primary problem of the post-philosophers who believe that philosophy suppresses diversity in a very general sense. Philosophy can be used to express a multitude of different voices, but any description, any theory, any principle will always conceal as much as it reveals.

Although we can read Plato and discover that he says many different things that can be interpreted in many different ways, he cannot say everything. Although Irigaray may be trying to include a voice that has often been marginalised in philosophy, she will necessarily be marginalising other voices: she may ignore the voices of black women, for example. Philosophy can never include every voice. As one door is opened, another will invariably close. It will always be silent about certain things. Although there is some truth to this statement, it is neither a problem specific to philosophy nor is it really a problem.

If I describe a situation, my description cannot possibly encapsulate all the details in that situation. Thus, my description will of necessity ignore some aspects of the situation I am trying to describe. And the same, I admit, would apply to any theory or philosophy that I tried to devise. This is not, however, only something that affects philosophy. It will apply to any symbolic systems: any attempts to represent reality. The most basic of these systems is language. When I talk about ‘women’, I am using a general term that will both ignore the differences between all the varying concrete beings to which I am referring, and ignore everything except women. And if I choose to philosophise about women, I will only be able to address the experiences of a specific group or type of women, and be ignoring anyone else.

I am uncertain why this means we should reject philosophy. The fact that philosophy is not perfect is hardly remarkable and it is definitely not a reason for rejecting it. If anything, I would say that this is proof for why we need more

189 voices, more theories, more philosophies, rather than proof for having no philosophies. If we know that our symbolic systems will always in some way limit the voices expressed, we should recognise this limit but try to include as many voices as possible to counteract the negative implications of this limit. Feyerabend’s problems with philosophy lead him to claim that there cannot be a theory of science, and this leads him to conclude that we should not have any theories about science (Feyerabend 1987: 284). I agree that we cannot have a theory of science. We should have many theories about science. This is what encouraging diversity is about.

Honi Fern Haber argues that the problem with post-philosophies is that they are against any form of universalisation and yet they universalise difference (Haber 1994: 114). They reject any form of structure, associating totality with totalitarianism, and forcing the choice: either structure or difference, we cannot have both (Haber 1994: 5; 116). She argues that structure may, on some basic level, always repress difference but that repression is not necessarily problematic. “The challenge”, she claims, “is to envision a political theory or way of living [or philosophy, as I argue] which pays attention to this fact” (Haber 1994: 115).

I believe that the way in which philosophy is being used as a vehicle to provide radically different understandings is addressing this challenge. Another way in which philosophy is addressing this challenge is by taking itself less seriously.

3.2 ‘Lighter’ philosophy Feyerabend is disturbed by the arrogance of philosophy and philosophers. Philosophers, Feyerabend has claimed, believe that they have special knowledge of an abstract world of truth. They believe that they can solve problems from armchairs. They believe that they have the key to the truth about everything. But philosophers do not have access to such truth. Their ‘truth’ is simply the generalisation of their own experiences. They have no regard for the

190 richness and diversity in life; they insist that everything is simple and subject to the same laws. And as such, their theories are empty. If we had to try to implement these empty theories, we would be stifling freedom and diversity.

Now, I agree that many philosophers have been arrogant. I agree that some philosophers have taken philosophy, in general, or their own philosophies too seriously. Think, for example, about ’s claim that he has solved all metaphysical problems (Stewart 1997: 463) or Theodor Adorno’s claim that philosophy should be the privilege of an elite minority (Turnbull 1999: 180). I believe, however, that philosophy has been significantly changing its image. It is beginning to take itself less seriously.

This is happening in two major ways. Firstly, philosophical texts, especially overviews of the history of philosophy, are being written in a light-hearted way. Two good examples are Donald Palmer’s Looking at philosophy: the unbearable heaviness of philosophy made lighter (1988) and Neil Turnbull’s Get a grip on philosophy (1999). Both of these introductions to the history of philosophy adopt a light tone, pictures and jokes to describe philosophy without trivialising it. These texts provide excellent overviews of philosophy without resorting to the grave and dry academic language that philosophy is often accused of.

