Paul K. Feyerabend

Materialism and the mind—body problem

This paper has a twofold purpose. First, it defends materialism against a certain type of attack which seems to be based upon a truism but which is nevertheless completely off the mark. And secondly it intends to put philosophy in its proper place. It occurs only too often that attempts to arrive at a coherent picture of the world are held up by philosophical bickering and are perhaps even given up before they can show their merits. It seems to me that those who originate such attempts ought to be a little less afraid of difficulties; that they ought to look through the arguments which are presented against them; and that they ought to recognise their irrelevance. Having disregarded irrelevant objections they ought then to proceed to the much more rewarding task of developing their point of view in detail, to examine its fruitfulness and thereby to get fresh insight, not only into some generalities, but into very concrete and detailed processes. To encourage such development from the abstract to the concrete, to contribute to the invention of further ideas, this is the proper task of a philosophy which aspires to be more than a hindrance to progress.

On the Critique of Scientific Reason

The historical studies which have been carried out and are being carried out with the help of the methodology of research programmes define two types of relation between research programmes and the evidence. Let me call these types type A and type L respectively. They examine episodes where one research programme R″ replaces another research programme, R′ (or fails to be replaced by it), i.e. R′ is made the basis of research, argument, metaphysical speculation by the great majority of competent scientists. The authors find that the relation of R″ to the evidence is usually of type L while that of R′ to the evidence is of type A (other circumstances being present when this is not the case). Assuming their historical analysis to be correct this is an interesting sociological law. The authors do not present their results in such terms, however. Making A and L part of a normative methodology they claims to have shown that the acceptance of R″ was rational while the continued defence of R′ would have been irrational, and they express this belief of theirs by calling research programmes exhibiting relation L to the evidence progressive while research programmes which stand in relation A to the evidence are called degenerating. They also claim that such judgements are objective, independent of the whims and subjective convictions of the thinkers who make them. Using such a normative interpretation of their sociological results they also claim to possess arguments for and against well known research programmes. For example, they would say that today most versions of environmentalism degenerate and that it is irrational to continue working on them. Fortunately this puritanical superstructure of the otherwise excellent sociological studies need not be taken seriously. The reason is that the superstructure is arbitrary, or ‘subjective’ in at least five different ways. (1) the basic philosophy behind the normative apprisals makes modern science the source of the standards without giving reasons for the choice; (2) despite all its praise for modern science the methodology of research programmes uses a streamlined version of it without (a) making the principles of streamlining explicit and without (b) arguing for them; (3) the standards that are obtained via the arbitrary steps (1) and (2) are not strong enough to praise any action as ‘rational’ or condemn it as ‘irrational’ which means that such judgements are without support from the arbitrarily selected standards; (4) in some of the studies research programmes are selected in an idiosyncratic manner, the purpose being to make the general philosophy appear true (not that such truth would be of much use — see (3)); (5) the attempt to show that competent scientists always acted ‘rationally’ is not applied to all scientists but only to those whose actions seem to fit into the general methodology (for ‘seem’ see again item (3)). The superstructure of rationality which is subjective in the five ways just enumerated is supposed to guide scientists while the case studies are to show that the guide has substance — he is not merely a philosopher indulging in abstract dreams of law and order. The alleged substantiality is moonshine and one can reject the standards just as arbitrarily as they have been introduced. In sum: in the case studies we have (a) the discussion of certain sociological regularities; (b) the proposal of arbitrary standards which have no practical force; (c) the insinuation that the regularities are not merely factual, but are features of rationality, that they lend support to the standards and are justified by them, (a) may be accepted with the caution we extend to any new ‘discovery’ in sociology, (c) must be rejected (and with it the tendentious terminology used in all the case studies), (b) may be accepted, or rejected, depending on mood, the weather etc. Environmentalists, however, may continue on their path, for no argument has been raised against their enterprise.

Mach's theory of research and its relation to Einstein

RECENTLY, the network of interactions around the ‘philosopher-scientist’ Ernst Mach and especially his contested influence on Einstein have acquired new interest on account of several studies in which a revision of the ‘received versions’ concerning the “Mach Einstein episode” has been attempted.* Paul K. Feyerabend has proposed among some “lessons to be learned” that “one cannot trust received opinions or received versions of great turning points of science” ,3 and started his program of elimination of ‘incorrect’, and ‘simpleminded’ legends in the history of science with a new reconstruction of the “battle about Mach and positivism: a net of confusions.“J (1) Even if Feyerabend does not cite any of the papers in which such concocted “misunderstandings and oversights”5 take place, it is clear from the context that he is referring to studies of the so-called (neo-) positivists (for instance Petzoldt6 or Hering’) in which the influence of Mach on Einstein was regarded as a triumph of empiricism and an anti-metaphysical attitude in scientific affairs

Kuhns Struktur wissenschaftlicher Revolutionen — ein Trostbüchlein für Spezialisten?

