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If The World Is An Aggregate Of Relatively Independent Regions, Then Any Assumption Of Universal Laws Is False And A Demand For Universal Norms Tyrannical: Only Brute Force (or Seductive Deception) Can Then Bend The Different Moralities So That They Fit The Prescriptions Of A Single Ethical System. And Indeed, The Idea Of Universal Laws Of Nature And Society Arose In Connection With A Life-and-death Battle: The Battle That Gave Zeus The Power Over The Titans And All Other Gods And Thus Turned His Laws Into The Laws Of The Universe.

-Paul Feyerabend

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If The World Is

Paul Feyerabend

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If The World Is An Aggregate Of Relatively Independent Regions, Then Any Assumption Of Universal Laws Is False And A Demand For Universal Norms Tyrannical: Only Brute Force (or Seductive Deception) Can Then Bend The Different Moralities So That They Fit The Prescriptions Of A Single Ethical System. And Indeed, The Idea Of Universal Laws Of Nature And Society Arose In Connection With A Life-and-death Battle: The Battle That Gave Zeus The Power Over The Titans And All Other Gods And Thus Turned His Laws Into The Laws Of The Universe.

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The Only Absolute Truth Is That There Are No Absolute Truths.

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Arguments Hardly Affect The Faithful- Their Beliefs Have An Entirely Different Foundation.

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Science Is Only ‘one’ Of The Many Instruments People Invented To Cope With Their Surroundings. It Is Not The Only One, It Is Not Infallible And It Has Become Too Powerful, Too Pushy And Too Dangerous To Be Left On Its Own.

Not Only Are Facts And Theories In Constant Disharmony, They Are Never As Neatly Separated As Everyone Makes Them Out To Be.

Confronted With Such A Variety Most Philosophers Try To Establish One Approach To The Exclusion Of All Others. As Far As They Are Concerned There Can Only Be One True Way- And They Want To Find It. Thus Normative Philosophers Argue That Knowledge Is A Result Of The Application Of Certain Rules, They Propose Rules Which In Their Opinion Constitute Knowledge And Reject What Clashes With Them.

Science Is Not Sacrosanct. The Mere Fact That It Exists, Is Admired, Has Results Is Not Sufficient For Making It A Measure Of Excellence. Modern 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.

Science Is Essentially An Anarchic Enterprise: Theoretical Anarchism Is More Humanitarian And More Likely To Encourage Progress Than Its Law-and-order Alternatives.

One Knows Quite Well That Harmony Can Be A Harmony Of Appearances.

Rational Discourse Is Only One Way Of Presenting And Examining An Issue And By No Means The Best. Our New Intellectuals Are Not Aware Of Its Limitations And Of The Nature Of The Things Outside.

Ultimate Reality, If Such An Entity Can Be Postulated, Is Ineffable.

Those Who Violate The Rules Of A Language Do Not Enter New Territory; They Leave The Domain Of Meaningful Discourse. Even Facts In These Circumstances Dissolve, Because They Are Shaped By The Language And Subjected To Its Limitations.

The Attitude Of The Church Was Not As Dogmatic As Is Often Assumed. Interpretations Of Bible Passages Had Been Revised In The Light Of Scientific Research Before. Everyone Regarded The Earth As Spherical And As Freely Floating In Space Though The Bible Tells A Different Story.

Results From A Given Approach Are "facts" As Long As The Approach Fits The Group Or The Tradition That Is Being Addressed.

Early Chinese Thinkers Had Taken Variety At Face Value. They Had Favored Diversification And Collected Anomalies Instead Of Trying To Explain Them Away.

Yes, The Academic World Is Screwed Up, And There Is Nothing You Can Do About It. But Don't Worry About That. Just Do What You Want. If You Know What You Want To Do And Advocate For It, No One Will Put Any Energy Into Stopping You.

Without A Constant Misuse Of Language There Cannot Be Any Discovery, Any Progress

A Universal Good Should Reflect The Reality Of The Individual Benefits That Are Collected Under Its Name, Not The Other Way Around.

The Sciences Of Today Are Business Enterprises Run On Business Principles. Research In Large Institutes Is Not Guided By Truth And Reason But By The Most Rewarding Fashion, And The Great Minds Of Today Increasingly Turn To Where The Money Is - Which Means Military Matters.

