[lbo-talk] Waht is scientism why does the leff love it so?

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Wed May 10 12:37:16 PDT 2006


Evidently, Feyerbend described science as being essentially anarchistic.

Charles B

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Quick note (lunch hour as usual). The main thrust of his lectures in the 60s was that a more thorough going empiricism (not necessarily the same as science) leads to a variety of theories, explanations, and further rational examinations or possibly no explanation at all. The so called scientific method is something of a sham in many cases, merely an authority bound consensus that necessarily culls the herd and often arbitrarily selects a single theory, where many alternatives exist, and need to be heard. In a more `democratic' rational and empirical bound intellectual environment, these alternatives get their say and are maintained until others knock them off or they become less useful or less meaningful.

This crude outline goes to Ravi's experiences at Bell Labs were doctrine and authority insured only one party line on all issues, most particularly ruling out any discussion for example, of traditional medicine as non-scientific. The importance in that example is that it is unknown whether traditional medicines are found to be empirically useful or not, since they are discarded on principle.

In the above sense, then yes Feyerbend at one point was very much anarchistic in his attack on science based on authority rather than empiricism. Authority in this particular case can be understood as only entertaining work that strictly follows the `scientific method'. This is part of reason why he titled one of his works, Against Method.

CG



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