In den Jahren 1960/1961, als Kuhn ein Mitglied der philosophischen Abteilung der Universitat Kalifornien in Berkeley war, hatte ich das Gluck, mit ihm uber verschiedene Aspekte der Wissenschaft Gesprache fuhren zu konnen. Ich habe von diesen Diskussionen eine Unmenge gelernt, und ich sehe die Wissenschaft seither in einem vollig neuen Licht.2) Aber wahrend ich Kuhns Probleme zu erkennen glaubte und wahrend ich versuchte, gewisse Aspekte der Wissenschaft zu verstehen, auf die er verwiesen hatte (Beispiel: die Allgegenwartigkeit von Anomalien), war es mir ganz unmoglich, die Wissenschaftstheorie zu akzeptieren, die er empfahl, und die allgemeine Ideologie, die meiner Ansicht nach den Hintergrund seiner Uberlegungen bildete, schien mir noch groseren Einwanden ausgesetzt. Diese Ideologie, so glaubte ich, war nichts anderes als eine Grundlage fur ein eingebildetes und kurzsichtiges Spezialistentum. Den Fortschritt des Wissens wurde sie hemmen, und sie wurde auch jene antihumanitaren Tendenzen starken, die ein so beunruhigender Zug des Grosteils der nachnewtonschen Naturwissenschaft sind.3) In allen diesen Punkten blieben meine Diskussionen mit Kuhn ergebnislos. Mehrmals unterbrach er eine lange Predigt von mir mit dem Hinweis, das ich ihn misverstanden hatte oder das unsere Ansichten einander naher stunden, als ich es hatte erscheinen lassen. Wenn ich nun heute an unsere damaligen Debatten zuruckdenke,4) so scheint es mir, das ich mit meinen Zweifeln nicht vollig im Irrtum war. Meine Ansicht wird erhartet durch den Umstand, das so gut wie alle Leser von Kuhns Struktur das Werk in ahnlicher Weise verstehen und das gewisse Tendenzen in der modernen Soziologie und Psychologie das Ergebnis genau dieser Interpretation sind. Ich hoffe also, das mir Kuhn verzeihen wird, wenn ich unsere alten Probleme wieder in Angriff nehme, und das er es mir nicht ubelnehmen wird, wenn ich mich in meinem Versuch zur Kurze gelegentlich etwas schroff ausdrucke.

On the Improvement of the Sciences and the Arts, and the Possible Identity of the Two

Specialization has always been a more or less pronounced feature of highly developed cultures. But while a specialist of earlier times was aware of the need to relate his results to more general principles, and while he was prepared to consider a criticism that would question the value of his enterprise as whole, the fact of specialization is now accentuated by the added demand for autonomy. Not only do we have many different fields; but these fields are anxious to protect their boundaries and they object to any outside interference. You all know how persistently scientists refuse to submit themselves to a metaphysical criticism, how eloquently artists demand to be given full freedom of self-expression, no matter what the results of such self-expression, or whether they are useful to anyone; and you may also have heard how carefully some modern theologicans try to redefine religion in order to avoid a clash with well-established results in other domains. Of course, not everyone persists on autonomy. But we are dealing here with tendencies, which in the last two or three centuries have become stronger and stronger and which decisively contribute to the shape of the institutions supporting the continued existence of our culture. Nor can it be overlooked that there exist today attempts to bridge the gulf that separates for example the sciences and the arts.

