For and Against Method: Including Lakatos's Lectures on Scientific Method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend CorrespondenceThe work that helped to determine Paul Feyerabend's fame and notoriety, Against Method, stemmed from Imre Lakatos's challenge: "In 1970 Imre cornered me at a party. 'Paul,' he said, 'you have such strange ideas. Why don't you write them down? I shall write a reply, we publish the whole thing and I promise you—we shall have a lot of fun.' " Although Lakatos died before he could write his reply, For and Against Method reconstructs his original counter-arguments from lectures and correspondence previously unpublished in English, allowing us to enjoy the "fun" two of this century's most eminent philosophers had, matching their wits and ideas on the subject of the scientific method. For and Against Method opens with an imaginary dialogue between Lakatos and Feyerabend, which Matteo Motterlini has constructed, based on their published works, to synthesize their positions and arguments. Part one presents the transcripts of the last lectures on method that Lakatos delivered. Part two, Feyerabend's response, consists of a previously published essay on anarchism, which began the attack on Lakatos's position that Feyerabend later continued in Against Method. The third and longest section consists of the correspondence Lakatos and Feyerabend exchanged on method and many other issues and ideas, as well as the events of their daily lives, between 1968 and Lakatos's death in 1974. The delight Lakatos and Feyerabend took in philosophical debate, and the relish with which they sparred, come to life again in For and Against Method, making it essential and lively reading for anyone interested in these two fascinating and controversial thinkers and their immense contributions to philosophy of science. "The writings in this volume are of considerable intellectual importance, and will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the development of the philosophical views of Lakatos and Feyerabend, or indeed with the development of philosophy of science in general during this crucial period."—Donald Gillies, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (on the Italian edition) "A stimulating exchange of letters between two philosophical entertainers."—Tariq Ali, The Independent Imre Lakatos (1922-1974) was professor of logic at the London School of Economics. He was the author of Proofs and Refutations and the two-volume Philosophical Papers. Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994) was educated in Europe and held numerous teaching posts throughout his career. Among his books are Against Method; Science in a Free Society; Farewell to Reason; and Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend, the last published by the University of Chicago Press. |
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Contents
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| 20 | |
| 31 | |
| 40 | |
| 52 | |
| 63 | |
| 64 | |
| 86 | |
THE LAKATOSFEYERABEND CORRESPONDENCE 19681974 | 119 |
APPENDIX A ON REARING SCHOLARS Imre Lakatos | 375 |
LETTERS TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY | 382 |
THE INTELLECTUALS BETRAYAL OF REASON | 393 |
LETTER TO His EDITORS | 398 |
BIOGRAPHY | 401 |
BIOGRAPHY | 406 |
Bibliography | 409 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alan Musgrave anarchism anarchist Anyway argument atom Berkeley Dear Imre Bohr Bohr's chapter Copernicus copy course criterion criticise criticism Dear Paul degenerating demarcation demarcation problem discussion Duhem Einstein electron Empiricism epistemological example fact falsificationism falsified footnote Galileo Gillian give hope hypothesis idea Imre Lakatos Incidentally incommensurability inductivism intellectual interesting John Watkins Karl Karl Popper knowledge Kuhn Lakatos's lecture Left letter logic London School look Marxism mathematics means Method never Newton Newtonian nice paper Paul Feyerabend Philosophy of Science planet Popper Popperian predictions problem professor progressive Proofs and Refutations published rational rationalist reason referring refutation research programmes revolution Robin Blackburn scepticism School of Economics scientists standards talk tell thing third world thought tion truth turn University Vienna Circle volume warm greetings weeks Worrall write Zahar
Popular passages
Page 239 - There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.
Page 239 - There must be discussion to show how experience is to be interpreted ... very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning.
Page 396 - Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so the way lies open to a new paradise. If you cannot, nothing lies before you but universal death.
Page 395 - Sextus Empiricus: In order to decide the dispute which has arisen about the criterion, we must possess an accepted criterion by which we shall be able to judge the dispute; and in order to possess an accepted criterion, the dispute about the criterion must be first decided. And when the argument thus
Page 68 - is about an imaginary case of planetary misbehaviour. A physicist of the pre-Einsteinian era takes Newton's mechanics and his law of gravitation, N, the accepted initial conditions, /, and calculates, with their help, the path of a newly discovered small planet, p. But the planet deviates from the calculated path. Does our Newtonian physicist consider that the deviation
Page 395 - itself to the form of circular reasoning the discovery of the criterion becomes impracticable, since we do not allow the Dogmatic philosophers to adopt a criterion by assumption, while if they offer to judge the criterion by a criterion we force them to a regress ad infinitum. (Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism,
Page 54 - is such that in conjunction with one or more observation-statements it entails at least one observation-statement which is not deducible from these other premises alone. And I propose to say that a statement is indirectly verifiable if it satisfies the following
Page 239 - we have most warrant for have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded.
Page 239 - the peculiarity of the evidence of mathematical truths is that all the argument is on one side. There are no objections, and no answers to objections").
Page 65 - let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.
Bibliographic information
| Title | For and Against Method: Including Lakatos's Lectures on Scientific Method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend Correspondence |
| Authors | Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Matteo Motterlini |
| Editor | Matteo Motterlini |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press, 1999 |
| ISBN | 0226467740, 9780226467740 |
| Length | 451 pages |
| Subjects | › Science / General Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects Science / Research & Methodology |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |