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| Paul Feyerabend |
By Ian James Kidd, PL0S Biology, October 4, 2011
Feyerabend P (2011) The Tyranny of Science. Oberheim E, editor.
Cambridge: Polity Press. 180 p. ISBN-13: 978-0745651897 (hardcover). US$54.95
The
relationship between science and the philosophy of science is likely to be
judged a contested one. Certainly many philosophical debates may seem oblique
to the uninitiated (and even then, perhaps still!), whilst recent intellectual
debacles have tended to portray philosophers of science in a poor light. During
the 1990s, for example, the “Science Wars” erupted over the question of whether
scientific theories provided true, objective descriptions of reality, or
whether they were simply arbitrary “constructions,” mere mythologies on a par
with ancient Greek theogony or medieval magic [1]. There is some truth to such
charges, some of it certainly attributable to an unhealthy certain intoxication
with trendy theories (like “relativism” and “constructionism”). Yet even if
those charges are not always justified, and even if the majority of the
philosophy of science is informed and responsible, it remains true that
philosophers of science who pitch into debates about the sciences beyond their
own professional boundaries must take extra care before letting loose their
ideas.
With
that proviso in mind, the title of Paul Feyerabend's book, The Tyranny of
Science, should set
off alarm bells, especially since the cover of the book depicts blood-red
atomic bombs falling from above onto a desolate city. Indeed, the author
himself, who was professor of philosophy at Berkeley and Zurich until his death
in 1993, has a “bad reputation” both within and beyond the philosophy of
science. Feyerabend was famously dubbed “the worst enemy of science” by Science, and even today philosophers of
science will tend to associate his name with anti-science polemics, defences of
voodoo and astrology, and more besides [2].
Fortunately,
Feyerabend is far more sensible than the title and cover of this book and his
bad reputation suggest. Although he is reputed as a critic of science, he is
not. Feyerabend is critical not of science itself, but of false and misleading
images of the sciences. The “tyranny” of the title refers not to an encroaching
and disenchanting “scientific worldview,” of the sort popular with some
cultural critics, but with the dangers which arose when people fail to
understand and appreciate science. Back in the 1960s and early 1970s, Feyerabend
urged philosophers of science to take seriously both the history of science and
scientific practice—he was a trained physicist himself—and warned his peers
that mere abstract reflection on the sciences would produce only idealised
fantasies of science, rather than workable models of it. Although subsequent
generations of philosophers of science took him seriously, many at the time
took his claim as a personal attack—hence the “bad reputation.”
Into
the 1980s, Feyerabend began to expand the scope of his ideas. By the beginning
of the 1980s, the philosophy of science was a richer discipline, so Feyerabend
moved onto new issues. It struck him that public confidence in the sciences was
beginning to change into the 1980s. The nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and
Three Mile Island, waning interest in the space program, and ambitious new
claims on behalf of genetics were beginning to affect public faith in the
sciences. Feyerabend was not opposed to such public doubts, but he did worry
that the public concerns, although sincere, were too often ill-informed. Worse
still, those worries were often amplified by overzealous philosophers who, to
his mind, were failing in their job of clarifying concepts, scrutinising
arguments, and helping people to articulate and develop their ideas. By the
late 1980s, Feyerabend began to take special issue with philosophers who
actively encouraged such confusions, for instance by announcing that electrons
and genes were mere “social constructions,” or by rebranding forms of relativism,
or by implicating “Western Science” in a powerful conspiracy to disempower
indigenous cultures—indeed, Feyerabend himself succumbed to such alluring
polemics for a time, which partly explains his hostile reaction to them later
in his career [3].
Feyerabend's
issues with public concerns about science and his worries about philosophers'
role in the subsequent debates laid the foundations for the lectures that
became The Tyranny of Science. In fact, the original title of that lecture series was Conflict
and Harmony, which
is a much better title because it indicates that public engagement with science
is dynamic and complex—periods of “conflict” and “harmony,” with scientists,
policymakers, philosophers, and other involved groups trying to balance the tensions.
Feyerabend's claim here is that many of the conflicts concerning science are
based upon confusions about and misperceptions of science—for example, the idea
that science is “value-free.” That claim clearly cannot be true, if only
because science is necessarily motivated by cognitive and practical values, yet
it still features within public and policy debates. Feyerabend's aim in these
lectures was to try to demonstrate the science is much more complex than people
tend to imagine, and that our thinking about it must be correspondingly complex
if we are to make sense of it. Science is only a “tyrant” if we fail to do it
justice, and attribute to it exalted characteristics—such as “value-neutrality”
or isolation from society—which it lacks.
