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Anything Goes
Paul Feyerabend was a well known non-conventional philosopher who had radical ideas about the best ways to approach scientific research. He believed that there was no solid approach to finding scientific truth and used the words “Anything Goes” as a way to summarize the best way to work towards developing a scientific theory.Feyerabend’s idea of not following idealized scientific models to progress scientific research was opposed by many philosophers. -
Against Method
Feyerabend published a paper in 1975 titled “Against Method”, which went into more detail concerning his “Anything Goes” philosophy. In his paper, he talks about how there is no truly successful scientific method that can be used as a template for scientific research. He criticized philosophers who were trying to fit together scientific research with their idea of a successful model for progressing that research. Feyerabend believed that a solid objective scientific method was more complex. -
Aftermath
Many philosophers did not agree with Paul Feyerabend’s philosophy regarding the best ways to develop new theories. This did not stop him from moving forward with his strong belief that science is not the universal, dominant force that Western culture wanted to enforce. While science fits into the Wests’ form of life, that does not mean it can be applied successfully to cultures in other parts of the world. Other cultures had their own approaches to learning about the world in Feyerabend’s mind. -
Farewell to Reason
Feyerabend spent the latter years of his life in strong opposition to the uniformity of scientific research. He supported the independent ways of learning in different cultures. He was also confident in the idea that there is not some dominant concept of truth and knowledge that all cultures should conform to. Feyerabend thought that each cultures’ uniqueness and diversity helped progress the pursuit of knowledge better than some uniform way of learning about the universe.
