against method
Against Method – Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (1993) by paul feyerabend via 200 pg kindle version from anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/paul-feyerabend-against-method]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend]:
Paul Karl Feyerabend (/ˈfaɪərɑːbənd/; German: [ˈfaɪɐˌʔaːbm̩t]; January 13, 1924 – February 11, 1994) was an Austrian philosopher best known for his work in the philosophy of science. He started his academic career as lecturer in the philosophy of science at the University of Bristol (1955–1958); afterward, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for three decades (1958–1989). At various points in his life, he held joint appointments at the University College London (1967–1970), the London School of Economics (1967), the FU Berlin (1968), Yale University (1969), the University of Auckland (1972, 1975), the University of Sussex (1974), and the ETH Zurich (1980–1990). He gave lectures and lecture series at the University of Minnesota (1958–1962), Stanford University (1967), the University of Kassel (1977), and the University of Trento (1992).
Feyerabend’s most famous work is Against Method (1975), wherein he argues that there are no universally valid methodological rules for scientific inquiry. He also wrote on topics related to the politics of science in several essays and in his book *Science in a Free Society (1978). Feyerabend’s later works include Wissenschaft als Kunst (Science as Art) (1984), Farewell to Reason (1987), Three Dialogues on Knowledge (1991), and Conquest of Abundance (released posthumously in 1999), which collect essays from the 1970s until Feyerabend’s death. The uncompleted draft of an earlier work was released posthumously in 2009 as Naturphilosophie (English translation of 2016 Philosophy of Nature). This work contains Feyerabend’s reconstruction of the history of natural philosophy from the Homeric period until the mid-20th century. In these works and others, Feyerabend wrote about numerous issues at the interface between history and philosophy of science and ethics, ancient philosophy, philosophy of art, political philosophy, medicine, and physics. His final work was an autobiography, **Killing Time, which he completed on his deathbed. Feyerabend’s extensive correspondence and other materials from his Nachlass continue to be published.
*not in anarchist library but in internet archive
**not in either
Feyerabend is recognized as one of the most important 20th-century philosophers of science. In a 2010 poll, he was ranked as the 8th-most significant philosopher of science. He is often mentioned alongside Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, and N. R. Hanson as a crucial figure in the historical turn in philosophy of science, and his work on scientific pluralism (no single account of reality) has been markedly influential on the Stanford School and on much contemporary philosophy of science. Feyerabend was also a significant figure in the sociology of scientific knowledge. His lectures were extremely well-attended, attracting international attention. His multifaceted personality is eloquently summarized in his obituary by Ian Hacking: “Humanists, in my old-fashioned sense, need to be part of both arts and sciences. Paul Feyerabend was a humanist. He was also fun.”
In line with this humanistic interpretation and the concerns apparent in his later work, the Paul K. Feyerabend Foundation was founded in 2006 in his honor. The Foundation “promotes the empowerment and wellbeing of disadvantaged human communities. By strengthening intra and inter-community solidarity, it strives to improve local capacities, promote the respect of human rights, and sustain cultural and biological diversity.” In 1970, the Loyola University of Chicago awarded Feyerabend a Doctor of Humane Letters Degree honoris causa. Asteroid (22356) Feyerabend is named after him
notes/quotes:
6
Preface to the Third Edition
Many things have happened since I first published Against Method (AM for short). There have been dramatic political, social and ecological changes. Freedom has increased – but it has brought hunger, insecurity, nationalistic tensions, wars and straightforward murder.
so not legit free
By contrast there are now historians and sociologists who concentrate on particulars and allow generalities only to the extent that they are supported by sociohistorical connections. “Nature”, says Bruno Latour, referring to “science in the making” is “the consequence of [a] settlement” of “controversies”. Or, as I wrote in the first edition of AM: “Creation of a thing, and creation plus full understanding of a correct idea of the thing, are very often parts of one and the same indivisible process and cannot be separated without bringing the process to a stop.”
oi.. ‘correct idea of a thing’ stops any ‘process’ aka: living/alive ness.. perpetuates sea world.. ooof
7
As Ian Hacking has shown in his pathbreaking essay Representing and Intervening and as emerges from Pickering’s Science as Practice and Culture, *terms such as “experiment” and “observation” cover complex processes containing many strands. . **At any rate – we are a long way from the old (Platonic) idea of science as a system of statements growing with experiment and observation and kept in order by lasting rational standards.
*if observe ness.. not legit experiment ness.. oi.. so **not long away.. rather.. same song
8
This case shows, incidentally, that like the older philosophies of science the new microsociology is not a universal account but a description of prominent aspects of a special period. It does not matter. A universal description of science at any rate can at most offer a list of events. It was different in antiquity.
rather.. always been science scientifically.. aka: only matters in that it binds/blinds us.. et al ie: lit & num as colonialism; naming the colour; et al
It is clear that the new situation requires a new philosophy and, above all, new terms. Yet some of the foremost researchers in the area are still asking themselves whether a particular piece of research produces a “discovery”, or an “invention”, or to what extent a (temporary) *result is “objective”. The problem arose in quantum mechanics; it is also a problem for classical science. Shall we continue using outmoded terms to describe novel insight or **would it not be better to start using a new language? And wouldn’t poets and journalists be of great help in finding such a language?
*if still talking result ness.. not objective
**everyday.. ie: idiosyncratic jargon ness via self-talk as data
Secondly, the new situation again raises the question of “science” vs democracy. For me this was the most important question. “My main reason for writing the book”, I say in the Introduction to the Chinese Edition, “was humanitarian, not intellectual. I wanted to support people, not to ‘advance knowledge.’” Now if science is no longer a unit, if different parts of it proceed in radically different ways and if connections between these ways are tied to particular research episodes, then scientific projects have to be taken individually. This is what government agencies started doing some time ago. In the late sixties “the idea of a comprehensive science policy was gradually abandoned. It was realized that science was not one but many enterprises and that there could be no single policy for the support of all of them”. Government agencies no longer finance “science”, they finance particular projects. But then the word “scientific” can no longer exclude “unscientific” projects – we have to look at matters in detail. Are the new philosophers and sociologists prepared to consider this consequence of their research?
mufleh humanity law et al
9
There have been many other changes. Medical researchers and technologists have not only invented useful instruments (such as those employing the principles of fibre optics which in many contexts replace the more dangerous methods of X-ray diagnostic) but have become more open towards new (or older) ideas. Only twenty years ago the idea that the mind affects physical well-being, though supported by experience, was rather unpopular – today it is mainstream. Malpractice suits have made physicians more careful, sometimes too careful for the good of their patient, but they have also forced them to consult alternative opinions. (In Switzerland a belligerent plurality of views is almost part of culture – and I used it when arranging public confrontations between hardheaded scientists and “alternative” thinkers.) However, here as elsewhere, simple philosophies, whether of a dogmatic or a more liberal kind, have their limits. There are no general solutions. An increased liberalism in the definition of “fact” can have grave repercussions, while the idea that truth is concealed and even perverted bi the processes that are meant to establish it makes excellent sense. *I therefore again warn the reader that I don’t have the intention of replacing “old and dogmatic” principles by “new and more libertarian ones”. For example, I am neither a populist for whom an appeal to “the people” is the basis of all knowledge, nor a relativist for whom there are no “truths as such” but only truths for this or that group and/or individual. All I say is that non-experts often know more than experts and should therefore be consulted and that prophets of truth (including those who use arguments) more often than not are carried along by a vision that clashes with the very events the vision is supposed to be exploring. There exists ample evidence for both parts of this assertion.
*but you will/did.. ie: intellectness as cancerous distraction et al
I prefer more paradoxical formulations, however, for nothing dulls the mind as thoroughly as hearing familiar words and slogans..t It is one of the merits of deconstruction to have undermined philosophical commonplaces and thus to have made some people think. Unfortunately it affected only a small circle of insiders and it affected them in ways that are not always clear, not even to them. That’s why I prefer Nestroy, who was a great, popular and funny deconstructeur, while Derrida, for all his good intentions, can’t even tell a story.
naming the colour ness.. same song ness
Rome, July 1992
10
Introduction to the Chinese Edition
This book proposes a thesis and draws consequences from it. The thesis is: the events, procedures and results that constitute the sciences have no common structure; there are no elements that occur in every scientific investigation but are missing elsewhere. Concrete developments (such as the overthrow of steady state cosmologies and the discovery of the structure of DNA) have distinct features and we can often explain why and how these features led to success. But not every discovery can be accounted for in the same manner, and procedures that paid off in the past may create havoc when imposed on the future. Successful research does not obey general standards; it relies now on one trick, now on another; the moves that advance it and the standards that define what counts as an advance are not always known to the movers. Far-reaching changes of outlook, such as the so-called “Copernican Revolution” or the “Darwinian Revolution”, affect different areas of research in different ways and receive different impulses from them. *A theory of science that devises standards and structural elements for all scientific activities and authorizes them by reference to “Reason” or “Rationality” may impress outsiders – but it is much too crude an instrument for the people on the spot, that is, for scientists facing some concrete research problem.
*then go even deeper (than research problem ness – which to me is still whalespeak).. to graeber unpredictability/surprise law et al
In this book I try to support the thesis by historical examples. Such support does not establish it; it makes it plausible and the way in which it is reached indicates how future statements about “the nature of science” may be undermined: given any rule, or any general statement about the sciences, there always exist developments which are praised by those who support the rule but which show that the rule does more damage than good.
One consequence of the thesis is that scientific successes cannot be explained in a simple way. We cannot say: “the structure of the atomic nucleus was found because people did A, B, C…” where A, B and C are procedures which can be understood independently of their use m nuclear physics. All we can do is to give a historical account of the details, including social circumstances, accidents and personal idiosyncrasies.
and.. realize that we are detailing/describing/science-ing sea world
Another consequence is that the success of “science” cannot be used as an argument for treating as yet unsolved problems in a standardized way. That could be done only if there are procedures that can be detached from particular research situations and whose presence guarantees success. The thesis says that there are no such procedures. *Referring to the success of “science” in order to justify, say, quantifying human behaviour is therefore an argument without substance..t Quantification works in some cases, fails in others; for example, it ran into difficulties in one of the apparently most quantitative of all sciences, celestial mechanics (special region: stability of the planetary system) and was replaced by qualitative (topological) considerations.
