Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994) is perhaps best knownfor his radical critique of science, despite having once been a prominent proponent of “eliminative materialism" (the doctrine that reduces reality to the material entities postulated by scientific theory, denying even self-consciousness). His subsequent “epistemological anarchism" had two aspects. On the one hand, he argued that science was just one way of conceiving reality that could not be shown to have any more validity than any other world view or cosmogony, which leads to a kind of “ontological anarchism" (see in particular Feyerabend's Farewell to Reason, London:
Verso/New Left Books, 1987). On the other hand, he argued that with respect to the scientific method adopted to prove a new scientific theory that was incompatible with preceding theories, ""anything goes."" This ""methodological"" anarchism has been denounced by some people as some kind of moral relativism. Feyerabend's point was that scientific theorists cannot be bound by the rules or laws of the old science because it is precisely the old science that they seek to overturn. Despite Feyerabend's philosophical radicalism, politically he was more of a liberal than an anarchist, drawing on John Stuart Mills defence offreedom of expression in support of tolerance of opposing points of view (for example, in Science in a Free Society, London: New Left Books, 1978)). Feyerabend had only a superficial acquaintance with anarchist ideas and associated anarchism with violence, revealing the degree to which his political views remained well within conventional boundaries. Like Bakunin (Volume 1, Selection 24), Feyerabend opposed ""government of science,"" but instead of seeking the abolition of the state and other authoritarian institutions, merely calledfor their separation. However, his rejection of ""universal ideas such as "Truth,' "Reason,' "Justice,' "Love'"" echoes Max Stirner's denunciation of such concepts as ""spooks"" or ""wheels in the head"" that are used to dominate the individual (Volume 1, Selection 11). The following excerpts are taken from Feyerabend's Against Method: Outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge (London: Verso, 1975), reprinted with the kind permission of the publisher.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL ANARCHISM DIFFERS BOTH from skepticism and from political (religious) anarchism. While the skeptic either regards every view as equally good, or as equally bad, or desists from making such judgments altogether, the epistemological anarchist has no compunction to defend the most trite, or the most outrageous statement. While the political or the religious anarchist wants to remove a certain form oflife, the epistemological anarchist may want to defend it, for he has no everlasting loyalty to, and no everlasting aversion against, any institution or any ideology. Like the Dadaist, whom he resembles much more than he resembles the political anarchist, he ‘not only has no programme, [is] against all programmes’ [Hans Richter, Dada: Art and Anti-Art], though he will on occasion be the most vociferous defender of the status quo, or of his opponents: ‘to be a true Dadaist, one must also be an anti-Dadaist.’ His aims remain stable, or change as a result of argument, or of boredom, or of a conversion experience, or to impress a mistress, and so on. Given some aim, he may try to approach it with the help of organized groups, or alone; he may use reason, emotion, ridicule, an ‘attitude of serious concern’ and whatever other means have been invented by humans to get the better of their fellow men. His favourite pastime is to confuse rationalists by inventing compelling reasons for unreasonable doctrines. There is no view, however ‘absurd’ or ‘immoral,’ he refuses to consider or to act upon, and no method is regarded as indispensable. The one thing he opposes positively and absolutely are universal standards, universal laws, universal ideas such as ‘Truth,’ ‘Reason,’ ‘Justice,’ ‘Love’ and the behaviour they bring along, though he does not deny that it is often good policy to act as if such laws (such standards, such ideas) existed, and as if he believed in them. He may approach the religious anarchist in his opposition to science and the material world, he may outdo any Nobel Prize winner in his vigorous defence of scientific purity. He has no objection to regarding the fabric of the world as described by science and revealed by his senses as a chimera that either conceals a deeper and, perhaps, spiritual reality, or as a mere web of dreams that reveals, and conceals, nothing...
‘The realization that reason and anti-reason, sense and nonsense, design and chance, consciousness and unconsciousness [I would add, humanitarianism and anti-humanitarianism] belong together as a necessary part of a whole—this was the central message of Dada,’ writes Hans Richter. The epistemological anarchist agrees, though he would not express himself in such a constipated manner...
