Feyerabend and Scientific Values: Tightrope-Walking Rationality

ISBN-13: 9781402013508 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 259 str.

Robert P. Farrell; R. P. Farrell

Opis

This book deals with the entrenched misunderstandings of Feyerabend's philosophy, brings together the positive elements to be found in Feyerabend's work, and presents these elements as a coherent alternative conception of scientific rationality. It is the first book-length study of Feyerabend's post-1970 philosophy and will be an invaluable resource for philosophers of science, students of the philosophy of science, and anyone who wants to understand the views of one of the most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century.

Spis treści

Preface. Introduction. 1: Feyerabend's Reductio ad Absurdum of 'Rationalist' Philosophies. 1.1. Introduction. 1.2. Feyerabends Conception of 'Rationalist' Philosophy. 1.3. Feyerabend's Reductio. 1.4. Feyerabend, Galileo and Rationalist Philosophies. 1.5. Feyerabends Rhetoric: Propaganda, Irrationality and Subjective Wishes. 2: Feyerabend, Lakatos and Anarchism. 2.1. Introduction. 2.2. Feyerabends Reductio of Lakatos's MSRP. 2.3. First Steps Towards a Positive Alternative Account of Rationality. 2.4. Conclusion. 3: Feyerabend's Incommensurability and the Pragmatic Theory of Observation. 3.1. Introduction. 3.2. Feyerabend's Incommensurability as Formal Incommensurability 3.3. Responses to Feyerabend's Incommensurability. 3.4. Feyerabend's Commensurability. 3.5. Conclusion. 4: Feyerabend's Relativism. 4.1. Introduction. 4.2. Realism and Relativism. 4.3. Feyerabend's Changing Attitudes Towards Relativism. 4.4. Quantum Physics and Complementarity. 4.5. Quantum Physics and the Theoretical/Empirical Dichotomy of Traditions. 4.6. Conclusion. 5: Feyerabend and Pluralism. 5.1. Introduction. 5.2. Popper and Empirical Content. 5.3. Relevant and Irrelevant Potential Falsifiers. 5.4. Basic Statements and Initial Conditions. 5.5. Rival Theories and the Duhem Thesis. 5.6. Conclusion. 6: Popper, Methodological Pluralism and Epistemic Values. 6.1. Introduction. 6.2. Popper's Axiological Normativity. 6.3. Feyerabend's Axiological Normativity. 6.4. Feyerabend as a Comprehensively Critical Popperian. 6.5. Feyerabend's 7: Kuhn on Paradigms, Rules and Values. 7.1. Introduction. 7.2. Some Confusions in Kuhn's Philosophy. 7.3. The Importance of Scientific Values. 7.4. Conclusion. 8: Tightrope-Walking Rationality: Feyerabend's Metanarrative. 8.1. Introduction. 8.2. Consolations for the Specialist. 8.3. Feyerabend's Two Argumentative Chains. 8.4. Theoretical/Abstract Versus Empirical Traditions. 8.5. Values-Based Rationality. 8.6. Feyerabend: Postmodernist or Tightrope-Walking Rationalist. 8.7. Conclusion. 9: Feyerabend and World-Views. 9.1. Introduction. 9.2. Non-Reductive Metaphysical World-Views. 9.3. Feyerabend and World-Views. 9.4. Conclusion. References. Index.