*rather.. quantifying ness is violence.. et al.. graeber violence/quantification law
It also follows that “non-scientific” procedures cannot be pushed aside by argument. *To say: “the procedure you used is non-scientific, therefore we cannot trust your results and cannot give you money for research” assumes that “science” is successful and that it is successful because it uses uniform procedures. The first part of the assertion (“science is always successful”) is not true, if by “science” we mean things done by scientists – there are lots of failures also. The second part – that successes are due to uniform procedures – is not true because there are no such procedures. Scientists are like architects who build buildings of different sizes and different shapes and who can be judged only after the event, i.e. only after they have finished their structure. It may stand up, it may fall down – **nobody knows.
*again.. science scientifically et al
**graeber can’t know law et al
11
But if scientific achievements can be judged only after the event and *if there is no abstract way of ensuring success beforehand, then there exists no special way of weighing scientific promises either – scientists are no better off than anybody else in these matters, they only know more details. **This means that the public can participate in the discussion without disturbing existing roads to success (there are no such roads). In cases where the scientists’ work affects the public it even should participate: first, because it is a concerned party (many scientific decisions affect public life); secondly, because such participation is the best scientific education the public can get – a full democratization of science (which includes the protection of minorities such as scientists) is ***not in conflict with science. It is in conflict with a philosophy, often called “Rationalism”, that uses a frozen image of science to terrorize people unfamiliar with its practice..t
*and just more details of sea world ness.. ooof.. science scientifically et al
**nice.. but still cancerous distraction of .. seat at the table ness.. et al
***intellectness as cancerous distraction et al
A consequence to which I allude in Chapter 19 and which is closely connected with its basic thesis is that there can be many different kinds of science. People starting from different social backgrounds will approach the world in different ways and learn different things about it. People survived millennia before Western science arose; to do this they had to know their surroundings up to and including elements of astronomy. “Several thousand Cuahuila Indians never exhausted the natural resources of a desert region in South California, in which today only a handful of white families manage to subsist. They lived in a land of plenty, for in this apparently completely barren territory, they were familiar with no less than sixty kinds of edible plants and twenty-eight others of narcotic, stimulant or medical properties”. The knowledge that preserves the lifestyles of nomads was acquired and is preserved in a non-scientific way (“science” now being modern natural science). Chinese technology for a long time lacked any Western-scientific underpinning and yet it was far ahead of contemporary Western technology. *It is true that Western science now reigns supreme all over the globe; however, the reason was not insight in its “inherent rationality” but power play (the colonizing nations imposed their ways of living) and the need for weapons: Western science so far has created the most efficient instruments of death..t The remark that without Western science many “Third World nations” would be starving is correct but one should add that the troubles were created, not alleviated by earlier forms of “development”. It is also true that Western medicine helped eradicate parasites and some infectious diseases but this does not show that Western science is the only tradition that has good things to offer and that other forms of inquiry are without any merit whatsoever. First-world science is one science among many; by claiming to be more it ceases to be an instrument of research and turns into a (political) pressure group. More on these matters can be found in my book **Farewell to Reason.
*mufleh humanity law et al
**not in anarchist library nor in internet archive
My main motive in writing the book was humanitarian, not intellectual. I wanted to support people, not to “advance knowledge”. People all over the world have developed ways of surviving in partly dangerous, partly agreeable surroundings. The stories they told and the activities they engaged in enriched their lives, protected them and gave them meaning. The “progress of knowledge and civilization” – as the process of pushing Western ways and values into all comers of the globe is being called – destroyed these wonderful products of human ingenuity and compassion without a single glance in their direction. “Progress of knowledge” in many places meant killing of minds..t Today old traditions are being revived and people try again to adapt their lives to the ideas of their ancestors. I have tried to show, by an analysis of the apparently hardest parts of science, the natural sciences, that science, properly understood, has no argument against such a procedure. There are many scientists who act accordingly. Physicians, anthropologists and environmentalists are starting to adapt their procedures to the values of the people they are supposed to advise. I am not against a science so understood. Such a science is one of the most wonderful inventions of the human mind. But I am against ideologies that use the name of science for cultural murder..t
13
Analytical Index
Being a Sketch of the Main ArgumentIntroduction
introduction Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.
1\ This is shown both by an examination of historical episodes and by an abstract analysis of the relation between idea and action. The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes..t
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness
2\ For example, we may use hypotheses that contradict well-confirmed theories and/or well-established experimental results. We may advance science by proceeding counterinductively.
3\ The consistency condition which demands that new hypotheses agree with accepted theories is unreasonable because it preserves the older theory, and not the better theory. Hypotheses contradicting well-confirmed theories give us evidence that cannot be obtained in any other way..t Proliferation of theories is beneficial for science, while uniformity impairs its critical power. Uniformity also endangers the free development of the individual.
4\ There is no idea, however ancient and absurd, that is not capable of improving our knowledge. The whole history of thought is absorbed into science and is used for improving every single theory. Nor is political interference rejected. It may be needed to overcome the chauvinism of science that resists alternatives to the status quo..
15
20\ The point of view underlying this book is not the result of a well-planned train of thought but of arguments prompted by accidental encounters. Anger at the wanton destruction of cultural achievements from which we all could have learned, at the conceited assurance with which some intellectuals interfere with the lives of people, and contempt for the treacly phrases they use to embellish their misdeeds was and still is the motive force behind my work.
16
Introduction
Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.
Ordnung ist heutzutage meistens dort,
wo nichts ist.
Es ist eine Mangelerscheinung.BRECHT
The following essay is written in the conviction that anarchism, while perhaps not the most attractive political philosophy, is certainly excellent medicine for epistemology, and for the philosophy of science.
The reason is not difficult to find.
“History generally, and the history of revolution in particular, is always richer in content, more varied, more many-sided, more lively and subtle than even” the best historian and the best methodologist can imagine. History is full of “accidents and conjunctures and curious juxtapositions of events” and it demonstrates to us the “complexity of human change and the unpredictable character of the ultimate consequences of any given act or decision of men”. Are we really to believe that the naive and simple-minded rules which methodologists take as their guide are capable of accounting for such a “maze of interactions”?[30] And is it not clear that successful participation in a process of this kind is possible only for a ruthless opportunist who is not tied to any particular philosophy and who adopts whatever procedure seems to fit the occasion?
endnote 30: {Introduction, 4} ibid., p. 25, cf. Hegel, Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, Vol. 9, ed. Edward Gans, Berlin, 1837, p. 9: “But what experience and history teach us is this, that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted according to rules that might have derived from it. Every period has such peculiar circumstances, is in such an individual state, that decisions will have to be made, and decisions can only be made, in it and out of it.” – “Very clever”; “shrewd and very clever”; “NB” writes Lenin in his marginal notes to this passage. (Collected Works, Vol. 38, London, 1961, p. 307.)
history ness et al.. not to mention.. all history ness to date via sea world
This is indeed the conclusion that has been drawn by intelligent and thoughtful observers. “Two very important practical conclusions follow from this [character of the historical process],” writes Lenin,[31] continuing the passage from which I have just quoted. *“First, that in order to fulfill its task, the revolutionary class [i.e. the class of those who want to change either a part of society such as science, or society as a whole] must be able to master all forms or aspects of social activity without exception [it must be able to understand, and to apply, not only one particular methodology, but any methodology, and any variation thereof it can imagine]…; second [it] must be ready to pass from one to another in the quickest and most unexpected manner.” “The external conditions”, writes Einstein, “which are set for [the scientist] by the facts of experience do not permit him to let himself be too much restricted, in the construction of his conceptual world, by the adherence to an epistemological system. He, therefore, must appear to the systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist.…” A complex medium containing surprising and unforeseen developments demands complex procedures and defies analysis on the basis of rules which have been set up in advance and without regard to the ever-changing conditions of history.
*whalespeak to think have to master first.. rather ie: no prep.. no train
**defies anal.. anal kills it..
endnote 31: {Introduction, 5} ibid. We see here very clearly how a few substitutions can turn a political lesson into a lesson for methodology. This is not at all surprising. Methodology and politics are both means for moving from one historical stage to another. We also see how an individual, such as Lenin, who is not intimidated by traditional boundaries and whose thought is not tied to the ideology of a particular profession, can give useful advice to everyone, philosophers of science included. In the 19th century the idea of an elastic and historically informed methodology was a matter of course. Thus Ernst Mach wrote in his book Erkenntnis und Irrtum, Neudruck, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1980, p. 200: “It is often said that research cannot be taught. That is quite correct, in a certain sense. The schemata of formal logic and of inductive logic are of little use for the intellectual situations are never exactly the same. But the examples of great scientists are very suggestive.” They are not suggestive because we can abstract rules from them and subject future research to their jurisdiction; they are suggestive because they make the mind nimble and capable of inventing entirely new research traditions. For a more detailed account of Mach’s philosophy see my essay Farewell to Reason, London, 1987, Chapter 7, as well as Vol. 2, Chapters 5 and 6 of my Philosophical Papers, Cambridge, 1981
if only..
17
Now it is, of course, possible to simplify the medium in which a scientist works by simplifying its main actors. The history of science, after all, does not just consist of facts and conclusions drawn from facts. It also contains ideas, interpretations of facts, problems created by conflicting interpretations, mistakes, and so on. On closer analysis we even find that science knows no “bare facts” at all but that the “facts” that enter our knowledge are already viewed in a certain way and are, therefore, essentially ideational. This being the case, the history of science will be as complex, chaotic, full of mistakes, and entertaining as the ideas it contains, and these ideas in turn will be as complex, chaotic, full of mistakes, and entertaining as are the minds of those who invented them. Conversely, a little brainwashing will go a long way in making the history of science duller, simpler, more uniform, more “objective” and more easily accessible to treatment by strict and unchangeable rules..t
science scientifically et al
Scientific education as we know it today has precisely this aim. It simplifies “science” by simplifying its participants: first, a domain of research is defined. The domain is separated from the rest of history (physics, for example, is separated from metaphysics and from theology) and given a “logic” of its own. A thorough training in such a “logic” then conditions those working in the domain; it makes their actions more uniform and it freezes large parts of the historical process as well. Stable “facts” arise and persevere despite the vicissitudes of history. *An essential part of the training that makes such facts appear consists in the attempt to inhibit intuitions that might lead to a blurring of boundaries..t A person’s religion, for example, or his metaphysics, or his sense of humour (his natural sense of humour and not the inbred and always rather nasty kind of jocularity one finds in specialized professions) must not have the slightest connection with his scientific activity. His imagination is restrained, and even his language ceases to be his own. This is again reflected in the nature of scientific “facts” which are experienced as being independent of opinion, belief, and cultural background.
