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Chapter 3 - Feyerabend’s General Theory of Scientific Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2021

Karim Bschir
Affiliation:
Universität St Gallen, Switzerland
Jamie Shaw
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
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Summary

Why did Feyerabend never detail a general account of the patterns by which various elements of scientific theorising (theories, methods, etc.) change over time? In other words, why did he never author a general theory of scientific change? To anyone even remotely familiar with the works of Feyerabend; this question may sound absurdly out of place. After all, Feyerabend spent his whole career arguing against the alleged rationality of science and fervently opposing the idea of a fixed and universal method of theory evaluation. With his assertion that ‘science is not one thing, it is many’ (Feyerabend 1992, p. 6; see also Feyerabend 2011, p. 56), he is nothing short of a godfather of the disunity of science movement that revels in its explicitly anti-theoretical approach to the process of scientific change (see Lloyd 1996, p. 261). Surely, Feyerabend would be the last person to search for any general patterns of scientific change!

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Interpreting Feyerabend
Critical Essays
, pp. 57 - 71
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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