Reading Questions for Feyerabend’s “How to Defend Society Against Science”

Due Date: 9/15

As you read, think about the attitude Feyerabend is displaying. Also consider what his goals in writing this essay may be—are they different from the goals of the other writers we’ve read?

1. Critique each half of Feyerabend’s two-part claim: “A truth that reigns without checks and balances is a tyrant who must be overthrown, and any falsehood that can aid us in the overthrow of this tyrant is to be welcomed.” Explain the view of ideologies which underlies this claim. To what extent do you agree?

2. Feyerabend’s general indictment of science is roughly that (like other ideologies) it has become a rigid, stagnant, and inhibiting ideology. He cites the rigid manner in which science is taught in schools, with “no attempt to waken the critical abilities of the pupil” (56). As an explanation for this rigidity, he sees the claim of having found (at least some) Truth as trite, dogmatic, and inadequate compensation for the loss of freedom he perceives. “My criticism of modern science is that it inhibits freedom of thought.” (57) How does this picture square with your experience in science education, and in education generally? What do you think of the claim that science inhibits freedom of thought?

3. Feyerabend considers the argument that science deserves its exceptional status in society because (1) science has found the correct method for achieving results, and (2) there are results which demonstrate the excellence of the method. He attacks (1) by describing and critiquing various analyses of scientific method—a sort “Darwinist” view of competing theories, Popper’s view (with the familiar criticisms), Kuhn, and Lakatos—and concludes that there actually is no method. What does he say about these views, and to what extent does it support his claim that there is no method?

4. Against results, (2), Feyerabend argues that other forms of life have produced results as well, and that many of science’s results came from outside of science, hence there is no justification for the exceptional status of science. How convincing a case does he make here? Explain your assessment.

5. What is Feyerabend’s recommendation for government and (especially) for education and society? This view is often called epistemological anarchism. What do you think of it? Is his recommendation a good one? Are we in the dire state of affairs he seems to think we are in (enslaved to an ideology)? Is he offering us a method?

Compare Feyerabend’s view of science as a once liberating, but now stagnating, ideology, to Kuhn’s view of it as a mostly non-critical process of puzzle-solving, and to Lakatos’ view of it as essentially sceptical and critical.

Reconsider Feyerabend’s early pronouncement about unchecked truths and useful falsehoods...