*naming the colour ness et al
**siddiqi border law.. et al
18
It is thus possible to create a tradition that is held together by strict rules, and that is also successful to some extent. But is it desirable to support such a tradition to the exclusion of everything else?
Should we transfer to it the sole rights for dealing in knowledge, so that any result that has been obtained by other methods is at once ruled out of court? And did scientists ever remain within the boundaries of the traditions they defined in this narrow way? These are the questions I intend to ask in the present essay. And to these questions my answer will be a firm and resounding NO.
There are two reasons why such an answer seems to be appropriate. The first reason is that the world which we want to explore is a largely unknown entity. We must, therefore, keep our options open and we must not restrict ourselves in advance. Epistemological prescriptions may look splendid when compared with other epistemological prescriptions, or with general principles — but who can guarantee that they are the best way to discover, not just a few isolated “facts”, but also some deep-lying secrets of nature? The second reason is that a scientific education as described above (and as practiced in our schools) cannot be reconciled with a humanitarian attitude. It is in conflict “with the cultivation of individuality which alone produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings”; it “maims by compression, like a Chinese lady’s foot, every part of human nature which stands out prominently, and tends to make a person markedly different in outline” from the ideals of rationality that happen to be fashionable in science, or in the philosophy of science. The attempt to increase liberty, to lead a full and rewarding life, and the corresponding attempt to discover the secrets of nature and of man, entails, therefore, the rejection of all universal standards and of all rigid traditions. (Naturally, it also entails the rejection of a large part of contemporary science.)
graeber can’t know law et al.. intellectness as cancerous distraction et al..
It is surprising to see how rarely the stultifying effect of “the Laws of Reason” or of scientific practice is examined by professional anarchists. Professional anarchists oppose any kind of restriction and they demand that the individual be permitted to develop freely, unhampered by laws, duties or obligations. And yet they swallow without protest all the severe standards which scientists and logicians impose upon research and upon any kind of knowledge-creating and knowledge-changing activity. Occasionally, the laws of scientific method, or what are thought to be the laws of scientific method by a particular writer, are even integrated into anarchism itself. “Anarchism is a world concept based upon a mechanical explanation of all phenomena,” writes Kropotkin.[35] “Its method of investigation is that of the exact natural sciences … the method of induction and deduction.” “It is not so clear,” writes a modern “radical” professor at Columbia, “that scientific research demands an absolute freedom of speech and debate. Rather the evidence suggests that certain kinds of unfreedom place no obstacle in the way of science.…”
endnote 35: {Introduction, 9} Peter Alexeivich Kropotkin, “Modern Science and Anarchism”, Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets, ed. R. W. Baldwin, New York, 1970, pp. 150-2. “It is one of Ibsen’s great distinctions that nothing was valid for him but science.” B. Shaw, Back to Methuselah, New York, 1921, p. xcvii. Commenting on these and similar phenomena Strindberg writes (Antibarbarus): “A generation that had the courage to get rid of God, to crush the state and church, and to overthrow society and morality, still bowed before Science. And in Science, where freedom ought to reign, the order of the day was ‘believe in the authorities or off with your head’.”..t
need to read modern sci and anarchism?
19
There are certainly some people to whom this is “not so clear”. Let us, therefore, start with our outline of an anarchistic methodology and a corresponding anarchistic science. There is no need to fear that the diminished concern for law and order in science and society that characterizes an anarchism of this kind will lead to chaos. The human nervous system is too well organized for that..t[37] *There may, of course, come a time when it will be necessary to give reason a temporary advantage and when it will be wise to defend its rules to the exclusion of everything else. I do not think that we are living in such a time today.[38]
*rather.. need to let go of it (reason ness.. explanation/justification ness) .. since forever..
endnote 37: {Introduction, 11} Even in undetermined and ambiguous situations, uniformity of action is soon achieved and adhered to tenaciously. See Muzafer Sherif, The Psychology of Social Norms, New York, 1964.
endnote 38: {Introduction, 12} *This was my opinion in 1970 when I wrote the first version of this essay. Times have changed. Considering some tendencies in US education (“politically correct”, academic menus, etc.), in philosophy (postmodernism) and in the world at large I think that reason should now be given greater weight not because it is and always was fundamental but because it seems to be needed, in circumstances that occur rather frequently today (but may disappear tomorrow), to create a more humane approach.
*again.. reason ness (explanation, justification, rationale, et al) cancerous distractions
20
1
This is shown both by an examination of historical episodes and by an abstract analysis of the relation between idea and action. The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes.
again.. the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil that seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness
The idea of a method that contains firm, unchanging, and absolutely binding principles for conducting the business of science meets considerable difficulty when confronted with the results of historical research. We find, then, that there is not a single rule, however plausible, and however firmly grounded in epistemology, that is not violated at some time or other. It becomes evident that such violations are not accidental events, they are not results of insufficient knowledge or of inattention which might have been avoided. On the contrary, we see that they are necessary for progress. Indeed, one of the most striking features of recent discussions in the history and philosophy of science is the realization that events and developments, such as the invention of atomism in antiquity, the Copernican Revolution, the rise of modern atomism (kinetic theory; dispersion theory; stereochemistry; quantum theory), the gradual emergence of the wave theory of light, occurred only because some thinkers either decided not to be bound by certain “obvious” methodological rules, or because they unwillingly broke them.
This liberal practice, I repeat, is not just a fact of the history of science. It is both reasonable and absolutely necessary for the *growth of knowledge. More specifically, one can show the following: given any rule, however “fundamental” or “rational”, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite. For example, there are circumstances when it is advisable to introduce, elaborate, and defend ad hoc hypotheses, or hypotheses which contradict well-established and generally accepted experimental results, or hypotheses whose content is smaller than the content of the existing and empirically adequate alternative, or self-inconsistent hypotheses, and so on.[39]
*need to let go of know/intell ness.. graeber can’t know law et al
endnote 39: {Chapter 1, 1} One of the few thinkers to understand this feature of the development of knowledge was Niels Bohr: “…he would never try to outline any finished picture, but would patiently go through all the phases of the development of a problem, starting from some apparent paradox, and gradually leading to its education. In fact, *he never regarded achieved results in any other light than as starting points for further exploration. In speculating about the prospects of some line of investigation, he would dismiss the usual consideration of simplicity, elegance or even consistency with the remark that **such qualities can only be properly judged after [my italics] the event.…” L. Rosenfeld in Niels Bohr. His Life and Work as seen by his Friends and Colleagues, S. Rosental (ed.), New York, 1967, p. 117. Now science is never a completed process, therefore it is always “before” the event. Hence simplicity, elegance or consistency are never necessary conditions of (scientific) practice.
Considerations such as these are usually criticized by the childish remark that a contradiction “entails” everything. But contradictions do not “entail” anything unless people use them in certain ways. And people will use them as entailing everything only if they accept some rather simple-minded rules of derivation. Scientists proposing theories with logical faults and obtaining interesting results with their help (for example: the results of early forms of the calculus; of a geometry where lines consist of points, planes of lines and volumes of planes; the predictions of the older quantum theory and of early forms of the quantum theory of radiation – and so on) evidently proceed according to different rules. The criticism therefore falls back on its authors unless it can be shown that a logically decontaminated science has better results. Such a demonstration is impossible. Logically perfect versions (if such versions exist) usually arrive only long after the imperfect versions have enriched science by their contributions. For example, wave mechanics was not a “logical reconstruction” of preceding theories; it was an attempt to preserve their achievements and to solve the physical problems that had arisen from their use. ***Both the achievements and the problems were produced in a way very different from the ways of those who want to subject everything to the tyranny of “logic”.
*but even as starting points perpetuates same song.. we need a global re\set
**even then.. still a cancerous distraction.. need to let go of judgement ness
***rather.. achieve ness and problem ness.. both cancerous distractions
21
There are even circumstances – and they occur rather frequently — when argument loses its forward-looking aspect and becomes a hindrance to progress. Nobody would claim that the teaching of small children is exclusively a matter of argument (though argument may enter into it, and should enter into it to a larger extent than is customary), and almost everyone now agrees that what looks like a result of reason – the mastery of a language, the existence of a richly articulated perceptual world, logical ability – is due partly to indoctrination and partly to a process of growth that proceeds with the force of natural law. And where arguments do seem to have an effect, this is more often due to their physical repetition than to their semantic content.
*rather.. always has/is/does.. cancerous distraction
Having admitted this much, *we must also concede the possibility of non-argumentative growth in the adult as well as in (the theoretical parts of) institutions such as science, religion, prostitution, and so on. We certainly cannot take it for granted that what is possible for a small child – to **acquire new modes of behaviour on the slightest provocation, to slide into them without any noticeable effort – is beyond the reach of his elders. ***One should rather expect that catastrophic changes in the physical environment, wars, the breakdown of encompassing systems of morality, political revolutions, will transform adult reaction patterns as well, including important patterns of argumentation. Such a transformation may again be an entirely natural process and the only function of a rational argument may lie in the fact that it increases the mental tension that preceded and caused the behavioural outburst.