And secondly, and more significantly, philosophers are recognising that although philosophy may not be the truth about everything, it can, at least, be a conditional truth about something. Philosophers do not necessarily consider their philosophies to be universal, as Feyerabend claims. A good example is Iris Marion Young’s qualifications of her texts.

In an article about feminine body comportment, Young is careful to claim that she is not trying to universalise. She claims that her account of feminine modalities applies only to “the modalities of feminine bodily existence for women situated in contemporary advanced industrial, urban, and commercial society” (Young 1989:

191 53). In her book, Justice and the politics of difference, Young claims that her ideas about justice do not pretend to be independent of social context: they are rooted in particular circumstances (Young 1990: 3-5).

Young’s ‘modest’ and realistic descriptions of her work are in stark contrast to another philosopher: Feyerabend. Feyerabend wants to heighten diversity and complexity in society, and yet his free society and his interpretations of philosophical texts, often undermine his sensitivity to diversity. Feyerabend criticises philosophy for oversimplifying science, and yet he has oversimplified philosophy. He claims that he wants to encourage dissent in science, and yet he insults anyone who challenges his own work. He condemns generalisations, and yet claims that no theory about science, no philosophy of knowledge, can work.

I have claimed that I admire Feyerabend’s attempts to accommodate greater diversity. I do not believe that he has succeeded, however, precisely because he is not sensitive enough to complexity, to difference, to richness. Far from stifling difference, far from making extravagant universal claims, philosophy can and has been used to encourage difference.

192 Conclusion

maybe the moral is not that we should refuse to think, but that we should think a little deeper Annas 1981: 9

In this chapter, I qualified and contextualised Feyerabend’s criticism of the abstract and philosophy. I demonstrated that his distinction between the abstract and the concrete is flawed. I argued that if we look at the individual and ideology as examples of the concrete and the abstract, we do not have an opposition in which the concrete can be prioritised but an intimate interaction which problematises the opposition itself. I demonstrated how this problematic opposition challenges his ‘free society’, which is based on an inadequate understanding of ideology and socialisation, and on a lack of structure to uphold the values it is supposed to protect. A better alternative to Feyerabend’s free society is communicative democracy.

By focusing on Plato’s Republic and even Feyerabend’s own texts, I demonstrated that Feyerabend has defined philosophy too simplistically: he does not recognise how complex and intricate philosophical texts and the interpretations of these texts can be. I have argued that philosophy is currently projecting an image that is far-removed from Feyerabend’s description: it can be a vehicle for diverse voices and it is taking itself less seriously.

If we are going to be committed to valuing and respecting diversity, which I believe we should be, Feyerabend’s free society and his condemnation of philosophy are not solutions. In the next chapter, and my last, I will bring this dissertation to a close by revising how we got to this conclusion. And in the spirit of recognising the complexity of philosophical texts, I would like to demonstrate how Feyerabend can be understood differently, how we can re-read Feyerabend’s ideas to accommodate my criticisms and my solutions to upholding diversity.

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CHAPTER SEVEN Concluding philosophical postscript

194 Introduction

I introduced this dissertation with this quote:

There are perhaps thirty million distinct species in the world today. This means that there are thirty million distinct ways of making a living: ways of working to pass DNA on to the future. Dawkins 1998: 11

If there are approximately 30 million species in the world, there are approximately 30 million successful ways of surviving on planet earth. And I believe there are a variety of ways in which one species, human beings, can conduct their lives within their societies. There is not one answer, one truth, one procedure. This claim means that I believe that we need to recognise and respect diversity in the world. Of course, this recognition also implies that there are probably many different successful ways in which we can accommodate difference.

