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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: WARNING Popperesque Paradigm shift approaches
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Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 07:11:07 GMT
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In article <5915md$cda@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>,
John M. Lawler <jlawler@qbert.rs.itd.umich.edu> wrote:
>>I.e., not anything goes, to put the point to Feyerabend's anarchism.
>
>He never said anything *works*, just that almost anything gets tried.
>There is, however, no guarantee of either short-term popular success
>or long-term historical success, no matter what tack is taken.

I think you misunderstand Feyerabend's anarchism, which is an
*epistemological* anarchism; we can hold as true whatever we want to hold as
true, rather than to be "enslaved" to reason.

>There really is very little choice for scientists but to follow their
>best understanding, or at least to try to appear to be doing so.

Feyerabend would have it otherwise, or just to vilify scientists for being the
sorts of people who do so.  According to Feyerabend, the methods of science
are no better than the methods of magic.  Fine, let scientists do science and
magicians do magic, and we'll see which works.
-- 
<J Q B>