Throughout
his career, Feyerabend defended the claim that there is, in fact, no one thing
called “Science,” where that term is understood to refer to something singular
and formalised, with uniformly shared methods, theories, and concepts [4]. “Science” as so defined does not
exist, even though the idea of it is a powerful one. In its place, urged
Feyerabend, we should think and talk about multiple sciences—diverse in their
methods and aims, held together by some common values perhaps, but otherwise
more an aggregate than the monolith that some writers presume. In order to
bring about this reconception of philosophy, Feyerabend urged us to reach out
to all the resources at our disposal, a fact evidenced in the eclecticism and
immense learning obvious in Tyranny. Feyerabend leaps from contemporary social events to the
history of geometry, ancient Greek poetry to modern biology, and from the arts
to philosophy. The purpose of such intellectual pyrotechnics is not simply to
entertain, but to demonstrate just how richly and powerfully the sciences are
interlinked with modern human life. For Feyerabend, understanding and
appreciation should come as a pair so that, by the end of the lectures, the
sciences cease to be the tyrants which contemporary concerns suggest they may
be, and which some critics insist they must be.
A key
example of the sorts of public worries about science that Feyerabend had in
mind concerns genetics. Although human genetic research is conceded to afford
wonderful possibilities—for medicine and agriculture, say—there are also
corresponding concerns about the abuse of those powers. In the UK, there is a
common rhetoric in the popular press concerning “designer babies,” GM crops, “astrological
genetics,” and a host of other concerns, each centring upon an implicit worry
that the powers of genetic science are too dangerous to be controlled, or that
they will be abused. Despite consistent assurances, for instance on the part of
the British Government, that genetic research is intensely regulated, public
doubts persist. Indeed, the very fact that such doubts exist may frustrate
researchers who consider their work to be both morally scrupulous and of clear
cognitive and practical value. It may be difficult for those researchers to
make willing concessions to public doubts where those doubts are regarded not
only as ill-founded, but also as likely to result in further unduly onerous
regulation, or even the termination of research projects.
Feyerabend
sees a role for philosophers to contribute here. Many worries about genetic
research rely upon inarticulate moral or aesthetic concerns—the so-called “yuk
factor” which arises at the sight of “Frankenstein” organisms like the famous
OncoMouse. In such cases, philosophers can help the public to articulate those
concerns and to refine them through argumentation [5]. Often, the worries dissolve upon
analysis, and sometimes, of course, are reinforced, but in each case, progress
is being made. Feyerabend therefore stressed the need for scientific literacy,
philosophical competence, and historical awareness as essential components of
informed public engagement with science. Of course, philosophers do not assume
a guiding role here; Feyerabend was no fan of the pretensions of some
philosophers to resume their ancient, privileged position, but he did consider
that their critical sensibilities could be valuable to those wider debates. And
since public concerns about the sciences invoke not only scientific facts, but
also philosophical judgements about value, purpose, and meaning (the idea of
the “sanctity of life,” for instance, demands philosophical input, if only
because most of the persons who invoke it are not generally after a biological
formulation of it). As long as philosophers remain informed about the sciences
they engage with, they can be valuable aids to the project of facilitating
public engagement with science—and today, few sciences arouse more fascination,
hope, and alarm than the biological sciences [6].
Feyerabend
clearly sets himself a broad remit and an ambitious aim. Public concern with
the sciences is a persistent and perhaps increasing feature of modern
societies. For sure, some of that concern is justified, but much of it is not,
for instance because it rests upon false ideas, misperceptions of the science,
or because the public imagination has been warped by charged rhetoric and
imagery. Feyerabend regretted such misunderstandings and thought that
philosophers had an important role to play in helping the public make sense of
its concerns. If that sounds paternalistic, it should not—for one thing,
philosophers often share those same worries, and for another, philosophers can
lay legitimate claim to intellectual skills well-suited to the task of making
sense of concerns of science. Feyerabend does not propose that philosophers
will pontificate to the public, because he was alert to the fact that
philosophers can become “tyrannous” if they, too, cease being engaged with, and
responsive to, the concerns and curiosities of the public.
The
Tyranny of Science
should therefore be interpreted as Feyerabend's attempts to dissolve conflicts
and establish harmony between science, society, and philosophy, on the one
hand, and between scientists, philosophers, and the public, on the other. The
concerns and alarms that concerned Feyerabend are not the exclusive preserve of
any of those domains—scientific, public, or philosophical—and to properly
understand and address them each must cooperate with the other. Tyranny only
arises when one of those would try to dominate the others, and Feyerabend's
book offers an engaging and entertaining case against such tyranny.
References:
1.
Gould S. J (2000) Deconstructing the “science wars” by
reconstructing an old mold. Science 287: 253–261. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE
2.
Preston J, Munévar G, Lamb D (2000) The worst enemy of
science: essays in memory of Paul Feyerabend. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3.
Feyerabend P (1987) Farewell to reason. London: Verso.
4.
Feyerabend P (1993) Against method. Third edition.
London: Verso.
5.
Midgley M (2001) Science and poetry. London: Routledge.
6.
Barnes B, Dupré J (2008) Genomes and what to make of
them. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Citation:
Kidd IJ (2011)
Rethinking Feyerabend: The “Worst Enemy of Science”? PLoS Biol 9(10): e1001166.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001166
Published: October 4, 2011
Copyright: © 2011 Ian James Kidd. This is an
open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are
credited.
Funding: No funding was received for this
article.
Competing
interests: The author
has declared that no competing interests exist.
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