Just as there are many successful ways of surviving on planet earth, there are also many unsuccessful answers. As some species have better adapted to their environments and survived, others have become extinct. In a sense, we can say that they had the wrong answers to the questions of survival (although to be fair, some of them have been ‘helped’ into extinction by one specific species). Even many who survive now could become extinct in future: their success is conditional. So, we have many conditional wrong answers and many conditional right answers. If I am going to continue extending this analogy to accommodating diversity in human societies, we can say that there are provisional successful solutions to accommodating diversity and provisional unsuccessful solutions. In this dissertation, I have established that Feyerabend provides us with an unsuccessful solution to accommodating diversity.

In this concluding chapter, I will firstly revise how we came to the conclusion that Feyerabend does not accommodate diversity successfully by summarising the

195 main arguments in all of my chapters. In the second section, I will explain how, in the spirit of recognising the multifaceted nature of texts, of recognising complexity and diversity, we can re-read Feyerabend beyond my interpretation of his texts.

196 Summary

This dissertation has been guided by the question, ‘Does Feyerabend succeed in his attempt to transform society to better accommodate diversity?’. The aim of this dissertation was thus to analyse and critically evaluate Feyerabend's attempt to transform science, politics and philosophy to better accommodate diversity. We can divide this aim into sub-questions that correspond to my chapters.

If we want to determine if Feyerabend succeeds in his solution, we first need to recognise what the problem is that he wants to solve. So our first sub-question is ‘Why does Feyerabend want to transform science?’. I aimed at answering this question in chapter 2.

Ø In chapter 2, I compared Feyerabend’s views of science to other philosophies to better understand why he wants to transform science. We determined that Feyerabend’s problem with scientific practice has more to do with how we describe scientific practice than with the practice itself. I claimed that Feyerabend believes that science is diverse and complex. However, our philosophies of science pretend that science is not: they make science simple and uniform.

Feyerabend’s major concern with these philosophies is not, however, that they are fairy-tales, that they are unrealistic descriptions of science. Basing his ideas on John Stuart Mill’s liberalism, his major concern is that if we apply these philosophies, they will stifle the diversity within science and interfere with the individual scientist’s autonomy. Feyerabend thus wants to transform science and our descriptions of science to better accommodate diversity.

197 Feyerabend’s aim however is not merely to transform science or our philosophies of science. He wants to transform society itself. So our second sub-question is ‘Why does Feyerabend want to transform society?’. I aimed at answering this question in chapter 3.

Ø In chapter 3, I argued that Feyerabend’s primary concern is not scientific practice but rather science’s role in society. I claimed that Feyerabend believes that science dominates western democracies, and this domination suppresses individual freedom and variety. I argued that like Mill, Feyerabend wants to encourage greater autonomy and liberty in society by preventing collective opinion from being imposed on individuals.

Feyerabend believes that we can transform society by creating an ideologically neutral, free society. In this society, no choices, no opinions are allowed to dominate. Citizens must be able to choose impartially from the equal traditions in society. He also believes that we need to democratise science itself. Citizens should be able to choose which scientific theories they subscribe to. Lastly, Feyerabend claims that to ensure that decisions are made freely, we must divorce education from any ideology, any tradition.

Feyerabend wants to transform society because he believes that a dominance of any ideas interferes with individual liberty and diversity. This leads to the next sub-question, ‘How can we evaluate Feyerabend’s attempt to transform society, so far?’. I aimed at answering this question in chapter 4.

Ø In chapter 4, I explained the significance of Feyerabend’s emphasis on diversity by referring to postmodern criticisms of ‘oneness’ and multicultural solutions to the politics of difference. I argued that Feyerabend contributed to the politics of difference by demonstrating that

198 science’s dominance could interfere with diversity and we would need to guard against this dominance suppressing non-scientific alternatives.

I claimed, however, that this does not mean that I agreed with his solutions to accommodating difference. I pointed out that science should have a privileged, not a dominant, position in society. I also claimed that Feyerabend’s understanding of methodology interferes with his understanding of science and the autonomy of scientists. I pointed out that Feyerabend’s condemnation of methodology implied a condemnation of philosophy for which we had not yet found an explanation, and which I claimed would problematise his emphasis on diversity.

Feyerabend’s discomfort with philosophy led to our next sub-question, ‘Why does Feyerabend condemn philosophy?’. I aimed at answering this question in chapter 5.

Ø In chapter 5, I argued that Feyerabend does not merely condemn specific philosophies of science, or even the whole programme of the philosophy of science. I argued that he condemns the whole programme of philosophy. I demonstrated how Feyerabend draws a distinction between the abstract approach of philosophy and the concrete world. Feyerabend claims that the abstract nature of philosophy makes this discipline both unrealistic and damaging because it suppresses diversity. It is unrealistic because it smoothes over difference in its descriptions and it is damaging because, if applied, it suppresses the complexity and richness in our lives.

I claimed that Feyerabend’s distinction between the abstract and the concrete helped us to better understand his criticism of the philosophy of science and his free society. Philosophies of science are problematic because they translate the richness of scientific practice to abstract terms, denying the complexity of science. And I claimed that philosophy is

199 inherently at odds with Feyerabend’s free society because it is based on the ideals of abstract knowledge: promoting the ideas that only an elite few have access to knowledge, and should make decisions for everyone else.

Once we had revealed why Feyerabend wants to transform science and society, why he condemns philosophy, and why his work is valuable, we could finally answer the main question guiding this dissertation, ‘Does Feyerabend succeed in his attempt to transform society to better accommodate diversity?’. In chapter 6, I aimed at answering this question.

Ø In chapter 6, I argued that there are two major problems with Feyerabend’s attempts to accommodate diversity. Firstly, I claimed that his free society was infeasible. It is based on a problematic distinction between the individual and ideology, based on his distinction between the concrete and the abstract. I argued that communicative democracy will provide a better political and social solution to accommodating diversity.

Secondly, I criticised Feyerabend’s understanding of philosophy. I argued that if we examine Plato’s Republic and Feyerabend’s own interpretation of his work, we will find that instead of philosophy suppressing diversity, Feyerabend’s interpretation of philosophical texts are oversimplifications. I also argued that philosophy is transforming itself to better accommodate diversity by providing a vehicle for differing voices and by taking itself less seriously.

Ironically, Feyerabend’s lack of sensitivity for the complex ideas that he discusses such as philosophy, society, the abstract, the concrete, the individual, and ideology, undermine his attempts to better accommodate diversity. By accomplishing my aim of analysing and critically evaluating Feyerabend's attempt to transform science, politics and philosophy to better accommodate diversity,

200 this dissertation has answered ‘no’ to the question, ‘Does Feyerabend succeed in his attempt to transform society to better accommodate diversity?’.

I believe that a pertinent objection to this conclusion is that perhaps I am making the same mistake as Feyerabend. I have demonstrated how rich and diverse Republic is. I have argued that there are a multitude of interpretations inspired by philosophical texts. Surely, Feyerabend’s texts are multifaceted? Surely, I cannot claim that my interpretation and conclusion are the only ways in which we can interpret Feyerabend’s attempts to accommodate difference? I agree. Feyerabend’s texts are multifaceted and the conclusion that I draw is only one side of the story. In the spirit of accommodating complexity and diversity, let us examine how we can interpret Feyerabend differently.

201

Complexifying Feyerabend

If Feyerabend could have read this dissertation, he would probably have disagreed with much of what I have claimed. The most likely reason that he would disagree is because he does not seem to agree with any reviews or criticisms of his texts. More magnanimously, I will admit that he could find plenty of evidence from his texts for disagreement.