Knowledge and the Role of Theories

The world we live in contains an abundance of things, events, processes. There are trees, dogs, sunrises; there are clouds, thunderstorms, divorces; there is justice, beauty, love; there are the lives of people, gods, cities, of the entire universe. It is impossible to enumerate and to describe in detail all the incidents that happen to an individual in the course of a single boring day. Not everybody lives in the same world. The events that surround a forest ranger differ from the events that surround a city dweller lost in a wood. They are different events, not just different appearances of the same events. The differences become evident when we move to an alien culture or a distant historical period. The Greek gods were a living presence; ‘they were there’.’ Today they are nowhere to be found. ‘These people are farmers’, E. Smith-Bowen writes about an African tribe she visited;* ‘to them plants are as important and familiar as people. I’d never been on a farm and I am not even sure which are begonias, dahlias, or petunias. Plants, like Algebra, have a habit of looking alike and being different, or looking different and being alike; consequently mathematics and botany confuse me. For the first time in my life I found myself in a community where ten-year-old children weren’t my mathematical superiors. I also found myself in a place where every plant, wild or cultivated, had a name and use and where every man, woman and child literally knew hundreds of plants.. . [my instructor] simply could not realise that it was not the words but the plants that baffled me’. Bafflement increases when the objects encountered by the explorers are not just unfamiliar, but inaccessible to their ways of thinking. Inflectional languages posit things having properties and standing in certain relations to each other: snow whirls around in the wind, it lies on the

Democracy, Elitism, and Scientific Method

Scientific standards cannot be separated from the practice of science and their use presupposes immersion in this practice. The demand to base political action on scientific standards therefore leads to elitism. Democratic relativism, on the other hand, demands equal rights for all traditions or, conversely, a separation between the state and any one of the traditions it contains; for example, it demands the separation of state and science, state and humanitarianism, state and Christianity. Democratic relativism defends the rights of people to live as they see fit; it is also a most efficient means of probing traditions (such as ‘scientific’ medicine) that happen to be in the centre of attention: it has ethical as well as epistemological advantages.

Das Problem der Existenz theoretischer Entitäten

Man sagt, das Tische und Stuhle direkt beobachtbar sind, Atome, elektrische Felder, Photonen aber nicht. Was dabei gemeint ist, ist etwa das folgende: im Falle von Tischen und Stuhlen wird schnell und ohne weitere Uberlegung von der Wahrnehmung auf das Ding und seine Eigenschaften ubergegangen; der naive Rea lismus ist hier eine psychologische Wirklichkeit. Im Falle von Atomen, elektri schen Feldern und dergleichen ist aber ein solcher direkter Ubergang nicht mog lich. Wahrend ein Blick genugt, um festzustellen, ob der Tisch in meinem Buro braun ist, bedarf es komplizierter Mesgerate sowie der Verwertung der Ablesun gen an diesen Geraten auf Grund von physikalischen Theorien, wenn man fest stellen will, ob es da auch elektrische Felder gibt, wie stark sie sind und welche Eigenschaften sie besitzen. Diese Situation legt die folgende erste Erklarung des Unterschiedes zwischen Beobachtungsbegriffen und theoretischen Begriffen nahe: ein Begriff ist ein Beobachtungsbegriff, wenn man uber den Wahrheitswert eines singularen Satzes, der entweder nur diesen Begriff oder der ihn zusammen mit anderen Beobachtungsbegriffen enthalt, schnell und auf Grund von Wahrnehmun gen allein zu einer Entscheidung kommen kann, oder wenn man sich doch vor-stellen kann, das eines Tages eine Entscheidung dieser Art moglich sein wird (die Ruckseite des Mondes war beobachtbar in diesem Sinne selbst vor der Pub likation des ersten Bildes). Ein Begriff ist ein theoretischer Begriff, wenn zur Entscheidung des Wahrheitswertes eines singularen Satzes, der ihn enthalt, auser Beobachtungen auch noch Theorien notwendig sind. Kurz und ungenau: ein Beobachtungssatz wird akzeptiert (oder verworfen) durch bloses Hinschauen (Hinhoren usw.); ein theoretischer Satz wird akzeptiert oder verworfen durch Hinschauen und Denken (Rechnen).

Art as a Product of Nature as a Work of Art

Abstract Two claims are discussed. One is that works of art are a product of nature, no less than rocks and flowers. The other is that nature itself is an artifact, constructed by scientists and artisans, throughout centuries, from a partly yielding, partly resisting material of unknown properties. Since both claims are supported by convincing evidence, the world appears much more slippery than commonly assumed by rationalists. Intellectual generalizations around ‘art,’ ‘nature’ or ‘science’ are simplifying devices that can help us order the abundance that surrounds us. They should be understood as such—opportunistic tools, not final statements on the objective reality of the world.

Theoreticians, Artists and Artisans

The author discusses artists and scientists, comparing the similarities and differences of their activities and views. Providing examples of the ideas of philosophers through the ages, he uses various historical documents to support his analysis.