*rather.. need to let go of all the obsession/overseeing ness of growth et al
**cancerous distraction.. need to try: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
***oooof.. this is just whalespeak
Now, if there are events, not necessarily arguments, which cause us to adopt new standards, including new and more complex forms of argumentation, is it then not up to the defenders of the status quo to provide, not just counter-arguments, but also contrary causes? (“Virtue without terror is ineffective,” says Robespierre.) And if the old forms of argumentation turn out to be too weak a cause, must not these defenders either give up or resort to stronger and more “irrational” means? *(It is very difficult, and perhaps entirely impossible, to combat the effects of brainwashing by argument.)..t Even the most puritanical rationalist will then be forced to stop reasoning and to use propaganda and coercion, not because some of his reasons have ceased to be valid, but because **the psychological conditions which make them effective, and capable of influencing others, have disappeared. And what is the use of an argument that leaves people unmoved?
*graeber model law et al.. need global detox leap
**ooof.. no use.. rather.. again.. cancerous distraction.. maté trump law et al.. brown belonging law et al
Of course, the problem never arises quite in this form. *The teaching of standards and their defence never consists merely in putting them before the mind of the student and making them as clear as possible. The standards are supposed to have maximal causal efficacy as well. This makes it very difficult indeed to distinguish between the logical force and the material effect of an argument. Just as a well-trained pet will obey his master no matter how great the confusion in which he finds himself, and no matter how urgent the need to adopt new patterns of behaviour, so in the very same way a well-trained rationalist will obey the mental image of his master, he will conform to the standards of argumentation he has learned, he will adhere to these standards no matter how great the confusion in which he finds himself, and **he will be quite incapable of realizing that what he regards as the “voice of reason” is but a causal after-effect of the training he had received. He will be quite unable to discover that the appeal to reason to which he succumbs so readily is nothing but a political manoeuver..t
*form of people telling other people what to do.. ooof
**aka: manufactured consent.. voluntary compliance.. et al.. and graeber rethink law et al
22
*That interests, forces, propaganda and brainwashing techniques play a much greater role than is commonly believed in the growth of our knowledge and in the growth of science, can also be seen from an analysis of the relation between idea and action. **It is often taken for granted that a clear and distinct understanding of new ideas precedes, and should precede, their formulation and their institutional expression. First, we have an idea, or a problem, then we act, i.e. either speak, or build, or destroy. Yet this is certainly not the way in which small children develop. They use words, they combine them, they play with them, until they grasp a meaning that has so far been beyond their reach. And ***the initial playful activity is an essential prerequisite of the final act of understanding. There is no reason why this mechanism should cease to function in the adult. We must expect, for example, that the idea of liberty could be made clear only by means of the very same actions, which were supposed to create liberty. ****Creation of a thing, and creation plus full understanding of a correct idea of the thing, are very often parts of one and the same indivisible process and cannot be separated without bringing the process to a stop. The process itself is not guided by a well-defined programme, and cannot be guided by such a programme, for it contains the conditions for the realization of all possible programmes. It is guided rather by a vague urge, by a “passion” (Kierkegaard). The passion gives rise to specific behaviour which in turn *****creates the circumstances and the ideas necessary for analysing and explaining the process, for making it “rational”.
*rather growth of science scientifically.. aka: whalespeak
**order isn’t the issue.. graeber can’t know law is the deeper issue
***rather.. the play ness is enough.. no final acts.. no understanding ness.. just play/be.. et al
****again.. ‘correct idea of a thing’ stops any ‘process’ aka: living/alive ness.. perpetuates sea world.. ooof
*****rather.. anal/explain/rational ness are cancerous distractions .. so conditions for that.. not necessary.. rather.. whalespeak
The development of the Copernican point of view from Galileo to the 20th century is a perfect example of the situation I want to describe. We start with a strong belief that runs counter to contemporary reason and contemporary experience. The belief spreads and finds support in other beliefs which are equally unreasonable, if not more so (law of inertia; the telescope). Research now gets deflected in new directions, new kinds of instruments are built, “evidence” is related to theories in new ways until there arises an ideology that is rich enough to provide independent arguments for any particular part of it and mobile enough to find such arguments whenever they seem to be required. We can say today that Galileo was on the right track, for his persistent pursuit of what once seemed to be a silly cosmology has by now created the material needed to defend it against all those who will accept a view only if it is told in a certain way and who will trust it only if it contains certain magical phrases, called “observational reports”. And this is not an exception — it is the normal case: theories become clear and “reasonable” only after incoherent parts of them have been used for a long time. Such unreasonable, nonsensical, unmethodical foreplay thus turns out to be an unavoidable precondition of clarity and of empirical success.
oooof.. again.. this is still whalespeak.. still gatekeeping.. still guided by ‘observational reports’.. the assumption of ‘theories becoming clear/reasonable/successful’ cancerous distraction.. red flag
Now, when we attempt to describe and to understand developments of this kind in a general way, we are, of course, obliged to appeal to the existing forms of speech which do not take them into account and which must be distorted, misused, beaten into new patterns in order to fit unforeseen situations (*without a constant misuse of language there cannot be any discovery, any progress). “Moreover, since the traditional categories are the gospel of everyday thinking (including ordinary scientific thinking) and of everyday practice, [such an attempt at understanding] **in effect presents rules and forms of false thinking and action – false, that is, from the standpoint of (scientific) common sense.” This is how dialectical thinking arises as a form of thought that “dissolves into nothing the detailed determinations of the understanding”, formal logic included.
*rather.. need idiosyncratic jargon.. breaking the alphabet .. et al.. to simply live/be.. life over survival ness et al
**ooof.. rather.. black science of people/whales law et al.. keeping us trapped.. language as control/enclosure et al.. lit & num as colonialism et al..
23
(Incidentally, it should be pointed out that my frequent use of such words as “progress”, “advance”, “improvement”, etc., *does not mean that I claim to possess special knowledge about what is good and what is bad in the sciences and that I want to impose this knowledge upon my readers. Everyone can read the terms in his own way and in accordance with the tradition to which he belongs. Thus for an empiricist, “progress” will mean transition to a theory that provides direct empirical tests for most of its basic assumptions. Some people believe the quantum theory to be a theory of this kind. For others, “progress” may mean unification and harmony, perhaps even at the expense of empirical adequacy. This is how Einstein viewed the general theory of relativity. And my thesis is that anarchism helps to achieve progress in any one of the senses one cares to choose. Even a law-and-order science will succeed only if anarchistic moves are occasionally allowed to take place.)
*but already imposing if any form of m\a\p
**if still talking ‘progress/success/allowing ness.. still a form of people telling other people what to do
It is clear, then, that the idea of a fixed method, or of a fixed theory of rationality, rests on too naive a view of man and his social surroundings. To those who look at the rich material provided by history, and who are not intent on impoverishing it in order to please their lower instincts, their craving for intellectual security in the form of clarity, precision, “objectivity”, “truth”, **it will become clear that there is only one principle that can be defended under all circumstances and in all stages of human development. It is the principle: anything goes.
*again.. deeper.. ie: black science of people/whales law
**and again.. not legit ‘anything goes’ ness if still talking stages/development et al
This abstract principle must now be examined and explained in concrete detail.
? why
rather.. carhart-harris entropy law et al.. naming the colour ness et al
24
2
For example, we may use hypotheses that contradict well-confirmed theories and/or well-established experimental results. We may *advance science by proceeding counterinductively.
*advance ness and counter ness.. cancerous distractions
Examining the principle in concrete detail means tracing the consequences of “counterrules” which oppose familiar rules of the scientific enterprise. To see how this works, let us consider the rule that it is “experience”, or the “facts”, or “experimental results” which measure the success of our theories, that agreement between a theory and the “data” favours the theory (or leaves the situation unchanged) while disagreement endangers it, and perhaps even forces us to eliminate it. This rule is an important part of all theories of confirmation and corroboration. It is the essence of empiricism. The “counterrule” corresponding to it advises us to introduce and elaborate hypotheses which are inconsistent with well-established theories and/or well-established facts. It advises us to proceed counterinductively.
ooooof .. cancerous distractions
The counterinductive procedure gives rise to the following questions: Is counterinduction more reasonable than induction? Are there circumstances favouring its use? What are the arguments for it? What are the arguments against it? Is perhaps induction always preferable to counterinduction? And so on.
These questions will be answered in two steps. I shall first examine the counterrule that urges us to develop hypotheses inconsistent with accepted and highly confirmed theories. Later on I shall examine the counterrule that urges us to develop hypotheses inconsistent with well-established facts. The results may be summarized as follows.
again.. makes no diff.. cancerous distractions
In the first case it emerges that the evidence that might refute a theory can often be unearthed only with the help of an incompatible alternative: the advice (which goes back to Newton and which is still very popular today) to use alternatives only when refutations have already discredited the orthodox theory puts the cart before the horse. Also, some of the most important formal properties of a theory are found by contrast, and not by analysis. A scientist who wishes to maximize the empirical content of the views he holds and who wants to understand them as clearly as he possibly can must therefore introduce other views; that is, he must adopt *a pluralistic methodology. He must compare ideas with other ideas rather than with “experience” and he must try to improve rather than discard the views that have failed in the competition. Proceeding in this way he will retain the theories of man and cosmos that are found in Genesis, or in the Pimander, he will elaborate them and use them to measure the success of evolution and other “modern” views. **He may then discover that the theory of evolution is not as good as is generally assumed and that it must be supplemented, or entirely replaced, by an improved version of Genesis. Knowledge so conceived is not a series of self-consistent theories that converges towards an ideal view; it is not a gradual approach to the truth. It is rather an ever increasing ocean of **mutually incompatible alternatives, each single theory, each fairy-tale, each myth that is part of the collection forcing the others into greater articulation and all of them contributing, via this process of competition, to the development of our consciousness. Nothing is ever settled, no view can ever be omitted from a comprehensive account. Plutarch or Diogenes Laertius, and not Dirac or von Neumann, are the models for presenting a knowledge of this kind in which the ****history of a science becomes an inseparable part of the science itself – it is essential for its further development as well as for giving content to the theories it contains at any particular moment. Experts and laymen, professionals and dilettanti, truth-freaks and liars – they all are invited to participate in the contest and to make their contribution to the enrichment of our culture. The task of the scientist, however, is no longer “to search for the truth”, or “to praise god”, or “to systematize observations”, or “to improve predictions”. *****These are but side effects of an activity to which his attention is now mainly directed and which is “to make the weaker case the stronger” as the sophists said, and thereby to sustain the motion of the whole.