The idea that science can, and should, be run according to fixed and universal rules, is both unrealistic and pernicious. It is unrealistic, for it takes too simple a view of the talents of man and of the circumstances which encourage, or cause, their development. And it is pernicious, for the attempt to enforce the rules is bound to increase our professional qualifications at the expense of our humanity. In addition, the idea is detrimental to science, for it neglects the complex physical and historical conditions which influence scientific change. It makes our science less adaptable and more dogmatic: every methodological rule is associated with cosmological assumptions, so that using the rule we take it for granted that the assumptions are correct. Naive falsificationism takes it for granted that the laws of nature are manifest and not hidden beneath disturbances of considerable magnitude. Empiricism takes it for granted that sense experience is a better mirror of the world than pure thought. Praise of argument takes it for granted that the artifices of Reason give better results than the unchecked play of our emotions. Such assumptions may be perfectly plausible and even true. Still, one should occasionally put them to a test. Putting them to a test means that we stop using the methodology associated with them, start doing science in a different way and see what happens. .. All methodologies have their limitations and the only ‘rule’ that survives is ‘anything goes’ ...
The rise of modern science coincides with the suppression of non-Western tribes by Western invaders. The tribes are not only physically suppressed, they also lose their intellectual independence and are forced to adopt the bloodthirsty religion of brotherly love—Christianity. The most intelligent members get an extra bonus: they are introduced into the mysteries of Western Rationalism and its peak—Western Science. Occasionally this leads to an almost unbearable tension with tradition (Haiti). In most cases the tradition disappears without the trace of an argument, one simply becomes a slave both in body and in mind. Today this development is gradually reversed—with great reluctance, to be sure, but it is reversed. Freedom is regained, old traditions are rediscovered, both among the minorities in Western countries and among large populations in non-Western continents. But science still reigns supreme. It reigns supreme because its practitioners are unable to understand, and unwilling to condone, different ideologies, because they have the power to enforce their wishes, and because they use this power just as their ancestors used their power to force Christianity on the peoples they encountered during their conquests. Thus, while an American can now choose the religion he likes, he is still not permitted to demand that his children learn magic rather than science at school. There is a separation between state and church, there is no separation between state and science.
And yet science has no greater authority than any other form oflife. Its aims are certainly not more important than are the aims that guide the lives in a religious community or in a tribe that is united by a myth. At any rate, they have no business restricting the lives, the thoughts, the education of the members of a free society where everyone should have a chance to make up his own mind and to live in accordance with the social beliefs he finds most acceptable. The separation between state and church must therefore be complemented by the separation between state and science.
We need not fear that such a separation will lead to a breakdown of technology. There will always be people who prefer being scientists to being the masters of their fate and who gladly submit to the meanest kind of (intellectual and institutional) slavery provided they are paid well and provided also there are some people around who examine their work and sing their praise. Greece developed and progressed because it could rely on the services of unwilling slaves. We shall develop and progress with the help ofthe numerous willing slaves in universities and laboratories who provide us with pills, gas, electricity, atom bombs, frozen dinners and, occasionally, with a few interesting fairy-tales. We shall treat these slaves well, we shall even listen to them, for they have occasionally some interesting stories to tell, but we shall not permit them to impose their ideology on our children in the guise of ‘progressive’ theories of education. We shall not permit them to teach the fancies of science as if they were the only factual statements in existence. This separation of science and state may be our only chance to overcome the hectic barbarism of our scientific-technical age and to achieve a humanity we are capable of but have never fully realized...
The image of20th century science in the minds of scientists and laymen is determined by technological miracles such as colour television, the moon shots, the infra-red oven, as well as by a somewhat vague but still quite influential rumour, or fairy-tale, concerning the manner in which these miracles are produced.
According to the fairy-tale the success of science is the result of a subtle, but carefully balanced combination of inventiveness and control. Scientists have ideas. And they 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.
The fairy-tale explains why modern society treats science in a special way and why it grants it privileges not enjoyed by other institutions...
State and science... work closely together. Immense sums are spent on the improvement of scientific ideas. Bastard subjects such as the philosophy of science which have not a single discovery to their credit profit from the boom of the sciences. Even human relations are dealt with in a scientific manner, as is shown by education programs, proposals for prison reform, army training, and so on. Almost all scientific subjects are compulsory subjects in our schools. While the parents of a six year old child can decide to have him instructed in the rudiments of Protestantism. or in the rudiments of theJewish faith, or to omit religious instruction altogether, they do not have a similar freedom in the case of the sciences. Physics, astronomy, history must be learned. They cannot be replaced by magic, astrOiOg"y", or by a study of Iegefj(.1s.
Nor is one content with a merely historical presentation of physical (astronomical, historical, etc.) facts and principles. One does not say: some people believe that the earth moves round the sun while others regard the earth as a hollow sphere that contains the sun, the planets, the fixed stars. One says: the earth moves round the sun—everything else is sheer idiocy...
Even bold and revolutionary thinkers bow to the judgment of science. Kropotkin wants to break up all existing institutions—but he does not touch science. Ibsen goes very far in unmasking the conditions of contemporary humanity—but he still retains science as a measure ofthe truth. Evans-Pritchard, Levi-Strauss and others have recognized that ‘Western Thought,’ far from being a lonely peak of human development, is troubled by problems not found in other ideologies—but they exclude science from their relativization of all forms of thought. Even for them science is a neutral structure containing positive knowledge that is independent of culture, ideology, prejudice.
The reason for this special treatment of science is, of course, our little fairy-tale: if science has found a method that turns ideologically contaminated ideas into true and useful theories, then it is indeed not mere ideology, but an objective measure of all ideologies. It is then not subjected to the demand for a separation between state and ideology.
But the fairy-tale is false... There is no special method that guarantees success or makes it probable. Scientists do not solve problems because they possess a magic wand—methodology, or a theory of rationality—but because they have studied a problem for a long time, because they know the situation fairly well, because they are not too dumb (though that is rather doubtful nowadays when almost anyone can become a scientist), and because the excesses of one scientific school are almost always balanced by the excesses of some other school. (Besides, scientists only rarely solve their problems, they make lots of mistakes, and many of their solutions are quite useless.) Basically there is hardly any difference between the process that leads to the announcement of a new scientific law and the process preceding passage of a new law in society: one informs either all citizens or those immediately concerned, one collects ‘facts’ and prejudices, one discusses the matter, and one finally votes. But while a democracy makes some effort to explain the process so that everyone can understand it, scientists either conceal it, or bend it, to make it fit their sectarian interests.
No scientist will admit that voting plays a role in his subject. Facts, logic, and methodology alone decide—this is what the fairy-tale tells us. But how do facts decide? What is their function in the advancement of knowledge? We cannot derive our theories from them. We cannot give a negative criterion by saying, for example, that good theories are theories which can be refuted, but which are not yet contradicted by any fact. A principle of falsification that removes theories because they do not fiit the facts would have to remove the whole of science (or it would have to admit that large parts of science are irrefutable). The hint that a good theory explains more than its rivals is not very realistic either. True: new theories often predict new things—but almost always at the expense of things already known. Turning to logic we realize that even the simplest demands are not satisfiied in scientific practice, and could not be satisfied, because of the complexity of the material. The ideas which scientists use to present the known and to advance into the unknown are only rarely in agreement with the strict injunctions of logic or pure mathematics and the attempt to make them conform would rob science of the elasticity without which progress cannot be achieved. We see: facts alone are not strong enough for making us accept, or reject, scientifiic theories, the range they leave to thought is too wide; logic and methodology eliminate too much, they are too narrow. In between these two extremes lies the ever-changing domain of human ideas and wishes. And a more detailed analysis of successful moves in the game of science (‘successful’ from the point of view of the scientists themselves) shows indeed that there is a wide range of freedom that demands a multiplicity of ideas and permits the application of democratic procedures (ballot-discussion-vote) but that is actually closed by power politics and propaganda. This is where the fairy-tale ofa special method assumes its decisive function. It conceals the freedom of decision which creative scientists and the general public have even inside the most rigid and the most advanced parts of science by a recitation of ‘ objective’ criteria and it thus protects the big-shots (Nobel Prize winners; heads of laboratories, of organizations such as the AMA, of special schools; ‘educators’; etc.) from the masses (laymen; experts in non-scientific fields; experts in other fields of science): only those citizens count who were subjected to the pressures of scientific institutions (they have undergone a long process of education), who succumbed to these pressures (they have passed their examinations), and who are now firmly convinced of the truth of the fairy-tale. This is how scientists have deceived themselves and everyone else about their business, but without any real disadvantage: they have more money, more authority, more sex appeal than they deserve, and the most stupid procedures and the most laughable results in their domain are surrounded with an aura of excellence. It is time to cut them down in size, and to give them a more modest position in society.
