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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: WARNING  Popperesque Paradigm shift approaches
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In article <32B9FB56.BA1@joyl.joensuu.fi>,
Marko Toivanen  <mtoivane@cc.joensuu.fi> wrote:
>What happened went something like this: In the early 70s, one of
>Feyerabend's best friends, Imre Lakatos, convinced that they should
>write a book together, Feyerabend criticizing the kind of philosophy of
>science that Lakatos would defend.

Do you have any support for this claim?

>reviews. They were extremely poor: the reviewers attributed to
>Feyerabend views he had never defended, overlooked Feyerabend's detailed
>warnings against misinterpretation even in the early chapters of the
>book.

Any support?

>Most of the attributed to Feyerabend a view according to which "anything
>goes", and labelled this "doctrine" according to the subtitle of the
>book, "anarchistic theory of knowledge" (which Feyerabend thought was a
>blatant contradiction in terms and thus an obvious joke).

Any support?

>Feyerabend used the two words, "anything goes", *not* to describe a view
>of his but as a jocular description of the predicament of his dearest
>opponent, Lakatos. "[Lakatos] demanded that research programmes show
>certain features _in the long run_ - they must be progressive... I have
>argued that this demand no longer restricts scientific practice. Any
>development agrees with it. The demand (standard) is _rational_, but it
>is also _empty_. Rationalism and the demands of reason have become
>purely verbal in the theory of Lakatos." (_Science in a Free Society_,
>p. 15)

This doesn't support your claim that "anything goes" is a not a view of
Feyerabend's.

>Feyerabend replied to most of the "major" reviews, trying more or less
>patiently and in much detail correct the reviews' mistakes, to no avail.
>He even reprinted most of the replies as a third part, "Conversations
>with Illiterates", of his 1978 book, _Science in a Free Society_.

Is this ad hominem title a sign of his patience?

>This
>had no positive effect,

Gee, I wonder why.

>on the contrary, the reviewers misused the
>replies against Feyerabend (they didn't like their competence being
>questioned).

How about if *I* question *your* competence, eh?

>Nor did Feyerabend's analysis of the mechanisms of
>misinterpretation at work in his case and in that of others (Bohr, and
>especially Mach) help (see his "The Lessing Effect in the Philosophy of
>Science: Comments on Some of My Critics", _New Ideas in Psychology_ 2
>(2), 1984).

Since anything goes, Feyerabend feels free to criticize his opponents rather
than respond to their arguments.  After all, the normal rhetorical methods are
among those to be stood against.

>The myths about Feyerabend live and prosper, even after 20 years of the
>publication of the book and Feyerabend's attempts at correction. This
>appears to be so because the views misattributed to Feyerabend are such
>that they form a self-perpetuating picture, making it unlikely that
>someone who holds these views about Feyerabend will ever take the
>measures to correct them.

A rather self-fulfilling view, much as skeptics in the room with Uri Geller
produce bad vibes that interfere with his powers, I suppose.
-- 
<J Q B>