*rather.. get to garden-enough ness.. by global detox leap.. where we facil the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
**or not even replaced.. just restore our disturbed ecossystem..
***oooof
****whalespeak
*****if only.. rather.. they are cancerous distractions
25
The second “counterrule” which favours hypotheses inconsistent with observations, facts and experimental results, needs no special defence, for there is not a single interesting theory that agrees with all the known facts in its domain. *The question is, therefore, not whether counterinductive theories should be admitted into science; the question is, rather, whether the existing discrepancies between theory and fact should be increased, or diminished, or what else should be done with them.
*rather.. the question is: what are the conditions that we all might be legit free/alive.. taleb center of problem law et al.. nothing to date has gotten to the root of problem
*To answer this question it suffices to remember that observational reports, experimental results, “factual” statements, either contain theoretical assumptions or assert them by the manner in which they are used. (For this point cf. the discussion of natural interpretations in Chapters 6ff.) Thus our habit of saying “the table is brown” when we view it under normal circumstances, with our senses in good order, but “the table seems to be brown” when either the lighting conditions are poor or when we feel unsure in our capacity of observation expresses the belief that there are familiar circumstances when our senses are capable of seeing the world “as it really is” and other, equally familiar circumstances, when they are deceived. It expresses the belief that some of our sensory impressions are veridical while others are not. We also take it for granted that the material medium between the object and us exerts no distorting influence, and that the physical entity that establishes the contact – light – carries a true picture. All these are abstract, and highly doubtful, assumptions which shape our view of the world without being accessible to a direct criticism. Usually, we are not even aware of them and we recognize their effects only when we encounter an entirely different cosmology: prejudices are found by contrast, not by analysis. **The material which the scientist has at his disposal, his most sublime theories and his most sophisticated techniques included, is structured in exactly the same way. It again contains principles which are not known and which, if known, would be extremely hard to test. (As a result, a theory may clash with the evidence not because it is not correct, but because the evidence is contaminated.)
*aka: whalespeak
**or rather.. because ‘evidence’ ness itself is a contamination.. a disturbance to the dance
Now – *how can we possibly examine something we are using all the time? How can we analyse the terms in which we habitually express our most simple and straightforward observations, and reveal their presuppositions? How can we discover the kind of world we presuppose when proceeding as we do?
*we need to let go of examining/analyzing ness
*The answer is clear: we cannot discover it from the inside. We need an external standard of criticism, we need a set of alternative assumptions or, as these assumptions will be quite general, constituting, as it were, an entire alternative world, we need a dream-world in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit (and which may actually be just another dream-world). The first step in our criticism of familiar concepts and procedures, the first step in our criticism of “facts”, must therefore be an attempt to break the circle. **We must invent a new conceptual system that suspends, or clashes with, the most carefully established observational results, confounds the most plausible theoretical principles, and introduces perceptions that cannot form part of the existing perceptual world. This step is again counterinductive. Counterinduction is, therefore, always reasonable and it has always a chance of success.
*ooof.. clear answer to the wrong question.. oooof
**rather.. need the conditions for all to be free.. ie: one that facils missing pieces; one that is org’d around legit needs
26
In the following seven chapters, this *conclusion will be developed in greater detail and it will be elucidated with the help of historical examples. One might therefore get the impression that I recommend a new methodology which replaces induction by counterinduction and uses a multiplicity of theories, metaphysical views, fairy-tales instead of the customary pair theory/observation. This impression would certainly be mistaken. **My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is, rather, to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits. The best way to show this is to demonstrate the limits and even the irrationality of some rules which she, or he, is likely to regard as basic. In the case of induction (including induction by falsification) this means **demonstrating how well the counterinductive procedure can be supported by argument. Always remember that the demonstrations and the rhetorics used do not express any “deep convictions” of mine. They merely show how easy it is to lead people by the nose in a rational way. An anarchist is like an undercover agent who plays the game of Reason in order to undercut the authority of Reason (Truth, Honesty, Justice, and so on).
*oooof .. history ness of sea world.. aka: whalespeak
**if still convincing the reader ness.. then replacing the rules ness.. rather than just setting conditions for all to be free..
***so.. same song.. ooof
27
3
The consistency condition which demands that new hypotheses agree with accepted theories is unreasonable because it preserves the older theory, and not the better theory. Hypotheses contradicting well-confirmed theories give us evidence that cannot be obtained in any other way. Proliferation of theories is beneficial for science, while uniformity impairs its critical power. Uniformity also endangers the free development of the individual.
same song if still talking theory et al
28
The proper procedure must therefore consist in the confrontation of the accepted point of view with as many relevant facts as possible. The exclusion of alternatives is then simply a measure of expediency: their invention not only does not help, it even hinders progress by absorbing time and manpower that could be devoted to better things. The consistency condition eliminates such fruitless discussion and it forces the scientist to concentrate on the facts which, after all, are the only acceptable judges of a theory. This is how the practising scientist will defend his concentration on a single theory to the exclusion of empirically possible alternatives.
oooof.. (and later talks of changing school text books to match).. cancerous distractions
29
However, before doing this, I want to discuss an example which shows very clearly the function of alternatives in the discovery of critical facts.
if very clearly.. still in sea world
31
The question is whose achievements are better or more important and this question cannot be answered for there are no realistic alternatives to provide a point of comparison. A wonderful invention has turned into a fossil.
we don’t want/crave an alt that is realistic/comparable.. ooof
32
Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge. And a method that encourages variety is also the only method that is compatible with a humanitarian outlook. (To the extent to which the consistency condition delimits variety, it contains a theological element which lies, of course, in the worship of “facts” so characteristic of nearly all empiricism
still finite set of choices if thinking/seeking knowledge ness
33
4
There is no idea, however ancient and absurd, that is not capable of improving our knowledge. The whole history of thought is absorbed into science and is used for improving every single theory. Nor is political interference rejected. It may be needed to overcome the chauvinism of science that resists alternatives to the status quo.
not focus..
The whole history of a subject is utilized in the attempt to improve its most recent and most “advanced” stage. The separation between the history of a science, its philosophy and the science itself dissolves into thin air and so does the separation between science and non-science
oi.. whalespeak
37
5
No theory ever agrees with all the facts in its domain, yet it is not always the theory that is to blame. Facts are constituted by older ideologies, and a clash between facts and theories may be proof of progress. It is also a first step in our attempt to find the principles implicit in familiar observational notions.
45
According to Hume, theories cannot be derived from facts. The demand to admit only those theories which follow from facts leaves us without any theory. Hence, science as we know it can exist only if we drop the demand and revise our methodology.
According to our present results, hardly any theory is consistent with the facts. The demand to admit only those theories which are consistent with the available and accepted facts again leaves us without any theory. (I repeat: without any theory, for there is not a single theory that is not in some trouble or other.) Hence, a science as we know it can exist only if we drop this demand also and again revise our methodology, now admitting counterinduction in addition to admitting unsupported hypotheses. The right method must not contain any rules that make us choose between theories on the basis of falsification. Rather, its rules must enable us to choose between theories which we have already tested and which are falsified.
46
Consideration of all these circumstances, of observation terms, sensory core, auxiliary sciences, background speculation, suggest that a theory may be inconsistent with the evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated. The theory is threatened because the evidence either contains unanalysed sensations which only partly correspond to external processes, or because it is presented in terms of antiquated views, or because it is evaluated with the help of backward auxiliary subjects. The Copernican theory was in trouble for all these reasons.
aka: whalespeak.. but too.. theory ness itself as whalespeak.. let go of naming the colour et al
A straightforward and unqualified judgement of theories by “facts” is bound to eliminate ideas simply because they do not fit into the framework of some older cosmology. Taking experimental results and observations for granted and putting the burden of proof on the theory means taking the observational ideology for granted without having ever examined it. (Note that the experimental results are supposed to have been obtained with the greatest possible care. Hence “taking observations, etc., for granted” means “taking them for granted after the most careful examination of their reliability”: for even the most careful examination of an observation statement does not interfere with the concepts in which it is expressed, or with the structure of the sensory image.)
observation ness as cancerous distraction
Now – how can we possibly examine something we use all the time and presuppose in every statement? How can we criticize the terms in which we habitually express our observations? Let us see!
The first step in our criticism of commonly-used concepts is to *create a measure of criticism, something with which these concepts can be compared. Of course, we shall later want to know a little more about the measuring-stick itself; for example, we shall want to know whether it is better than, or perhaps not as good as, the material examined. But **in order for this examination to start there must be a measuring-stick in the first place . Therefore, the first step in our criticism of customary concepts and customary reactions is to ***step outside the circle and either to invent a new conceptual system, for example a new theory, that clashes with the most carefully established observational results and confounds the most plausible theoretical principles, or to import such a system from outside science, from religion, from mythology, from the ideas of incompetents,[95] or the ramblings of madmen. This step is, again, counterinductive. Counterinduction is thus both a fact – science could not exist without it – and a legitimate and much needed move in the game of science.
*cancerous distraction.. need a way sans any form of m\a\p
**this is why measuring things is so destruction/violent.. et al
***need: hari rat park law et al
endnote 95: Chapter 5, 27} It is interesting to see that Philolaos, who disregarded the evidence of the senses and set the earth in motion, was “an unmathematical confusionist. It was the confusionist who found the courage lacking in many great observers and mathematically well–informed scientists to disregard the immediate evidence of the senses in order to remain in agreement with principles he firmly believed.”
48
6
51
He (galileo) insists upon a critical discussion to decide which natural interpretations can be kept and which must be replaced.
oooof.. cancerous distraction
52
There is only *one way to get out of this circle, and it **consists in using an external measure of comparison, including new ways of relating concepts and percepts.
