Feyerabend, Protagoras and Nietzsche

This paper reconstructs Paul Feyerabend’s dialogue with two other representatives of allegedly self-contradictory relativism: Protagoras and Nietzsche. I argue that such a comparison mutually clarifies Feyerabend’s arguments in favor of a certain kind of relativist anti-dogmatism. Unlike the widely accepted image, a closer reading reveals that neither Feyerabend nor Nietzsche or Protagoras adopt the so-called equality-thesis. All three authors argue against the absolutism and dogmatism of their time. They subject human reason and scientific activity to a critical analysis and strive for a fundamental conceptual and cultural transformation. They share the suspicion that the concrete scientific practice and its theoretical self-understanding are not identical, and that it could be possible and useful to enlighten science about certain prejudices about itself.