In his criticism of Kuhn, W. H. Newton-Smith claims that there are two Thomas Kuhns, two major and contradictory ideas in his work: one denies the rationality of science; the other upholds it (Newton-Smith 1981: 124). I would say that there are several Feyerabends.

Feyerabend’s work has many texts and many sub-texts. This does not mean that we can read Feyerabend in any way that we choose. The text and sub-text provide us with a basis for interpretation. If we ignore this basis, our interpretations will fail. However, if we use this basis we can still come up with different, even contradictory, interpretations of the same work that is substantiated by the text.

We could, for example, argue that Feyerabend is not condemning all philosophy. And we would find evidence for this in his texts: “Are there better philosophies?…There are such philosophies” (Feyerabend 1987: 15). We could also argue that there is less of a distinction between Feyerabend’s free society and communicative or deliberative democracy than I have recognised. And we would find evidence for this in his texts. Feyerabend claims that his free society is based on democratic relativism and it is democratic “because basic assumptions are (in principle) debated and decided on by all citizens” (Feyerabend 1987: 59). This sounds a lot like deliberative democracy. For the many ideas in

202 Feyerabend’s texts that I have identified there are probably as many others that I have not highlighted, even some that contradict my claims.

We could even argue that Feyerabend is part of the transformation in philosophy that I identified. I claimed that many philosophies are accommodating diversity better by, firstly, providing an opportunity for those who have been marginalised in the past to express themselves. Secondly, I claimed that philosophy is taking itself less seriously, and thus it does not necessarily make exaggerated claims to absolute universality. Perhaps we could even argue that Feyerabend has come to the same conclusion about philosophy as I have.

1. Philosophy as a vehicle for difference We could argue that although at times Feyerabend may exaggerate his condemnation of philosophy, he is really only criticising certain inhibiting philosophies, and is trying to encourage us to recognise diversity better within philosophy. We could claim that he is encouraging us not to reject philosophy, but to open it up: to allow for a greater diversity of thought and debate.

In fact, never mind what Feyerabend’s actual intentions are, his philosophy can be seen as a vehicle for promoting diversity. It promotes the importance of diversity; it promotes the diversity within science; it promotes alternatives to scientific and western choices and values. Feyerabend provides us with some radically different perspectives on science, society and philosophy, and no matter whether or not his perspectives are right or wrong, they are, at least, challenging us to question certain established ideas and providing us with alternatives to these ideas. Philosophy, as Munévar argues, “can well afford bold thinkers” (Munévar 1991b: 197).

2. ‘Lighter’ philosophy We could also argue that Feyerabend has been instrumental in breaking down the ‘weightiness’ of philosophy. We could argue that Feyerabend is not

203 condemning philosophy in general, but only philosophy that takes itself too seriously, philosophy that believes it is the ‘truth about everything’. In arguing against universal principles, we could claim that Feyerabend wants philosophy to recognise that it is contextual, that it is not removed from human circumstance. Feyerabend could be seen as promoting a ‘lighter’ form of philosophy. Commenting on some of his critics, Feyerabend claims:

poor things, they have the worst of all possible worlds. They are neither ‘relevant’ nor do they have any fun. Small wonder they are upset at somebody who does. Feyerabend 1978: 209

My admission that we can read Feyerabend’s texts in a number of ways does not mean that I now want to negate everything that I have argued in this dissertation nor does this mean that I disagree with the conclusions that I have drawn. My interpretation of Feyerabend’s texts is well-substantiated by those texts. I would even go as far as claiming that they are well-substantiated by the majority of ideas in each text I have analysed. My purpose in elucidating these varying ideas is actually far less generous: my purpose is to reinforce my argument and my conclusion.

I believe that the recognition and respect of diversity is important. I believe that we need to strive towards accommodating diversity better. And in the spirit of striving towards recognising and accommodating complexity, richness and diversity, I believe that we should recognise the complexity of philosophers’ texts, even when they do not provide us with successful answers to the challenging questions they have inspired.

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