Method anarchism

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Under the term method anarchism, Paul Feyerabend takes the view in epistemology that there are no universal, simple rules and methods that are equally valid for all areas of knowledge and can guarantee rationality. He therefore advocates a pluralistic, anarchistic science, in which no general law-and-order methodology should be imposed on the individual areas of knowledge from outside , but rather these should freely and autonomously determine the respectively accepted methods in their areas in order to find true and meaningful ones Get results.

In addition to the concept of incommensurability , Feyerabend justifies his view with detailed historical case studies, especially on Galileo Galilei. Scientific progress was only possible because scientists repeatedly violated the methodological rules of their time.

He counters fears that this anarchism could lead to chaos, that the human nervous system is too well organized to allow this to happen. This guarantees that uniform action can be achieved quickly even in underdetermined and ambiguous situations. This anarchism also allows there to be times when the ratio must be granted a temporary advantage and when it is appropriate to defend its rules against everything else.

criticism

What Feyerabend overlooks after David Miller is that the goal of methods is not at all the justification of a choice of theories or methods. Feyerabend is therefore correct insofar as the choice of a method cannot be justified, but he is wrong in assuming that they must therefore all be of equal importance. The choice of a method has objective consequences and can solve the problems that it is supposed to solve according to one's own standards better or worse, purely according to these standards. The method of trial and error, which tries nothing to justify, therefore works just as well in the selection of the method and can also be applied to itself. Performative contradictions do not arise because the goal is not self-justification, but self-criticism.

In fact, according to Miller, Feyerabend himself takes a similar position, but goes so far as to want to allow methods that go against logic and are therefore difficult to criticize and to sort out if they fail. This is where Feyerabend's method anarchism differs from the critical method pluralism of critical rationalism; Miller is of the opinion that Feyerabend has no real argument against logic and, in his own words, is a thief who steals logic and then criticizes the robbed for not having it anymore.

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  1. ^ Paul Feyerabend: Against Method : Outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge at marxists.org, accessed July 3, 2011
  2. ^ P. Feyerabend: Against Method. Page 22
  3. ^ Critical Rationalism , p. 27

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