Decision-Based Epistemology: sketching a systematic framework of Feyerabend's metaphilosophy (original) (raw)
Related papers
Riffing on Feyerabend: Direct Observation, Paraconsistent Logic and a Research Immanent Account of the Rationality of Science, 2023
Feyerabend's work, particularly his early papers contain important insights into the nature of science and scientific progress. I discuss his insights into the limits of empiricist foundationalism and positivism. I explain how the work of a number of philosophers has borne out Feyerabend's claims in startling and interesting ways. Nevertheless, I criticise Feyerabend's move from his attack on universal method to relativism. I point out that Feyerabend never confronted a well-developed research immanent view of the rationality of scientific change, which shows the limitations of the arguments in Against Method.
Feyerabend's Reevaluation of Scientific Practice: Quantum Mechanics, Realism and Niels Bohr
2018
The aim of this paper is to give an account of the change in Feyerabend's (meta)philosophy that made him abandon methodological monism and embrace methodological pluralism. In this paper I offer an explanation in terms of a simple model of 'change of belief through evidence'. My main claim is that the evidence triggering this belief revision can be identified in Feyerabend's technical work in the interpretation of quantum mechanics, in particular his reevaluation of Bohr's contribution to it (1957-1964). This highlights an under-appreciated part of Feyerabend's early work and makes it central to an understanding of the dynamics in his overall philosophy of science.
https://thesis-journal.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Hajdin-Abazi.pdf, 2019
Feyerabend generally is known most for his discovery on the helpfulness of breaking rules when they become a hindrance and for the legitimacy of the counter-inductive approach as a way to make fundamental changes in science. But his view about the decontamination of old theories and the implantation of new theories‘ conception deserves equal recognition. And, of course, his alternative of open instead of closed exchange is invaluable as epistemological contribution. All this together make Feyerabend‘s viewpoint very distinct, especially to understand the need of openness as a condition to make easy the scientific development. Those three aspects constitute the originality of Feyerabend‘s contribution in the philosophy of science, which will be the focus of this paper. These novelties, as it will be argued, fill respective aspects where previously there were shortcomings, which made possible to clarify epistemologically the understanding and explanation, according to the practice, how the development of science and the growth of knowledge were attained (and as a consequence how they usually go). The approach of the treatise pursues the historical context and the theoretical articulation of Feyerabend‘s view, including some critical reflections. Keywords: legitimacy of counter-rules, open exchange, (de)contamination of evidence, scientific development, growth of knowledge, Feyerabend
The Epistemological Challenge to Metanormative Realism
Philosophical Studies, 2010
Metaethical-or, more generally, metanormative-realism faces a serious epistemological challenge. Realists owe us-very roughly speaking-an account of how it is that we can have epistemic access to the normative truths about which they are realists. This much is, it seems, uncontroversial among metaethicists, myself included. But this is as far as the agreement goes, for it is not clear-nor uncontroversial-how best to understand the challenge, what the best realist way of coping with it is, and how successful this attempt is. In this paper I try, first, to present the challenge in its strongest version, and second, to show how realistsindeed, robust realists-can cope with it. The strongest version of the challenge is, I argue, that of explaining the correlation between our normative beliefs and the independent normative truths. And I suggest an evolutionary explanation (of a preestablished harmony kind) as a way of solving it.
A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism
2007
Scientific realism is the view that our best scientific theories give approximately true descriptions of both observable and unobservable aspects of a mind-independent world. Debates between realists and their critics are at the very heart of the philosophy of science. Anjan Chakravartty traces the contemporary evolution of realism by examining the most promising strategies adopted by its proponents in response to the forceful challenges of antirealist sceptics, resulting in a positive proposal for scientific realism today. He examines the core principles of the realist position, and sheds light on topics including the varieties of metaphysical commitment required, and the nature of the conflict between realism and its empiricist rivals. By illuminating the connections between realist interpretations of scientific knowledge and the metaphysical foundations supporting them, his book offers a compelling vision of how realism can provide an internally consistent and coherent account of...
Two arguments for scientific realism unified
Inferences from scientific success to the approximate truth of successful theories remain central to the most influential arguments for scientific realism. Challenges to such inferences, however, based on radical discontinuities within the history of science, have motivated a distinctive style of revision to the original argument. Conceding the historical claim, selective realists argue that accompanying even the most revolutionary change is the retention of significant parts of replaced theories, and that a realist attitude towards the systematically retained constituents of our scientific theories can still be defended. Selective realists thereby hope to secure the argument from success against apparent historical counterexamples. Independently of that objective, historical considerations have inspired a further argument for selective realism, where evidence for the retention of parts of theories is itself offered as justification for adopting a realist attitude towards them. Given the nature of these arguments from success and from retention, a reasonable expectation is that they would complement and reinforce one another, but although several theses purport to provide such a synthesis the results are often unconvincing. In this paper I reconsider the realist's favoured type of scientific success, novel success, offer a revised interpretation of the concept, and argue that a significant consequence of reconfiguring the realist's argument from success accordingly is a greater potential for its unification with the argument from retention. 1 Musgrave (1988) argues that 'careful realists', at least since Whewell, have always intended the verification of novel predictions in discussions of scientific success. Worrall (1989b), , and Psillos (1999) each argue the importance of peculiarly novel success; many recent antirealist arguments also now pay particular attention to such results. 2 The most famous example of the antirealist challenge from the history of science is . Many interpret Laudan as defending a (pessimistic meta-) induction that implies our own theories are destined for replacement by new theories, radically incongruent with our own. Others (for example argue convincingly that Laudan should instead be understood as merely providing examples that at least appear to undermine the credibility of the realist's inference from success to approximate truth. On either interpretation historical considerations present the realist with a significant challenge.
Feyerabend - Philosophy, Science & Society.pdf
Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994) was one of the foremost twentieth-century philosophers of science. Although he attained infamy by embracing cultural relativism and by providing a searing critique of the claims of science, there has been, to date, no comprehensive critical study of the major themes in Feyerabend’s philosophy. This book rectifies that situation. The book traces the evolution of Feyerabend’s thought, beginning with his attempt to graft insights from Wittgenstein’s conception of meaning onto Popper’s falsificationist philosophy. The component parts of Feyerabend’s ‘model for the acquisition of knowledge’, the normative aspect of his project, and its roots in a Popperian conception of epistemology, are identified and critically evaluated. Feyerabend’s early work emerges as thoroughly post-Popperian, rather than as a contribution to the historical approach to philosophy of science with which he is usually associated. In his more notorious later work, notably the 1975 book Against Method, Feyerabend claimed that there was, and should be, no such thing as the scientific method. This ‘epistemological anarchism’ and Feyerabend’s attendant relativism are examined here in the light of his recognition that Against Method was a collage constructed out of his earlier thoughts. The roots of epistemological anarchism are exposed, and the weaknesses of Feyerabend’s later thesis of incommensurability are brought out. Throughout the book, the influence of Feyerabend’s thought on contemporary philosophers is tracked. The author draws attention to Feyerabend’s exciting but divided legacy. On the one hand, contemporary scientistic philosophers have used his earlier views in a vigorous defence of an uncompromising ‘eliminative’ materialist view of the mind. On the other hand, thinkers influenced by Feyerabend’s later work have begun a humanistic critique of science, scientific myth-making, and scientific claims to knowledge. The book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of philosophy, methodology, and the social sciences.