In Philosophy of Science, I had nice things to say about Feyerabend, as that’s who we’re covering this week. The question to answer was basically about ‘the value of scientific authority’ and a few people liked my answer, which is part of a weekly discussion. (it’s a little thicker than I normally write)
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I tend to think of guidelines, rather than rules. The guideline has breathing room built into it but a rule may or may not.
I like science and I would not want a world without it and its methods. I would go so far asked to say that a science has to earn its authority through its methods. The methods don’t have to be identical every time or even within the same truth inquiry. What I mean is how you get there can take a lot of roads and each of those roads might not even be roads. But be clear and transparent with what you’re doing and have some rigor.
However, I don’t think there’s anything sacred about the ways that science leads to truths. There are many meaning systems other than the sciences such as ethical and cultural and spiritual meaning that each have their own ways. There’s many ways of knowing. So in that, I am certainly a pluralist. You simply might not be able to analyze ethics with the sciences or spirituality with culture. They may be incommensurable.
Feyerabend’s epistemological anarchism is oddly appealing in the freedom that it allows. We don’t know what unexpected directions truths may come from and so ultimately there would need to be some kind of anarchism behind the scenes that can be called upon at the moment it’s needed in order to prevent stagnation or prevent rigor turning truths into dogmas.
The wonderful thing about anarchy and pluralism is their flexibilities allow for other ideas to rest on top with the plurality and the anarchism acting as a safety valve for those times that the methodology simply doesn’t work whatever it is. So you can enact a Lakatos-esque or a Popper-esque pursuit and by having it rest upon Feyerabend’s looser brand of ultimate processes, you can pivot or abandon if needed for it may be the prudent direction at that junction. Without it, there may always be much that might be forever out of reach of the sciences – out of reach if rejected by investigation or interpretative methodology.
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