Tag Archives: tenacity

Hegel and the development of Feyerabend’s thought

Posted on December 19, 2011 by

In his paper Two models of epistemic change (1970), Feyerabend argued that we can distinguish between two approaches to prolonged stability of theories or concepts. The first interprets durability as a measure of success: on an instrumentalist view, it may … Continue reading →

Posted in Feyerabend | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Feyerabend and historiographic proliferation

Posted on August 28, 2011 by

In the introduction to his Against Method, Paul Feyerabend paraphrased V.I. Lenin by claiming that history is “always richer in content, more varied, more many-sided, more lively and subtle” than “the best historian and the best methodologist can imagine”. He … Continue reading →

Posted in Feyerabend, Historiography, History and Philosophy of Science, History of Science, Philosophy of Science | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Astrology and its problems: Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend

Posted on February 14, 2011 by

The merits or otherwise of astrology have been subject to much discussion recently, resulting in attacks that have been critiqued by Rebecca Higgitt, amongst others. The problem, according to Higgitt, is that astrology is “rubbish” but not because of the … Continue reading →

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On cranks and demarcation

Posted on October 18, 2010 by

It is generally acknowledged that attempts to demarcate science from non- or pseudoscience, based on a priori standards, have failed. Here I discuss a values-based approach, advocated by Feyerabend in his paper Realism and Instrumentalism, in which he wrote: The … Continue reading →

Posted in Feyerabend, History and Philosophy of Science | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments