Summary
Since its first appearance in 1975, this work has received much criticism and occasional enthusiastic praise. Undoubtedly, its exposure of the flaws in many ideas and rationales on knowledge, scientific research and methodology has sparked debate all over the world. Feyerabend’s main argument is against the claim that science is based on objective, rational, universally acceptable premises and proofs, arguing that scientific progress can only be understood in its historical context. His suggestion that anarchism could replace rationalism is made on the basis that rationalism is a bias in itself. His theory, known as epistemological anarchism, denies the existence of universally sound methodological rules, claiming that the so-called scientific method does not guarantee truth, verifiable results or credibility more than any other method. On the contrary, limiting scientific practice to rigid, universal rules is misleading, unrealistic and detrimental to science itself. Imposing a particular methodology, even Popper's falsification scheme or Kuhn's “normal science”--would restrict or even destroy it.
Feyerabend held that science has lost its liberating features as it has become an ideology, more and more dogmatic over time, and has acquired oppressive traits common to other forms of authoritarianism, such as religion or social mores. The arrogance of specialists and the hegemony of their evaluational criteria should not be forced on people in the name of a non-existent superiority. Just as the separation of state and religion guarantees freedom of choice, there should also be a separation of state and science. Western society today obliges people to consider the science an unquestionable authority, when it can plainly be seen that often many scientific opinions differ widely.
To the common accusation that he was “anti-science”, the author replied by defining his refusal of methodology to be strikingly pro-science. Rather than a method, he says, “You need a toolbox full of different kinds of tools. Not only a hammer and pins and nothing else." That is perhaps what he intended by his much maligned and misinterpreted quote: “Anything goes.” He goes on to admit that he tends to go to extremes, but not to the extremes he is accused of, of wanting to throw out science. What he wants to throw out, he clarifies, is the idea that “science is first. That's all right. It has to be science from case to case."
To support his position that methodological rules generally do not contribute to scientific success, Feyerabend analyzed examples of what are universally accepted to be important instances of scientific progress, such as Galileo and Copernican heliocentrism, and demonstrated that the presentation of these ideas invariably violated “good practice” of scientific protocols in the context of those historical situations, and included generous doses of ad hoc hypotheses, rhetoric and propaganda.
Pointing out, however, that ad hoc hypothesizing may well be an intuitive manner of progressing in scientific thought, Feyerabend was also critical of falsificationism, which disctates that scientific theories should be rejected if they are not consistent with known facts, arguing that that no interesting theory can ever be consistent with all the relevant facts. “Renormalization” in quantum mechanics was given as an example of an ad hoc solution: "This procedure consists in crossing out the results of certain calculations and replacing them by a description of what is actually observed. Thus one admits, implicitly, that the theory is in trouble while formulating it in a manner suggesting that a new principle has been discovered".
Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
He singled out what is called “the consistency criterion” as a particularly misleading manner of evaluating scientific theories. Demanding that new theories be consistent with previous theories gives an unreasonable advantage to the older ones. Logically, as he pointed out, compatibility with an older theory does not make a new perspective any more valid. On the other hand, the succession of universal models, beginning from Aristotle, through Newton, to Einstein, where each preceding model of reality has been refuted by a newer theory, shows that scientific theories are partially cultural products, rather than objective illustrations of the “truth”. He drew a parallel to the way in which myths give way to newer adaptations or transformations throughout changing civilizations.He also noted that scientific success is often achieved by taking knowledge from from unscientific sources of many kinds. The common claim that there is no knowledge outside science is a “fairy-tale” used to inflate the prestige of scientific instituions.
Feyerabend thought that a pluralistic society should be protected from being influenced too much by science, just as it is protected from other ideologies. Beneath Feyerabend's provocative and sometime outrageous statements runs a very serious argument: the human compulsion to seek absolute truths, however noble it may be, often leads to tyranny. Feyerabend’s attack on science implicitly recognized – and feared -- the vast power wielded by this kind of knowledge. His epistemological objections to science were moral, political and humanitarian, knowing that it can easily become a totalitarian force that crushes all its rivals.
“The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education”.
