Against Method

Summary

Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge was published in London in 1975 by New Left Books. It began as a long essay of 1970 and was meant to be one half of a joint book with Feyerabend's friend Imre Lakatos, For and Against Method, in which Lakatos would defend scientific rationality and Feyerabend attack it; Lakatos died in 1974, and Feyerabend dedicated the book to him. Its thesis is that the history of science shows no single method, no fixed set of rules, that scientists have always followed or could follow without blocking progress. Every rule proposed by philosophers, such as accepting only theories consistent with established ones or abandoning theories refuted by facts, has been broken by great scientists, and had to be broken for science to advance. Feyerabend calls his position epistemological anarchism and sums it up in the provocative slogan 'anything goes', which he later explained was not a positive rule he held but what a rationalist would be driven to say on looking honestly at history. He recommends 'counterinduction': developing hypotheses that contradict well-confirmed theories and accepted facts, because facts are themselves shaped by theories and some can only be exposed by an alternative. The central part of the book is a long case study of Galileo. Feyerabend argues that the observational evidence of Galileo's day, such as the 'tower argument' that a stone dropped from a tower falls straight down, counted against a moving earth; that Galileo overcame it not by new evidence alone but by changing the 'natural interpretations' through which observations were read, by appeal to a telescope whose workings were not then understood, and by persuasive rhetoric; and that this was a reasonable and fruitful way to advance a new view. Later chapters argue that rival comprehensive theories can be 'incommensurable', so that they cannot be compared by a neutral standard, and illustrate the idea with the change from the Homeric to later Greek ways of seeing. The book ends by arguing that in a free society science should not be set above other traditions, that state and science should be separated as state and church have been, and that citizens, not experts alone, should decide such questions; Feyerabend cites the revival of traditional Chinese medicine as a case where a non-scientific tradition proved valuable. Revised editions appeared in 1988 and 1993, the latter adding a discussion of the Galileo trial. The book provoked many sharply critical reviews and remains among the most widely read works in the philosophy of science. It is under copyright; the library stores no text and quotes nothing.

Top Lessons

• History tests philosophy of science

  Feyerabend measures methodological rules against what scientists actually did, especially Galileo, and argues that the rules fail the test. Whether or not one accepts his conclusions, his method requires philosophers to take the record of discovery seriously.

• Observation is shaped by interpretation

  In the tower argument, the same observation of a falling stone seemed to support a stationary earth until Galileo changed how it was interpreted. Feyerabend uses the case to show that facts come already shaped by assumptions.

• Who decides what counts as knowledge?

  Feyerabend's closing chapters ask whether scientific experts or citizens should decide what is taught and funded, and argue for separating science from the state. Critics answered that this undervalues the reliability of scientific results; the debate continues.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Against Method is not about medicine, but its final chapters use medicine as an example. Feyerabend points to the revival of traditional Chinese medicine in the People's Republic of China in the 1950s, when the state required it to be taught and practised alongside Western medicine, as a case where a tradition dismissed by scientific experts proved to contain useful knowledge, and he argues that patients and citizens should be free to choose among healing traditions. Critics replied that controlled testing, not tradition, must judge therapies. The argument belongs to wider debates on medical authority, patient choice and the evaluation of non-Western and traditional medicine.

• Closing chapters (science in a free society)

  The state-sponsored revival of traditional Chinese medicine offered as an example of a non-scientific tradition with valuable results.

• Closing chapters (science in a free society)

  Argument that laymen, not experts alone, should decide which traditions are taught and supported, including in matters of health.