**that ‘way’ just assures we stay in (sea world)
56
7
Galileo replaces one natural interpretation by a very different and as yet (1630) at least partly unnatural interpretation. How does he proceed? How does he manage to introduce absurd and counter-inductive assertions such as the assertion that the earth moves, and yet get them a just and attentive hearing? One anticipates that arguments will not suffice — an interesting and highly important limitation of rationalism – and Galileo’s utterances are indeed arguments in appearance only. For Galileo uses propaganda. He uses psychological tricks in addition to whatever intellectual reasons he has to offer. These tricks are very successful: they lead him to victory. But they obscure the new attitude towards experience that is in the making, and postpone for centuries the possibility of a reasonable philosophy. They obscure the fact that the experience on which Galileo wants to base the Copernican view is nothing but the result of his own fertile imagination, that it has been invented. They obscure this fact by insinuating that the new results which emerge are known and conceded by all, and need only be called to our attention to appear as the most obvious expression of the truth.
59
Galileo, in his marginal notes, calls these “utterly childish reasons [which] sufficed to keep imbeciles believing in the fixity of the earth” and he thinks it unnecessary “to bother about such men as those, whose name is legion, or to take notice of their fooleries”. Yet it is clear that the absolute idea of motion was “well-entrenched”, and that the attempt to replace it was bound to encounter strong resistance.[118]
endnote 118: Chapter 7, 12} The idea that there is an absolute direction in the universe has a very interesting history. It rests on the structure of the gravitational field on the surface of the earth, or of that part of the earth which the observer knows, and generalizes the experiences made there. The generalization is only rarely regarded as a separate hypothesis, it rather enters the “grammar” of common sense and gives the terms “up” and “down” an absolute meaning. (This is a “natural interpretation”, in precisely the sense that was explained in the text above.) Lactantius, a Church father of the fourth century, appeals to this meaning when he asks (Divinae lnstitutiones, III, De Falsa Sapientia): “Is one really going to be so confused as to assume the existence of humans whose feet are above their heads? Where trees and fruit grow not upwards, but downwards?” The same use of language is presupposed by that “mass of untutored men” who raise the question why the antipodeans are not falling off the earth (Pliny, Natural History, 11, pp. 161-6, cf. also Ptolemy, Syntaxis, 1, 7). The attempts of Thales, Anaximenes and Xenophanes to find support for the earth which prevents it from falling “down” (Aristotle, De Coelo, 294al2ff) shows that almost all early philosophers, with the sole exception of Anaximander, shared in this way of thinking. (For the Atomists, who assume that the atoms originally fall “down,” cf. Jammer, Concepts of Space, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, p. 11.) Even Galileo, who thoroughly ridicules the idea of the falling antipodes (Dialogue, op. cit., p. 331), occasionally speaks of the “upper half of the moon”, meaning that part of the moon “which is invisible to us”. And let us not forget that some linguistic philosophers of today “who are too stupid to recognize their own limitations” (Galileo, op. cit., p. 327) want to revive the absolute meaning of “up-down” at least locally.
61
No difficulties arise as long as one remains within the limits of the first paradigm. “Experience”, i.e. the totality of all facts from all domains, cannot force us to carry out the change which Galileo wants to introduce. The motive for a change must come from a different source.
or rather.. just need conditions for all to be legit free.. so that legit emotions/experiences et al render all else (ie: motive ness) as irrelevant s
It comes, first, from the *desire to see “the whole [correspond] to its parts with wonderful simplicity”, as Copernicus had already expressed himself. It comes from the “typically metaphysical urge” for unity of understanding and conceptual presentation. ..And we have the impression that this readiness was in us all the time, although it took some effort to make it conscious. This impression is most certainly erroneous: it is the result of Galileo’s propagandistic machinations. We would do better to describe the situation in a different way, as a change of our conceptual system.
*thurman interconnectedness law et al
.. But its official doctrine still clings to the idea of a stable and unchanging basis. The clash between this doctrine and the actual procedure is concealed by a tendentious presentation of the results of research that hides their revolutionary origin and suggests that they arose from a stable and unchanging source. These methods of concealment start with Galileo’s attempt to introduce new ideas under the cover of anamnesis, and they culminate in Newton. *They must be exposed if we want to arrive at a better account of the progressive elements in science.
*is that what we want? i thought we wanted people to be legit free
62
He introduces the principle, again not by reference to experiment or to independent observation, but by reference to what everyone is already supposed to know.
need global detox leap so we can see/hear what’s already on each heart
ie: imagine if we ness.. et al
65
8
endnote 130: {Chapter 8, 2} The so-called scientific revolution led to astounding discoveries and considerably extended our knowledge of physics, physiology, and astronomy. *This was achieved by pushing aside and regarding as irrelevant, and often as non-existent, those facts which had supported the older philosophy..t
*huge.. if only we could see/believe the irrelevant s enough to get to the root of problem
66
they have, through sheer force of intellect, done such violence to their own senses as to prefer what reason told them over that which sensible experience plainly showed them to be the contrary..t
need to get back/to not yet scrambled ness
69
Trial and error – this means that “in the case of the telescope it was experience and not mathematics that led Galileo to a serene faith in the reliability of his device”..t
endnote 147: {Chapter 8, 19} Kepler, the most knowledgeable and most lovable of Galileo’s contemporaries, gives a clear account of the reasons why, despite his superior knowledge of optical matters, he “refrained from attempting to construct the device”. “You, however,” he addresses Galileo, “deserve my praise. Putting aside all misgivings you turned directly to visual experimentation” (Conversation, op. cit., p. 18). It remains to add that Galileo, due to his lack of knowledge in optics, had no “misgivings” to overcome: “Galileo … was totally ignorant of the science of optics, and it is not too bold to assume that this was a most happy accident both for him and for humanity at large”, ..t Ronchi, Scientific Change, ed. Crombie, London, 1963, p. 550.
intellectness as cancerous distraction et al
71
9
endnote 154: {Chapter 9, 2} That the senses are acquainted with our everyday surroundings, but are liable to give misleading reports about objects outside this domain, is proved at once by the appearance of the moon. On the earth large but distant objects in familiar surroundings, such as mountains, are seen as being large, and far away. The appearance of the moon, however, gives us an entirely false idea of its distance and its size.
72
I have as witnesses most excellent men and noble doctors … and all have admitted the instrument to deceive. … This silenced Galileo and on the 26th he sadly left quite early in the morning … not even thanking Magini for his splendid meal. …” Magini wrote to Kepler on 26 May: “He has achieved nothing, for more than twenty learned men were present; yet nobody has seen the new planets distinctly (nemo perfecte vidit); he will hardly be able to keep them.” A few months later (in a letter signed by Ruffini) he repeats: “Only some with sharp vision were convinced to some extent.” After these and other negative reports had reached Kepler from all sides, like a paper avalanche, he asked Galileo for witnesses: “I do not want to hide it from you that quite a few Italians have sent letters to Prague asserting that they could not see those stars [the moons of Jupiter] with your own telescope. I ask myself how it can be that so many deny the phenomenon, including those who use a telescope. Now, if I consider what occasionally happens to me, then I do not at all regard it as impossible that a single person may see what thousands are unable to see. …
83
10
The more this conviction took root in his mind, the clearer to him became the importance of the new instrument. In Galileo’s own mind faith in the reliability of the telescope and recognition of its importance were not two separate acts, rather, they were two aspects of the same process.” Can the absence of independent evidence be expressed more clearly?
resonates with me.. there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..
85
11
91
This backward movement is indeed essential – but how can we *persuade people to follow our lead? How can we lure them away from a well-defined, sophisticated and empirically successful system and make them **transfer their allegiance to an unfinished and absurd hypothesis? ..We need these “irrational means” in order to uphold what is nothing but a blind faith ***until we have found the auxiliary sciences, the facts, the arguments that turn the faith into sound “knowledge”.
*so same song.. aka: people telling other people what to do
**not that absurd/unfinished et al.. if persuade able
***ooof.. huge red flag that this is just another cancerous distraction
It is in this context that the rise of a new secular class with a new outlook and considerable contempt for the science of the schools, its methods, its results, even for its language, becomes so important.
red flag .. just another cancerous distraction
97
12
*So far the argument was purely intellectual. I tried to show that neither logic nor experience can limit speculation and that outstanding researchers often transgressed widely accepted limits. But concepts have not only a logical content; they also have associations, they give rise to emotions, they are connected with images. **These associations, emotions and images are essential for the way in which we relate to our fellow human beings. Removing them or changing them in a fundamental way may perhaps make our concepts more “objective”, but it often violates important social constraints.
*at least admitting it.. intellectness as cancerous distraction
**fellow human beings who are made of unpredictability/surprise
99
13
The courts of the Inquisition also examined and punished crimes concerning the production and the use of knowledge. This can be explained by their origin: they were supposed to exterminate heresy, i. e. complexes consisting of actions, assumptions and talk making people inclined towards certain beliefs. The surprised reader who asks what knowledge has to do with the law should remember the many legal, social and financial obstacles knowledge-claims face today. Galileo wanted his ideas to replace the existing cosmology, but he was forbidden to work towards that aim. Today the much more modest wish of creationists to have their views taught in schools side by side with other and competing views runs into laws setting up a separation of Church and State. Increasing amounts of theoretical and engineering information are kept secret for military reasons and are thereby cut off from international exchange. Commercial interests have the same restrictive tendency. ..Financial arrangements can make or break a research programme and an entire profession. There are many ways to silence people apart from forbidding them to speak – and all of them are being used today. The process of knowledge production and knowledge distribution was never the free, “objective”, and purely intellectual exchange rationalists make it out to be.
100
It is not a concern for humanity but rather party interests which play a major role in the Galileo hagiography. Let us therefore take a closer look at the matter [238]
endnote 238: .. Here the Church did the right thing: the sciences do not have the last word in humane matters, knowledge included.
or any word.. mufleh humanity law et al.. science scientifically.. intellectness as cancerous distraction.. et al.. graeber can’t know law et al
102
According to Newton knowledge flows from two sources – the word of God – the Bible – and the works of God – Nature; and he postulated divine interventions in the planetary system, as we have seen.
This comment, whose rigidity was a result of the new Tridentine Spirit, should not surprise anyone familiar with the habits of powerful institutions. The attitude of the American Medical Association towards lay practitioners is as rigid as the attitude of the Church was towards lay interpreters – and it has the blessing of the law. Experts, or ignoramuses having acquired the formal insignia of expertise, always tried and often succeeded in securing for themselves exclusive rights in special domains. Any criticism of the rigidity of the Roman Church applies also to its modern scientific and science-connected successors.