This advice, which only few of our well-conditioned contemporaries are prepared to accept, seems to dash witli certain simple and wideiy-known facts.
Is it not a fact that a learned physician is better equipped to diagnose and to cure an illness than a layman or the medicine-man of a primitive society? Is it not a fact that epidemics and dangerous individual diseases have disappeared only with the beginning of modern medicine? Must we not admit that technology has made tremendous advances since the rise of modern science? And are not the moon-shots a most impressive and undeniable proof of its excellence? These are some of the questions which are thrown at the impudent wretch who dares to criticize the special position of the sciences.
The questions reach their polemical aim only if one assumes that the results of science which no one will deny have arisen without any help from non-scientific elements, and that they cannot be improved by an admixture of such elements either. ‘Unscientific’ procedures such as the herbal lore of witches and cunning men, the astronomy of mystics, the treatment of the ill in primitive societies, are totally without merit. Science alone gives us a useful astronomy, an effective medicine, a trustworthy technology. One must also assume that science owes its success to the correct method and not merely to a lucky accident. It was not a fortunate cosmological guess that led to progress, but the correct and cosmologically neutral handling of data. These are the assumptions we must make to give the questions the polemical force they are supposed to have. Not a single one of them stands up to closer examination.
Modern astronomy started with the attempt of Copernicus to adapt the old ideas of Philolaos to the needs of astronomical predictions. Philolaos was not a precise scientist, he was a muddleheaded Pythagorean... the consequences of his doctrine were called ‘incredibly ridiculous’ by a professional astronomer such as Ptolemy. Even Galileo, who had the much improved Copernican version of Philolaos before him, says: ‘There is no limit to my astonishment when I reflect that Aristarchus and Copernicus were able to make reason to conquer sense that, in defiance of the latter, the former became mistress of their belief (Dialogue, 328). ‘Sense’ here refers to the experiences which Aristotle and others had used to show that the earth must be at rest. The ‘reason’ which Copernicus opposes to their arguments is the very mystical reason of Philo laos combined with an equally mystical faith (‘mystical’ from the point of view of today’s rationalists) in the fundamental character of circular motion... modern astronomy and modern dynamics could not have advanced without this unscientific use of antediluvian ideas...
Of course—not every mixture of scientific and non-scientific elements is successful (example: Lysenko). But science is not always successful either. If mixtures are to be avoided because they occasionally misfire, then pure science (if there is such a thing) must be avoided as well. (It is not the interference of the state that is objectionable in the Lysenko case, but the totalitarian interference that kills the opponent instead of letting him go his own way.)
Combining this observation with the insight that science has no special method, we arrive at the result that the separation of science and non-science is not only artificial but also detrimental to the advancement of knowledge. If we want to understand nature, if we want to master our physical surroundings, then we must use all ideas, all methods, and not just a small selection of them. The assertion, however, that there is no knowledge outside science... is nothing but another and most convenient fairy-tale. Primitive tribes have more detailed classifications of animals and plants than contemporary scientifiic zoology and botany, they know remedies whose effectiveness astounds physicians (while the pharmaceutical industry already smells here a new source of income), they have means of influencing their fellow men which science for a long time regarded as non-existent (Voodoo), they solve difficult problems in ways which are still not quite understood (building of the pyramids; Polynesian travels), there existed a highly developed and internationally known astronomy in the old Stone Age, this astronomy was factually adequate as well as emotionally satisfying, it solved both physical and social problems (one cannot say the same about modern astronomy) and it was tested in very simple and ingenious ways (stone observatories in England and in the South Pacific; astronomical schools in Polynesia...). There was the domestication of animals, the invention of rotating agriculture, new types of plants were bred and kept pure by careful avoidance of cross fertilization, we have chemical inventions, we have a most amazing art that can compare with the best achievements of the present. True, there were no collective excursions to the moon, but single individuals, disregarding great dangers to their soul and their sanity, rose from sphere to sphere to sphere until they finally faced God himself in all His splendour while others changed into animals and back into humans again. At all times man approached his surroundings with wide open senses and a fertile intelligence, at all times he made incredible discoveries, at all times we can learn from his ideas.