Mathematical Reasoning Is Not Only Exact; It Has Its Own Criteria Of Reality.

Unanimity Of Opinion May Be Fitting For A Church, For The Frightened Or Greedy Victims Of Some (ancient, Or Modern) Myth, Or For The Weak And Willing Followers Of Some Tyrant. Variety Of Opinion Is Necessary For Objective Knowledge. And A Method That Encourages Variety Is Also The Only Method That Is Comparable With A Humanitarian Outlook.

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I Had Studied Dadaism After The Second World War. What Attracted Me To This Movement Was The Style Its Inventors Used When Not Engaged In Dadaistic Activities. It Was Clear, Luminous, Simple Without Being Banal, Precise Without Being Narrow; It Was A Style Adapted To The Expression Of Thought As Well As Of Emotion. I Connected This Style With The Dadaistic Exercises Themselves

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.

Burden Of Proof

Events And Developments, Such As ... The Copernican Revolution, ... Occurred Only Because Some Thinkers Either Decided Not To Be Bound By Certain "obvious" Methodological Rules, Or Because They Unwittingly Broke Them.

If The World Is An Aggregate Of Relatively Independent Regions, Then Any Assumption Of Universal Laws Is False And A Demand For Universal Norms Tyrannical: Only Brute Force (or Seductive Deception) Can Then Bend The Different Moralities So That They Fit The Prescriptions Of A Single Ethical System. And Indeed, The Idea Of Universal Laws Of Nature And Society Arose In Connection With A Life-and-death Battle: The Battle That Gave Zeus The Power Over The Titans And All Other Gods And Thus Turned His Laws Into The Laws Of The Universe.

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One Might 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.

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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.

In A War A Totalitarian State Has A Free Hand.

Knowledge Is Not A Series Of Self-consistent Theories That Converges Toward An Ideal View; It Is Rather An Ever Increasing Ocean Of Mutually Incompatible (and Perhaps Even Incommensurable) 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.

Copernicanism And Other Essential Ingredients Of Modern Science Survived Only Because Reason Was Frequently Overruled In Their Past.

Language Became A Colorless And As Indistinct As The Business Suit Which Is Now Worm By Everyone, By The Scholar, By The Businessman, By The Professional Killer. Being Accustomed To A Dry And Dreary Norm And Sees In It An Obvious Sign Of Arrogance And Aggression; Viewing Authority With Almost Religious Awe He Gets Into A Frenzy When He Sees Someone Pluck The Beard Of His Favorite Prophet.

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Today Science Prevails Not Because Of Its Comparative Merits, But Because The Show Has Been Rigged In Its Favour... It Reigns Supreme Because Some Past Successes Have Led To Institutional Measures (education; Role Of Experts; Role Of Power Groups Such As The Ama) That Prevent A Comeback Of The Rivals.

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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 Another.

Given Any Rule, However �fundamental� Or �necessary� For Science, There Are Always Circumstances When It Is Advisable Not Only To Ignore The Rule, But To Adopt Its Opposite.

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.

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.

Pressure Groups

The Church At The Time Was Much More Faithful To Reason Than Galileo Himself, And Also Took Into Consideration The Ethical And Social Consequences Of Galileo's Doctrine. Its Verdict Against Galileo Was Rational And Just.

Science Is Neither A Single Tradition, Nor The Best Tradition There Is, Except For People Who Have Become Accustomed To Its Presence, Its Benefits And Its Disadvantages. In A Democracy It Should Be Separated From The State Just As Churches Are Now Separated From The State.

There Is No Coherent Knowledge , I.e. No Uniform Comprehensive Account Of The World And The Events In It. There Is No Comprehensive Truth That Goes Beyond An Enumeration Of Details, But There Are Many Pieces Of Information , Obtained In Different Ways From Different Sources And Collected For The Benefit Of The Curious. The Best Way Of Presenting Such Knowledge Is The List - And The Oldest Scientific Works Were Indeed Lists Of Facts, Parts, Coincidences, Problems In Several Specialized Domains.

All Religions Are Good 'in Principle' - But Unfortunately This Abstract Good Has Only Rarely Prevented Their Practitioners From Behaving Like Bastards.

Every Profession Has An Ideology And A Drive For Power That Goes Far Beyond Its Achievements And It Is The Task Of Democracy To Keep This Ideology And This Drive Under Control. Science Is Here No Different From Other Institutions.

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