106
14
107
According to Aristotle mathematics does not deal with real things but contains abstractions.
of math and men.. graeber violence/quantification law.. et al
108
Coherence is to be expected in totalitarian surroundings that guide research either by laws, by peer pressure or by financial machinations.
111
It is this inner connectedness of all parts of the planetary system that convinced Copernicus of the reality of the motion of the earth
organism as fractal.. the dance
115
15
Let us now use the material of the preceding sections to throw light on the following features of contemporary empiricism: (1) the distinctions between a context of discovery and a context of justification – norms and facts, observational terms and theoretical terms; (2) Popper’s “critical” rationalism; (3) the problem of incommensurability. The last problem will lead us back to the problem of rationality and order vs anarchism, which is the main topic of this essay.
need to let go of measuring things.. to date.. still measuring things
116
Even the most surprising stories about the manner in which scientists arrive at their theories cannot exclude the possibility that *they proceed in an entirely different way once they have found them. But this possibility is never realized. **Inventing theories and contemplating them in a relaxed and “artistic” fashion, scientists often make moves that are forbidden by methodological rules. ..Part one shows that we do not have a difference, but a mixture. ***Part two shows that replacing the mixture by an order that contains discovery on one side and justification on the other would have ruined science: we are dealing with a uniform practice all of whose ingredients are equally important for the growth of science. This disposes of the distinction.
*gray research law et al
**need even deeper.. ie: the ‘relaxed, no rules/permissions ness without obsessing on theory/understanding ness.. et al
***if justifying ness.. not legit free.. need unjustifiable strategy ness
Again, progress can be made only if the distinction between the ought and the is is regarded as a temporary device rather than as a fundamental boundary line.
progress seems an unsettling word.. if instead perhaps flourishing ness .. ought has already made a boundary line.. and killed us..
*A distinction which once may have had a point but which has now definitely lost it is the distinction between observational terms and theoretical terms. **Finally, we have discovered that learning does not go from observation to theory but always involves both elements. Experience arises together with theoretical assumptions not before them, and an experience without theory is just as incomprehensible as is (allegedly) a theory without experience: ***eliminate part of the theoretical knowledge of a sensing subject and you have a person who is completely disoriented and incapable of Carrying out the simplest action. Eliminate further knowledge and his sensory world (his “observation language”) will start disintegrating, colours and other simple sensations will disappear until he is in a stage even more primitive than a small child. A small child, on the other hand, does not possess a stable perceptual world which he uses for making sense of the theories put before him. Quite the contrary — he passes through various perceptual stages which are only loosely connected with each other (earlier stages disappear when new stages take over – see Chapter 16) and which embody all the theoretical knowledge available at the time. Moreover, ****the whole process starts only because the child reacts correctly towards signals, interprets them correctly, because he possesses means of interpretation even before he has experienced his first clear sensation.
*rather.. same song.. both cancerous distractions.. both disturb the dance
**cancerous distraction to focus on ‘learning’ ness.. esp if involves both/either element.. oi
***to me.. that’s whalespeak.. ie: maté not yet scrambled law et al.. oooooof
****huge red flag of why that’s all cancerous distraction.. ie: correctly ness et al.. oi
117
*All these discoveries cry out for a new terminology that no longer separates what is so intimately connected in the development both of the individual and of science at large. ..Nobody will deny that such distinctions can be made. But nobody will put great weight on them, or will even mention them, for they do not now play any decisive role in the business of science. (This was not always so. **Intuitive plausibility, for example, was once thought to be a most important guide to the truth; it disappeared from methodology the very moment intuition was replaced by experience, and by formal considerations.) ..Let us take a step forward and ***let us abandon this last trace of dogmatism in science!
*need idiosyncratic jargon as un terminology ness.. lanier beyond words law et al; naming the colour ness et al..
**by any form of m\a\p
**again.. only if sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
*Incommensurability, which I shall discuss next, is closely connected with the question of the rationality of science. Indeed one of the most general objections not merely to the use of incommensurable theories but even to the idea that there are such theories to be found in the history of science is the **fear that they would severely restrict the efficacy of traditional, non-dialectical argument. Let us, therefore, look a little more closely at the critical standards which, according to some, constitute the content of a “rational” argument. More especially, let us look at the standards of the Popperian school, which are still being taken seriously in the more backward regions of knowledge. This will prepare us for the ***final step in our discussion of the issue between law-and-order methodologies and anarchism in science.
*incommensurability: not based on standard of measure.. rationality: expressible
**sounds like graeber fear of play law et al
***if any form of m\a\p not ‘w/o rule’ et al
In the first case it must be possible to produce rules, standards, restrictions which permit us to separate critical behaviour (thinking, singing, writing of plays) from other types of behaviour so that we can discover irrational actions and correct them with the help of concrete suggestions.
oi.. whalespeak
118
It is important to see that the *elements of the problem are not simply given. The “fact” of irregularity, for example, is not accessible without further ado. It cannot be discovered by just anyone who has healthy eyes and a good mind. It is **only through a certain expectation that it becomes an object of our attention. Or, to be more accurate, this fact of irregularity exists because there is an expectation of regularity and because there are ideas which define what it means to be “regular”. After all, the term “irregularity” makes sense only if we have a rule.
*we are obsessed with ‘solving the problem’ ness.. which to me (taleb center of problem law).. problem deep enough is just conditions to make/set us all free.. and then.. i’m thinking.. solving the problem ness will be/become irrelevant.. ie: too busy being/living et al
**perhaps why our obsession w problem ness is so disturbing.. to the dance.. myth of normal et al
To sum up this part of the Popperian doctrine: research starts with a problem. The problem is the result of a conflict between an **expectation and an observation which is constituted by the expectation.
*then let go of research ness.. because **cancerous distractions
119
Critical rationalism arose from the attempt to understand the Einsteinian revolution, and it was then extended to politics and even to the conduct of one’s private life. Such a procedure may satisfy a school philosopher, who looks at life through the spectacles of his own technical problems and recognizes hatred, love, happiness, only to the extent to which they occur in these problems. But *if we consider human interests and, above all, the question of human freedom (freedom from hunger, despair, from the tyranny of constipated systems of thought and not the academic “freedom of the will”), then we are proceeding in the worst possible fashion.
*any form of m\a\p is a disturbance.. a cancerous distraction
122
To sum up: wherever we look, whatever examples we consider, we see that the principles of critical rationalism (take falsifications seriously; increase content; avoid ad hoc hypotheses; “be honest” – whatever that means; and so on) and, a fortiori, the principles of logical empiricism (be precise; base your theories on measurements; avoid vague and untestable ideas; and so on), though practised in special areas, give an inadequate account of the past development of science as a whole and are liable to hinder it in the future. They *give an inadequate account of science because science is much more “sloppy” and “irrational” than its methodological image. And they are liable to hinder it because the attempt to make science more “rational” and more precise is bound to wipe it out, as we have seen. The difference between science and methodology which is such an obvious fact of history, therefore, indicates a weakness of the latter, and perhaps of the “laws of reason” as well. For what appears as “sloppiness”, “chaos” or “opportunism” when compared with such laws has a most important function in the development of those very theories which we today regard as essential parts of our knowledge of nature. These “deviations”, these “errors”, are preconditions of progress. **They permit knowledge to survive in the complex and difficult world which we inhabit, they permit us to remain free and happy agents. Without “chaos”, no knowledge. Without a frequent dismissal of reason, no progress. Ideas which today form the very basis of science exist only because there were such things as prejudice, conceit, passion; because these things opposed reason; and because they were permined to have their way. We have to conclude, then, that even within science reason cannot and should not be allowed to be comprehensive and that it must often be overruled, or eliminated, in favour of other agencies. There is not a single rule that remains valid under all circumstances and not a single agency to which appeal can always be made.
*if legit sloppy et al.. already wiped out.. science scientifically et al
**if still knowledge ing.. (intellectness as cancerous distraction et al).. then not free/happy ing
123
Appendix 1
Having listened to one of my anarchistic sermons, Professor Wigner exclaimed: “But surely, you do not read all the manuscripts which people send you, but you throw most of them into the wastepaper basket.” I most certainly do. “Anything goes” does not mean that I shall read every single paper that has been written – God forbid! – it means that I make my selection in a highly individual and idiosyncratic way, partly because I can’t be bothered to read what doesn’t interest me – and my interests change from week to week and day to day – *partly because I am convinced that humanity and even Science will profit from everyone doing his own thing:
*everyone doing own thing.. huge (however need global detox leap first.. so people doing legit own things rather than watered down supposed to’s).. but word profit is unsettling.. and disturbing to the dance
again.. the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness
124
Now we have seen that the belief in a unique set of standards that has always led to success and will always lead to success is nothing but a chimera. The theoretical authority of science is much smaller than it is supposed to be. Its social authority, on the other hand, has by now become so overpowering that *political interference is necessary to restore a balanced development. And to judge the effects of such interference one must study more than one unanalysed case.
*ooof.. only if want to keep perpetuating survival triage
Rationalists are concerned about *intellectual pollution. I share this concern. Illiterate and incompetent books flood the market, empty verbiage full of strange and esoteric terms claims to express profound insights, “experts” without brains, character, and without even a modicum of intellectual, stylistic, emotional temperament tell us about our “condition” and the means for improving it, and they do not only preach to us who might be able to look through them, they are let loose on our children and permitted to drag them down into their own intellectual squalor. “Teachers” using grades and the fear of failure mould the brains of the young until they have lost every ounce of imagination they might once have possessed. **This is a disastrous situation, and one not easily mended. But I do not see how a rationalistic methodology can help. ***As far as I am concerned the first and the most pressing problem is to get education out of the hands of the “professional educators”. ,
*rather.. intellect itself is pollution.. intellectness as cancerous distraction et al
**red flag: takes a lot of work ness.. it is easy.. ie: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness.. but we keep not trusting that.. for everyone..
***rather.. out of everyone’s hands.. any form of people telling other people what to do
125
*All this means, of course, that we must stop the scientists from taking over education and from teaching as “fact” and as “the one true method” whatever the myth of the day happens to be. Agreement with science, decision to work in accordance with the canons of science should be the result of **examination and choice, and not of a particular way of bringing up children.
