Yes, though it was a fairly strong claim based on the cited evidence, which was his demonstration that all the principles of the so-called scientific method have been violated at various times in the course of important scientific discoveries. By analogy one might show that all laws have been broken at some time in the course of acting morally - for example a person may have been murdered in circumstances that most people would agree were morally warranted. Yet demonstrating such a thing would not lead inevitably to the conclusion that we should embrace legal anarchy - no laws at all. Rather we might conclude that laws are good guidelines most of the time, just that we need sometimes to exercise our judgement as to circumstances in which we might feel compelled to break them. So falsifiability for instance is a good rule of thumb to assess scientific theories, but there may be cases in which we don't invoke it. For example, we mostly consider Drake's equation a worthwhile way of assessing the probability of life arising in the universe, but I'm not sure it's "falsifiable". I think Feyerabend's arguments were valuable to counter excessive rigidity in scientific thinking and method, but "epistemological anarchism" should be regarded as a rhetorical flourish.
On Monday, June 17, 2019 at 7:18:09 PM UTC+10, Philip Thrift wrote: > > > > Epistemological anarchism is an epistemological theory advanced by > Austrian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend which holds that there are > no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of > science or the growth of knowledge. It holds that the idea of the operation > of science by fixed, universal rules is unrealistic, pernicious, and > detrimental to science itself. > > The use of the term anarchism in the name reflected the methodological > pluralism prescription of the theory, as the purported scientific method > does not have a monopoly on truth or useful results. Feyerabend once > famously said that because there is no fixed scientific method, it is best > to have an "anything goes" attitude toward methodologies. Feyerabend felt > that science started as a liberating movement, but over time it had become > increasingly dogmatic and rigid, and therefore had become increasingly an > ideology and despite its successes science had started to attain some > oppressive features and it was not possible to come up with an unambiguous > way to distinguish science from religion, magic, or mythology. He felt the > exclusive dominance of science as a means of directing society was > authoritarian and ungrounded. > > continues at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemological_anarchism > > @philipthrift > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/ffff643c-cae4-4407-9012-1feb8ecbece8%40googlegroups.com.
