Science in a Free Society by Paul Feyerabend
"Every piece of knowledge contains valuable ingredients side by side with ideas that prevent the discovery of new things."
Two years ago, I came across a book named Against Method (1975), basically this volume is a continuation of it, of its irreverent attack on widespread ideas about the nature of knowledge and the prestige of science in the west, with an added rebuttal to critics of Against Method. The main difference between Against Method and Science in a free Society is that the author extended his critique beyond the problem of scientific rules and methods, to the social function and direction of science today. If you would like to read about how Feyerabend took the epistemological principles from Against Method and extended them to a political theory about the role of science in a democratic society, this is your book.
In the first 1/3 of the book, the author again reminded us how science and their methods are not inherently objective. Science is a tradition, with its own method of conceptualizing problems and deriving conclusion, and of course, limitations. Thus, there is no perfect method, the concept that a single method contains firm, unchangeable and binding principles in all situations is perilous.
Throughout history, there is not a single rule, however plausible, however firmly grounded in logic and general philosophy that is not violated in some forms, at some time in the future. The invention of atomism in antiquity, the Copernican Revolution, the rise of modern atomism (Dalton; kinetic theory; dispersion theory; stereochemistry; quantum theory), the gradual emergence of the wave theory of light occurred only because some thinkers either decided not to be bound by certain ‘obvious’ rules, or because they unwittingly broke them.
The examples Feyerabend brought up are not to encourage randomly breaking rules and doing research arbitrarily and unguided. There are standards, but they come from the research process itself, not from abstract views of rationality. It needs ingenuity, tact, knowledge of details to come to an informed judgement of existing standards and to invent new ones. This leads to the next 1/3 of the book where the author illustrated how new rules or ideas can be given equal opportunities to be evaluated, even when it contradicts with prevailing theories or authority assumptions. The author’s proposed solution is a pluralistic society in which science itself is de-centralized from the public sphere.
I hate to say that, but he lost me in this part of the argument. To give all new rules equal opportunities to be evaluated is an ideal yet seems like any practice will fall short of this ideal. Imagine non-discriminatingly evaluate mysticism, hunger-gatherer epistemologies, witchcraft, astrology, cults, and ideas that may be pseudo-science… The questions I have boil down to a simple: ‘Who gets to evaluate everything and how?’
If the standards by which we adjudicate can not presuppose rationalism, how on earth do we decide on anything? Feyerabend explained that the lofty authority of the “expert” claimed by scientists is incompatible with any genuine democracy, and often merely serves to conceal entrenched prejudices and divided opinions with the scientific community itself. Therefore, he proposed that the society elect laymen, and the elected laymen can and must supervise science. Duly elected committees of laymen must examine whether the theory is well established as the scientists want us to want us to believe, whether being established in their sense settles the matter, and whether it should replace other views in schools. However, this argument is, in my point of view, his weakest point in the book. Nevertheless, his calling for far greater diversity in the content of education to facilitate democratic decisions over such issues is interesting.
You may wonder what is in the last 1/3 of the book? This last part contains Feyerabend's criticism of several reviews of his book Against Method, and whole lot consists of him sniping at his critics for misreadings and the inability to distinguish between straight argument and a reductio ad absurdum. You’d be surprised how long this part is. In a nutshell, great book, still very much worth reading.
