“Those are indeed important questions”
摘要
Since Feyerabend’s death in 1994, more than 17,000 publications have appeared to date. These include numerous new editions of his own writings as well as works published posthumously (“Conquest of Abundance” from 1999 and its German translation titled “Vernichtung der Vielfalt” from 2005, as well as “Naturphilosophie” from 2009), discussions of his critique of Critical Rationalism, appreciations of his anarchist epistemology, collections of critical essays, outstanding biographies, and much more. Feyerabend, even if only in passing, takes a position on questions that are also raised by today’s postcolonial studies. His concern about the epistemic and political marginalization of indigenous cultures, or about the human and ecological costs of Westernization, had already preoccupied him in the 1970s. Feyerabend by no means assumes that myths, fairy tales, occult rites, or indeed creationist beliefs are inherently superior to rational conceptions of the world. Rather, he criticized scientific attacks, for example against astrology, herbal medicine, or parapsychology, when the critics argued without knowledge or understanding of astrology or parapsychology. In doing so, Feyerabend is not defending the so-called pseudosciences. For Feyerabend, myths, fairy tales, or occult rites can instead serve both as a stimulus for scientific discoveries and—so to speak—as the acid test for the rationality of scientific inquiry.