Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie: Heft 49.3/2024

Paul Feyerabend was a great provocateur in the field of philosophy of science. With his plea for the plurality of forms of knowledge, he critically scrutinised the notions of rationality of his era and made many enemies. His bold assertion that science, like art, is based on stylistical conditions of thought was seen by many as postmodernist relativism. For neither in art nor in science, nor even in cosmology, it depends on caprice to decide what is considered beautiful, true or plausible. According to Feyerabend, however, there is no reason or method that transcends all disciplines and epochs and guarantees that humans are not fallible, even if they would like to be. This is because all methods are themselves subject to historical drift. To mark the 100th anniversary of Feyerabend’s birth, Michael Hampe and Eva Schürmann are publishing a special issue dedicated to the relationship between science, art and cosmology.

Inhalt

• Michael Hampe, Eva Schürmann: Nicht Systeme, sondern Geschichten. Über Feyerabends interventionistische Philosophie 257 (8) (DOI 10.12857/AZP.910490320-1)Open Access

Abhandlungen

• Michael Hagner: Mit Faschisten am Tisch sitzen. Paul Feyerabend und Konrad Lorenz’ Acht Todsünden der zivilisierten Menschheit 263 (16) (DOI 10.12857/AZP.910490320-2)

  Abstract

  For decades, relativist philosophy of various stripes has been accused of contributing to an erosion of truth and irrationalism with its critique of reason and its rejection of universalism. This epistemological accusation is always accompanied by the political criticism that relativism and the critique of reason betray the Enlightenment and play into the hands of political reaction and even right-wing radicalism. The aim of this essay is to analyze the accusation of »epistemic tribalism« directed against Paul Feyerabend, who plays with right-wing positions as if with fire. I will focus on his attitude towards the behavioral scientist Konrad Lorenz, whose cultural criticism of the 1970s was irritatingly close to his positions during the Nazi era. Feyerabend knew this, but did not address it. I interpret this blind spot against the background of his underestimation of radical right-wing power politics, against which Feyerabend’s pluralism runs the risk of undermining itself.
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• Eva Schürmann: Wie weit reicht die Analogie von Wissenschaft und Kunst? 279 (32) (DOI 10.12857/AZP.910490320-3)

  Abstract

  In his book Science as Art (1984), Paul Feyerabend makes far-reaching assertions about an analogy between art and science, which is said to be based on the fact that both are dependent on style. Referring to the Austrian art historian Alois Riegl and his theory of the »will to art« and stylistic forms in the visual arts, Feyerabend claims that there is as little progress in science as there is in art. My contribution will discuss the concept of style on which these theses are based. I will show that there are important differences between historical styles of artistic depiction on the one hand and styles of thought that underlie scientific research in the sense of Ludwik Fleck on the other. Unfortunately, Feyerabend does not take these differences into account, which makes his argument considerably less plausible. Nevertheless, as we will see, something essential for his concern of a critique of rationality and science could be gained from the concept of style, albeit in a different way than Feyerabend thought.
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• Katja Frimberger: Leben Lernen: Paul Feyerabend über Bertolt Brechts vergnügliche Pädagogik der Verfremdung als Habituierung ins respektable Herumtüfteln 295 (26) (DOI 10.12857/AZP.910490320-4)

  Abstract

  This paper explores Paul Feyerabend’s view on Bertolt Brecht’s pedagogy of Verfremdung. Feyerabend focuses on three pedagogical and aesthetic aspects of Brecht’s theatre: art and science’s social-public (educational) orientation, its participatory unfolding as knowledge, and an artistic form, able to move an audience to critically engage with the world of ideas and practice, and their coming into form on stage (and in life). Brecht’s aesthetic of Verfremdung acts for Feyerabend as a pedagogical model. As such, it is to revive the (aesthetic) pleasure at the heart of a public philosophising as a general form of life – in the habitus of joyful tinkering.
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• Helmut Heit: Grenzen der Vernunft, Theorienproliferation und abwägender Relativismus 321 (20) (DOI 10.12857/AZP.910490320-5)

  Abstract

  This text presents Feyerabend’s version of relativism as an epistemologically and culturally virtuous position. In a first step, I reconstruct Feyerabend’s questioning of Western science as a consistent radicalization of the plea for theory-proliferation. To test the quality of theories, genuine alternatives are necessary. Based on his reception of Protagoras and Nietzsche, it can be shown that Feyerabend advocates a deliberative relativism without assuming the equivalence of alternatives. Feyerabend’s thinking reveals a self-critical insight into the limits of reason.
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Essay

• Christian Thomas: Hätte sich Paul Feyerabend gegen COVID impfen lassen? Persönliche Erinnerungen und Reflexionen 341 (14) (DOI 10.12857/AZP.910490320-6)Buy article

Buchbesprechung

• Enrico Bracchi Silveira: Wege und Umwege einer dialektischen Anthropologie: Daniel Martin Feige und das Werden der menschlichen Natur 355 (8) (DOI 10.12857/AZP.910490320-7)Buy article

• Alexander von Pechmann: Kategorie und Begriff in Marx’ dialektischer Methode 363 (6) (DOI 10.12857/AZP.910490320-8)Buy article

• Fernando Wirtz: Auf dem Weg zu einer Ökologie des Bewusstseins: Schellings Erlanger Vorlesungen 369 (4) (DOI 10.12857/AZP.910490320-9)Buy article