IN THIS posthumously published book, the maverick philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend questions the dominance of abstract, theoretical, objectivist science over more human modes of thought. He also targets society’s adoption of scientism, the belief that science has the answer to all meaningful questions.
Feyerabend’s strategy is to take some hallowed idea – for instance, that the success of science is due to observation and experiment – and scrutinise its origins. In this case, he finds the roots of the idea in the philosophy of the ancient Greeks. After assessing their reasoning, he finds the idea “optional” in his value system, since he gives more weight…
