Feyerabend Paul K - Philosophy of Nature

polity

First published in German as Naturphilosophie, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2009

This English edition Polity Press, 2016

The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut which is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press
350 Main Street
Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-9476-4

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Feyerabend, Paul, 1924-1994, author.
Title: Philosophy of nature / Paul Feyerabend.
Other titles: Naturphilosophie. English
Description: English edition. | Malden, MA : Polity, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015042820| ISBN 9780745651590 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 0745651593 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy of nature.
Classification: LCC BD581 .F4413 2016 | DDC 113--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042820

The publisher has used its best endeavors to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

An enthusiastic and very engaged student whose talents are far above average. At times he may give in to the urge to make impertinent comments. These remarks were entered on Feyerabends report for the 1939/40 school year by teachers of Viennas Public High School for Boys (Staatliche Oberschule fr Jungen). More than a few others would later record similar experiences in their interactions with him. Feyerabend was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable and controversial philosophers of science in the twentieth century, one who even drew attention outside the world of higher education. He had multiple interests and was interesting to many. While there is hardly any doubt about his above-average talents, assessments of his level of engagement are occasionally less enthusiastic. Feyerabend had a reputation for not being an excessively eager, committed, and thorough researcher, which was due at least in part to his nonchalant manner and snide remarks about the learned knowledgeableness of his colleagues. More than a few interpreted some of his remarks as unwelcome impertinent comments, much as did his former teachers. And in the course of a general reckoning with certain relativistic and skeptical developments in philosophy of science, the journal Nature labeled Feyerabend the Salvador Dali of academic philosophy and currently the worst enemy of science (Theocharis and Psimopoulos 1987: 596). However, according to the authors of that piece, in this respect Feyerabend was just a little ahead of Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Imre Lakatos, since philosophical reflection on science on the whole was undergoing an undesirable development. From that point of view Feyerabend had a place in the company of the classic figures of post-positivist philosophy of science. Of the Big Four in twentieth-century philosophy of science, however, it is Feyerabend to whom the label enemy of science has mainly stuck, first in a manner suitable for the media (Horgan 1993) and later, posthumously, as an ambivalent honorary title (Preston, Munvar, and Lamb 2000).

This volume of Philosophy of Nature is well suited to shed new light on Feyerabends work and philosophical development as well as on his alleged hostility to science. In what follows we would like to introduce the reader to this text in three steps. (1) In the first step, after beginning with a brief initial summary of Feyerabends philosophical development, we will reconstruct the history of this volume and give the reasons why its publication was delayed for more than thirty years. (2) In the second step, we will explore the special significance of the manuscript both for Feyerabend research and for our understanding of the development of our conceptions of nature. In Philosophy of Nature, Feyerabend presents himself as an interpreter of early Greek thought and a genealogist of Western rationalism. Thus, this text reveals a fascinating perspective not only on the history of philosophy of nature, but also on some hitherto little-explored aspects of Feyerabends thought. At the same time, this work from the early 1970s constitutes a core resource for our understanding of the similarities and differences between the early and the late Feyerabend. It is the missing link for our understanding of Feyerabends later radicalization and of its justification and its scope within the continuum of his thought. (3) The final part of the introduction provides an overview of the structure and contents of Feyerabends Philosophy of Nature.

Feyerabends philosophy has always been intimately connected with the scientific and philosophical discussions of his time, and he frequently participated directly in these discussions through his personal contacts. In the late 1940s, while studying in Vienna under Felix Ehrenhaft and Victor Kraft, he obtained some direct insights into the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle and its problems, which were of fundamental importance for the continuing development of philosophy of science on an international level. During this time, he also met Ludwig Wittgenstein, before deciding to accept an offer to work for Karl Popper in London. In the early 1950s, Feyerabend met with Niels Bohr a few times and became one of the most prominent philosophical critics of what would later be known as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. In 1962, along with Thomas Kuhn, his colleague at the time at the University of California, Feyerabend initiated the historical turn in philosophy of science, which subsequently adopted a stronger focus on the history and sociology of the sciences instead of regarding science exclusively as a logical system. During the 1970s, he became a strong critic first of Karl Poppers thought and his school of philosophy, and later of rationalism in a more fundamental sense. The catchphrase Anything goes from Against Method (Feyerabend 1975a, 1975b) drew attention both within and beyond academic philosophy. His subsequent works, especially Science in a Free Society (1978a, 1978b), Science as Art (1984a, 1984b), and Farewell to Reason (1987b, 1987c), were important contributions to a general discussion about the potentials and limits of the sciences in the Western world, as it was conducted in connection with postcolonial, postmodern, and ecological trends in the last third of the twentieth century. The potentials and limits of a scientific worldview are also themes in his final, posthumously published book,