Abstract
John Preston has recently claimed that to understand Feyerabend’s philosophy we must place him in the context of a — possibly idiosyncratic, but nonetheless identifiable — Popperian framework. According to this account the Feyerabend of the fifties and sixties is ultimately Popperian; the Feyerabend of the seventies and after, with his ‘anarchism’ and ‘relativism’, is understandable in terms of a disappointed Popperian. (See Preston, 1997a. See also the very similar account given in McEvoy, 1975)
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Preston emphasises the importance of ethical/normative considerations in understanding Feyerabend’s philosophy, see (1997a) p. 16 and pp. 20–2. But Preston nowhere links this with Feyerabend’s later philosophy; a linkage which is, moreover, of utmost interpretative importance.
See also Popper’s (1966, p. 231): “We may choose some form of irrationalism, even some radical or comprehensive form. But we are also free to choose a critical form of rationalism, one which frankly admits its origins in an irrational decision.”
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© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Farrell, R.P. (2003). Popper, Methodological Pluralism and Epistemic Values. In: Feyerabend and Scientific Values. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 235. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1542-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1542-3_7
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