*rather.. we must stop teaching ness..any form of people telling other people what to do
**not even deep enough to get to root of problem.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
..who would expect that cowards will improve the intellectual climate more readily than will libertines? (Einstein saw this problem and he therefore advised people not to connect their research with their profession: research has to be free from the pressures which professions are likely to impose.) We must also remember that those rare cases where liberal methodologies do encourage empty verbiage and loose thinking (“loose” from one point of view, though perhaps not from another) may be inevitable in the sense that the guilty liberalism is also *a precondition of a free and humane life
rather.. precondition has to be has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
127
16
endnote 200: {Chapter 16, 1} According to Whorf “the background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of each language is not merely a reproducing system for voicing ideas, but rather is itself a shaper of ideas, the programme and guide for the individual’s mental activity, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock in trade”. Language, Thought and Reality, Cambridge, Mass., 1956, p. 121. See also Appendix 2
aka: language as control/enclosure.. lit & num as colonialism.. et al
130
Now is it reasonable to expect that conceptual and perceptual changes of this kind occur in childhood only? Should we welcome the fact, if it is a fact, that an adult is stuck with a stable perceptual world and an accompanying stable conceptual system, which he can modify in many ways but whose general outlines have forever become immobilized? Or is it not more realistic to assume that fundamental changes, entailing incommensurability, are still possible and that they should be encouraged lest we remain forever excluded from what might be a higher stage of knowledge and consciousness? Besides, the question of the mobility of the adult stage is at any rate an empirical question that must be attacked by research, and cannot be settled by methodological fiat. The attempt to break through the boundaries of a given conceptual system is an essential part of such research (it also should be an essential part of any interesting life).
on the need to get back/to not yet scrambled ness.. maté not yet scrambled law et al
133
The need to show every essential part of a situation often leads to a separation of parts which are actually in contact. The picture becomes a list. Thus a charioteer standing in a carriage is shown as standing above the floor (which is presented in its fullest view) and unencumbered by the rails so that his feet, the floor, the rails can all be clearly seen. No trouble arises if we regard the painting as a visual catalogue of the parts of an event rather than as an illusory rendering of the event itself (no trouble arises when we say: his feet touched the floor which is rectangular, and he was surrounded by a railing …) But such an interpretation must be learned, it cannot be simply read off the picture.
145
The need for anthropological case studies in a field that initially seemed to be dominated by a single myth, always the same, always used in the same manner, indicates that our *common knowledge of science may be severely defective. It may be entirely mistaken (some mistakes have been hinted at in the preceding chapters). In these circumstances, the only safe way is to confess ignorance, to abandon reconstructions, **and to start studying science from scratch. We must approach science like an anthropologist approaches the mental contortions of the medicine-men of a newly discovered association of tribes. And we must be prepared for the discovery that these contortions are wildly illogical (when judged from the point of view of a particular system of formal logic) and have to be wildly illogical in order to function as they do.
*intellectness as cancerous distraction.. science scientifically.. et al
**or just let go of study/research/know ness..
155
How is the “irrationality” of the transition period overcome? It is overcome in the usual way (cf. item 8 above), i. e. by the determined production of nonsense until the material produced is rich enough to permit the rebels to reveal, and everyone else to recognize, new universal principles. (Such revealing need not consist in writing the principles down in the form of clear and precise statements.) Madness turns into sanity provided it is sufficiently rich and sufficiently regular to function as the basis of a new world-view. And when that happens, then we have a new problem: how can the old view be compared with the new view?
? i thought you just described that as a good thing .. carhart-harris entropy law et al.. oi oi oi .. whalespeak
160
17
Neither science nor rationality are universal measures of excellence. They are particular traditions, unaware of their historical grounding.
oi.. science, rationality, measures, excellence, traditions, historical ness, grounding ness.. all cancerous distractions
So far I have tried to show that reason, at least in the form in which it is defended by logicians, philosophers and some scientists, does not fit science and could not have contributed to its growth. This is a good argument against those who admire science and are also slaves of reason. They must now make a choice. They can keep science; they can keep reason; they cannot keep both.
whatever.. makes no diff since both are same song.. more whalespeak
But science is not sacrosanct. The mere fact that it exists, is admired, has results is not sufficient for making it a *measure of excellence. Modem science arose from global objections against earlier views and rationalism itself, the idea that there are general rules and standards for conducting our affairs, affairs of knowledge included, arose from global objections to common sense (example: Xenophanes against Homer). . **Don’t we need a measure that is independent of science and conflicts with it in order to prepare the change we want to bring about? And will not the rejection of rules and standards that conflict with science forever prevent us from finding such a measure? On the other hand – have not some of the case studies shown that a blunt application of “rational” procedures would not have given us a better science, or a better world but nothing at all? And how are we to judge the results themselves? Obviously there is no simple way of guiding a practice by rules or of criticizing standards of rationality by a practice.
*oooof.. **oooof
161
Revolutions have transformed not only the practices their initiators wanted to change but the very principles by means of which, intentionally or unintentionally, they carried out the change.
to me.. no legit revolutions/transformations to date.. mufleh humanity law et al
162
Observers want to know what is going on, participants what to do. An observer describes a life he does not lead (except accidentally), a participant wants to arrange his own life and asks himself what attitude to take towards the things that may influence it.
163
The difference becomes especially striking in the case of mathematics. In geometry, for example, we start with rules of thumb applying to physical objects and their shapes under a great variety of circumstances. Later on it can be proved why a given rule applies to a given case – but the proofs make use of new entities that are nowhere found in nature.
Good theatre was an embodiment of the rules of Aristotle.
172
18
177
19
183
love of truth is one of the strongest motives for lying to oneself and to others.
185
To sum up: there is no “scientific world-view” just as there is no uniform enterprise “science” – except in the minds of metaphysicians, schoolmasters and politicians trying to make their nation competitive.
187
20
195-196
From 1958 to 1990 I was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California in Berkeley. My function was to carry out the educational policies of the State of California which means I had to teach people what a small group of white intellectuals had decided was knowledge. I hardly ever thought about this function and I would not have taken it very seriously had I been informed. I told the students what I had learned, I arranged the material in a way that seemed plausible and interesting to me — and that was all I did. Of course, I had also some “ideas of my own” – but these ideas moved in a fairly narrow domain (though some of my friends said even then that I was going batty).
In the years around 1964 Mexicans, blacks, Indians entered the university as a result of new educational policies. There they sat, partly curious, partly disdainful, partly simply confused hoping to get an “education”. What an opportunity for a prophet in search of a following! What an opportunity, my rationalist friends told me, to contribute to the spreading of reason and the improvement of mankind! What a marvellous opportunity for a new wave of enlightenment! I felt very differently. For it now dawned on me that the intricate arguments and the wonderful stories I had so far told to my more or less sophisticated audience might just be dreams, reflections of the conceit of a small group who had succeeded in enslaving everyone else with their ideas. Who was I to tell these people what and how to think? I did not know their problems though I knew they had many. I was not familiar with their interests, their feelings, their fears though I knew that they were eager to learn. ..These cultures have important achievements in what is today called sociology, psychology, medicine, they express ideals of life and possibilities of human existence. Yet they were never examined with the respea they deserved except by a small number of outsiders; they were ridiculed and replaced as a matter of course first by the religion of brotherly love and then by the religion of science or else they were defused by a variety of “interpretations”. Now there was much talk of liberation, of racial equality — but what did it mean? Did it mean the equality of these traditions and the traditions of the white man? It did not. Equality meant that the members of different races and cultures now had the wonderful chance to participate in the white man’s manias, they had the chance to participate in his science, his technology, his medicine, his politics. These were the thoughts that went through my head as I looked at my audience and they made me recoil in revulsion and terror from the task I was supposed to perform. For the task — this now became clear to me — was that of a very refined, very sophisticated slavedriver. And a slavedriver I did not want to be.
seat at the table ness and voluntary compliance ness et al
Experiences such as these convinced me that intellectual procedures which approach a problem through concepts are on the wrong track and I became interested in the reasons for the tremendous power this error has now over minds. I started examining the rise of intellectualism in Ancient Greece and the causes that brought it about. I wanted to know what it is that makes people who have a rich and complex culture fall for dry abstractions and multilate their traditions, their thought, their language so that they can accommodate the abstractions. I wanted to know how intellectuals manage to get away with murder — for it is murder, murder of minds and cultures that is committed year in year out at schools, universities, educational missions in foreign countries. The trend must be reversed, I thought, we must start learning from those we have enslaved for they have much to offer and, at any rate, they have the right to live as they see fit even if they are not as pushy about their rights and their views as their Western conquerors have always been. In 1964-5 when these ideas first occurred to me I tried to find an intellectual solution to my misgivings, that is, I took it for granted that it was up to me and the likes of me to devise educational policies for other people. I envisaged a new kind of education that would live from a rich reservoir of different points of view permitting the choice of traditions most advantageous to the individual. The teacher’s task would consist in facilitating the choice, not in replacing it by some “truth” of his own.
197
I now realize that these considerations were just another example of intellectualistic conceit and folly. It is conceited to assume that one has solutions for people whose lives one does not share and whose problems one does not know. It is foolish to assume that such an exercise in distant humanitarianism will have effects pleasing to the people concerned. From the very beginning of Western Rationalism intellectuals have regarded themselves as teachers, the world as a school and “people” as obedient pupils. In Plato this is very clear. The same phenomenon occurs among Christians, Rationalists, Fascists, Marxists. Marxists did not try to learn from those they wanted to liberate; they attacked each other about interpretations, viewpoints, evidence and took it for granted that the resulting intellectual hash would make fine food for the natives (Bakunin was aware of the doctrinarian tendencies of contemporary Marxism and he intended to return all power — power over ideas included — to the people immediately concerned). My own view differed from those just mentioned but it was still a view, an abstract fancy I had invented and now tried to sell without having shared even an ounce of the lives of the receivers. This I now regard as insufferable conceit. So — what remains
198
Postscript on Relativism
______
_____
_____
____
_____
_____
_____
______
be you. 