Feyerabend, Plato and Aristotle

It may seem surprising that some of the most radical ideas proposed by Paul K. Feyerabend have important aspects in common with those proposed by two of the most respected philosophers in the history of philosophy, Plato and Aristotle. Nonetheless, they do. Feyerabend’s principle of proliferation as developed in Against Method, for example, may remind us of Aristotle’s arguments for proliferation in making his case for democracy as the best form of government, principally in his Politics. And Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” in his Republic, gives support to Feyerabend’s position on how empirical evidence makes theoretical assumptions. Plato argues that the observer is misguided if he concludes that the real positions and motions of heavenly bodies can be determined by his observations. Plato’s approach to education would also be extremely congenial to Feyerabend, as would his use of the “Myth of the Metals” in Book III of the Republic that places the greatest obligation on the rulers of a society to ensure that all children get a good chance to develop their talents. Extraordinarily, this obligation is extended to women, as he shows in Book V.