Never heard of him. I read the article and now I know why. There are plenty of people like him out there all kinds of non-constructive thinking and talking.
You take pride in ignorance. That is not very constructive either
Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)
21–30 of 96 posts
Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)
#22> "I have no position!" he cried. "If you have a position, it is always something screwed down." He twisted an invisible screwdriver into the table. "I have opinions that I defend rather vigorously, and then I find out how silly they are, and I give them up!" By modern social convention this is "trolling". > If he was not anti-science, I asked, what did he mean by his statement in Who's Who that intellectuals are cri…
This has helped me understand why folks think that I'm so often trolling: I wish for my opinion to be shown silly, because I'm so confident that it is a stupid opinion, because all of my opinions are stupid silly opinions.
I would much rather have everything laid out, examined, and shown not to be what it is not, than to suffer under political rhetoric. It is possible to be intellectually curious and also not a tankie.
If you want a less risible formulation of this sort of mindset, rewatch "Dogma" and listen to Rufus' outlook on life.
> His only real beef with mankind is the shit that gets carried out in His name. Wars. Bigotry. Televangelism. The big one though, is the factioning of the religions. He said, "Mankind got it all wrong by takin' a good idea and building a belief structure out of it."
Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
So how do you feel about Newtonian physics or algorithms? All knowledge is social.
As with all mathematics, this is acceptable because it's named after the wrong person; in this case, the foundational work named after Newton was first exhibited by Kepler. I do sometimes hear the phrase "Keplerian element" when talking about classical orbits, named after Kepler and not Galileo.
Interesting point, but not actually a rebuttal of my statement. Another example: von Neumann Architecture was not invented by von Neumann; he was just the guy who illegally published the concept under his name without naming the real authors. So again: attributing knowledge to persons does not really help.
Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
So how do you feel about Newtonian physics or algorithms? All knowledge is social.
Expressing opinions does not create new, reliable scientific knowledge. Instead scientists observe, make claims, deduce the effects of their claims, and then conduct experiments suited to possibly observe these effects. So it's not just claiming. And the laws of physics exist by themselves, even when there is no human society to discover and know them. It's a different story how knowledge is passed on or accepted by…
>In the humanities ("Geisteswissenschaften", and similar disciplines) the situation is different. Knowledge is rather believable and not falsifiable, but only accepted on the authority of the person who uttered the sentence.
I'm curious if you have any evidence that this is a general trend. Your original comment is also wrong; the "Frankfurt School", one of your examples, does not ascribe particular authority to its members by virtue of being part of the "school"[1] - rather, it denotes a particular tradition, very similar to the way we use the term "school" in music. A school of thought[0] specifically denotes a commitment to a particular method or set of principles, not a commitment to certain personages. Although a school may take after one person, it's not because of the person but because of the content of their thought.
Besides, the Frankfurt School never claimed to be carrying out science. Other schools were, for instance, committed to certain ideas of science. These philosophical schools are ontologically prior to science.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_thought
[1] Habermas is a "member" of the Frankfurt School of thought, yet he is criticized by those inside and outside the school. This, at least, shows that a school of thought is not a dogmatic adherence to a person or their ideas.
Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Expressing opinions does not create new, reliable scientific knowledge. Instead scientists observe, make claims, deduce the effects of their claims, and then conduct experiments suited to possibly observe these effects. So it's not just claiming. And the laws of physics exist by themselves, even when there is no human society to discover and know them. It's a different story how knowledge is passed on or accepted by…
>In the humanities ("Geisteswissenschaften", and similar disciplines) the situation is different. Knowledge is rather believable and not falsifiable, but only accepted on the authority of the person who uttered the sentence. I'm curious if you have any evidence that this is a general trend. Your original comment is also wrong; the "Frankfurt School", one of your examples, does not ascribe particular authority to its…
When we hear the name Adorno, we have to tremble with awe, don't we?
>> A school of thought[0] specifically denotes a commitment to a particular method or set of principles
Agree, but this does not improve the quality of the sentences uttered by the members of this "school" (sorry if I'm hurting the feelings of any Marxists here).
>> Besides, the Frankfurt School never claimed to be carrying out science.
Well, in German language there is the word "Geisteswissenschaft" which includes philosophy; they have not the same conception of science like the English speaking world. See e.g. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geisteswissenschaft
Among other things I also attended many years of philosophy lectures. As far as the philosophy of science is concerned, I think it should go more in this direction: https://www.amazon.com/Probability-Theory-Science-T-Jaynes/d...
Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)
#26His insistence that there is no scientific method is pro-science. Science’s only method is “opportunism,” he said. “You need a toolbox full of different kinds of tools. Not only a hammer and pins and nothing else." This is what he meant by his much-maligned phrase "anything goes" (and not, as is commonly thought, that one scientific theory is as good as any other). Restricting science to a particular methodology--suc…
Well, it's true that the cliched "scientific method" taught in high schools is a gross oversimplification, and many discoveries are made by accident rather than deliberately trying to test a clearly defined hypothesis. But in the 1980s-1990s "Science Wars", there was a movement by postmodernists to try to claim that science is just an ideology no better than religion or magic. This movement liked to quote Feyerabend…
That sounds interesting. Do you have a recommendation for some reading materials on those Science Wars?
Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)
#27That was a good read. I found this part:
> First of all the perceptual system cuts down this abundance or you couldn't survive." Religion, science, politics and philosophy represent our attempts to compress reality still further.
Very interesting to think about in the context of artificial intelligence.
Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
>In the humanities ("Geisteswissenschaften", and similar disciplines) the situation is different. Knowledge is rather believable and not falsifiable, but only accepted on the authority of the person who uttered the sentence. I'm curious if you have any evidence that this is a general trend. Your original comment is also wrong; the "Frankfurt School", one of your examples, does not ascribe particular authority to its…
When we hear the name Adorno, we have to tremble with awe, don't we? >> A school of thought[0] specifically denotes a commitment to a particular method or set of principles Agree, but this does not improve the quality of the sentences uttered by the members of this "school" (sorry if I'm hurting the feelings of any Marxists here). >> Besides, the Frankfurt School never claimed to be carrying out science. Well, in Ger…
>Agree, but this does not improve the quality of the sentences uttered by the members of this "school"
I agree, and nobody has claimed otherwise. Ideas that come from a school are not necessarily more or less valid than any others. There are some schools of thought I agree with, and others I disagree with, and I think that's the same for many lay people like me and many philosophers too.
>Well, in German language there is the word "Geisteswissenschaft" which includes philosophy
I think it can be argued that Marx was engaged in Wissenschaft (Patrick Murray argues this, for example), but I don't know if the same could be said about the Frankfurt School, at lesat not on the whole.
Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)
#29> "I have no position!" he cried. "If you have a position, it is always something screwed down." He twisted an invisible screwdriver into the table. "I have opinions that I defend rather vigorously, and then I find out how silly they are, and I give them up!" By modern social convention this is "trolling". > If he was not anti-science, I asked, what did he mean by his statement in Who's Who that intellectuals are cri…
This has helped me understand why folks think that I'm so often trolling: I wish for my opinion to be shown silly, because I'm so confident that it is a stupid opinion, because all of my opinions are stupid silly opinions. I would much rather have everything laid out, examined, and shown not to be what it is not, than to suffer under political rhetoric. It is possible to be intellectually curious and also not a tanki…
> This has helped me understand why folks think that I'm so often trolling: I wish for my opinion to be shown silly, because I'm so confident that it is a stupid opinion, because all of my opinions are stupid silly opinions.
If you're not telling people that this is your purpose, then you are not arguing in good faith. If you're playing devil's advocate, you should say so.
There's a big difference between, for example, arguing with someone that the earth is flat, and saying something like: "I'm going to pretend I think the world is flat, and I'd like you to try and convince me that it is not." That gives someone the opportunity to either play your game or not play your game. Otherwise, you're in danger of convincing people you're an idiot, rather than someone who simply likes to argue unusual positions.
Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it's true that the cliched "scientific method" taught in high schools is a gross oversimplification, and many discoveries are made by accident rather than deliberately trying to test a clearly defined hypothesis. But in the 1980s-1990s "Science Wars", there was a movement by postmodernists to try to claim that science is just an ideology no better than religion or magic. This movement liked to quote Feyerabend…
That sounds interesting. Do you have a recommendation for some reading materials on those Science Wars?
I'd recommend Samir Okasha's "Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction" (one of those Oxford University Press "Very short introduction" books that are only around 100 pages) as he has a short section on the Science Wars, and then if you are interested in more, James Robert Brown's "Who Rules in Science?: An Opinionated Guide to the Wars". Both Okasha and Brown are philosophers of science themselves, and do cover both sides, but they are are scientific realists in that they believe that scientific models do reflect to some degree the reality of the universe.