Modern science, on the other hand, is not at all as difficult and as perfect as scientific propaganda wants us to believe. A subject such as medicine, or physics, or biology appears difficult only because it is taught badly, because the standard instructions are full of redundant material, and because they start too late in life. During the war, when the American Army needed physicians within a very short time, it was suddenly possible to reduce medica! instruction to half a year (Ihe corresponding instruction manuals have disappeared long ago, however. Science may be simplified during the war. In peacetime the prestige of science demands greater complication.) And how often does it not happen that the proud and conceited judgment of an expert is put in its proper place by a layman! Numerous inventors built ‘impossible’ machines. Lawyers show again and again that an expert does not know what he is talking about. Scientists, especially physicians, frequently come to different results so that it is up to the relatives of the sick person (or the inhabitants of a certain area) to decide by vote about the procedure to be adopted. How often is science improved, and turned into new directions by non-scientific influences! It is up to us, it is up to the citizens of a free society to either accept the chauvinism of science without contradiction or to overcome it by the counterforce of public action. Public action was used against science by the Communists in China in the fifties, and it was again used, under very different circumstances, by some opponents of evolution in
California in the seventies. Let us follow their example and let us free society from the strangling hold of an ideologically petrified science just as our ancestors freed us from the strangling hold of the One True Religion!
The way towards this aim is clear. A science that insists on possessing the only correct method and the only acceptable results is ideology and must be separated from the state, and especially from the process of education. One may teach it, but only to those who have decided to make this particular superstition their own. On the other hand, a science that has dropped such totalitarian pretensions is no longer independent and self-contained, and it can be taught in many different combinations (myth and modern cosmology might be one such combination). Of course, every business has the right to demand that its practitioners be prepared in a special way, and it may even demand acceptance of a certain ideology (I for one am against the thinning out of subjects so that they become more and more similar to each other; whoever does not like present-day Catholicism should leave it and become a Protestant, or an Atheist, instead of ruining it by such inane changes as mass in the vernacular). That is true of physics, just as it is true of religion, or of prostitution. But such special ideologies, such special skills have no room in the process of general education that prepares a citizen for his role in society. A mature citizen is not a man who has been instructed in a special ideology, such as Puritanism, or critical rationalism, 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. He is a person who has a certain mental toughness (he does not fall for the first ideological street singer he happens to meet) and who is therefore able consciously to choose the business that seems to be most attractive to him rather than being swallowed by it. To prepare himself for his choice he will study the major ideologies as historical phenomena, he will study science as a historical phenomenon and not as the one and only sensible way of approaching a problem. He will study it together with other fairy-tales such as the myths of ‘primitive’ societies so that he has the information needed for arriving at a free decision. An essential part of a general education of this kind is acquaintance with the most outstanding propagandists in all fields, so that the pupil can build up his resistance against all propaganda, including the propaganda called ‘argument.’ It is only after such a hardening procedure that he will be called upon to make up his mind on the issue rationalism - irrationalism, science-myth, science-religion, and so on. His decision in favour of science—assuming he chooses science—will then be much more ‘rational’ than any decision in favour of science is today. At any rate—science and the schools will be just as carefully separated as religion and the schools are separated today. Scientists will of course participate in governmental decisions, for everyone participates in such decisions. But they will not be given overriding authority. It is the vote of everyone concerned that decides fundamental issues such as the teaching methods used, or the truth of basic beliefs such as the theory of evolution, or the quantum theory, and not the authority ofbig-shots hiding behind a nonexisting methodology. There is no need to fear that such a way of arranging society wiII lead to undesirable results. Science itself uses the method of ballot, discussion, vote, though without a clear grasp of its mechanism, and in a heavily biased way. But the rationality of our beliefs will certainly be considerably increased.
World History
