Realism, Rationalism and Scientific Method: Volume 1

Reviews / Votes

'The issues here run deep, to the heart of a number of central debates in contemporary philosophy concerning anti-realism, Wittgenstein, rationality and so on ... for anyone who wants to engage with those issues - which means not only philosophers of science but anyone at all excited by the current state of philosophy - these exhilarating volumes must be essential reading.' Philosophical Investigations 'The importance of Feyerabend is that he shows this easy way out cannot be taken for granted. As long as we had at the back of our minds the idea of an independent reality to pull thought in the right direction, Feyerabend's insistence on the inexhaustible diversity of possible standards seemed merely provocative. But without such a reality the onus of argument has shifted. Little as we may like it, Feyerabend is in the driving seat. He has actually done the historical work to show that sane men with good ideas, both within Western science and without, have hewn all kinds of different intellectual values. After Feyerabend, simply gesturing in the direction of some supposed common intellectual commitment is no longer going to hold relativism at bay. Indeed Fayerband has made it very difficult to see how we can continue to believe in the one true theoretical way. The Times Literary Supplement