Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge is a 1975 book by Austrian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. The central thesis of the book is that science should become an anarchic enterprise.Feyerabend, Paul. Against Method. 4th ed., New York, NY: Verso Books, 2010, p. 1. In the context of the work, the term "anarchy" refers to epistemological anarchy, which does not remain within one single prescriptive scientific method on the grounds that any such method would restrict scientific progress. The work is notable in the history and philosophy of science partially due to its detailed case study of Galileo's hypothesis that the earth rotates on its axis and has since become a staple reading in introductory philosophy of science courses at undergraduate and graduate levels.
Against Method contains many verbatim excerpts from Feyerabend's earlier papers including "Explanation, Reduction, and Empiricism", "How to be a Good Empiricist: A Plea for Tolerance in Matters Epistemological", and "Problems of Empiricism, Part I." Because of this, Feyerabend claims that "[Against Method] is not a book, it is a collage."Paul Feyerabend, Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend, University of Chicago Press, 1995, p. 139 Later editions of Against Method included passages from Science in a Free Society.
Publication, Translations, and Editions Feyerabend began writing Against Method in 1968 and it was originally released as a long paper in the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science series in 1970. At the behest of Imre Lakatos, who originally planned to write For Method in contrast to Against Method but then died, the paper was expanded into a book published in 1975. Lakatos originally encouraged Feyerabend to publish with Cambridge University Press because they would be less concerned with their reputation than smaller presses, but Feyerabend chose to publish with Verso Books (then called New Left Books). Feyerabend came to regret this decision because of their editorial choices. Three more editions were released, in 1988, 1993, and posthumously in 2010. Significant changes were made including removing or adding chapters and appendices with new, updated introductions.
Against Method was an international best seller and, as a result, it has been translated into many languages. This includes: German translation by Hermann Vetter (revised and enlarged): Wider den Methodenzwang: Skizze einer anarchistischen Erkenntnistheorie, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main 1976, 443 pp. Dutch translation by Hein Kray: In strijd met de methode: Aanzet tot een anarchistische kennistheorie, Meppel: Boom 1977, 375 pp. Portuguese translation by Octanny S. da Mota and Leonidas Hegenberg: Contra o método: Esboça de una teoria anárquica da teoria do conhecimento, Livraria Francisco Alves: Rio de Janeiro 1977, 487 pp. Swedish translation by Thomas Brante: Ned med metodologin! Skiss till en anarkistisk kunskapsteori, Raben and Sjogren: Zenit 1977, 326 pp. French translation by Baudouin Jurdant and Agnès Schlumberger: Contre la methode: Esquisse d'une théorie anarchiste de la connaissance, Seuil: Paris 1979, 350 pp. Italian translation by Libero Sosio: Contro il metodo: Abbozzo di una teoria anarchica della conscenza, Feltrinelli: Milan 1979, viii+262 pp. Spanish translation by Diego Ribes: Tratado contra el método, Tecnos: Madrid 1981, xvii+319 pp. Japanese translation: Hoho eno chosen: Kagakuteki sozo to chi no anakizumu, Shin'yosha: Tokyo 1981, 13+438 pp. Turkish translation by Ahmet İnam: Yönteme Hayır: Bir Anarşist Bilgi Kuramının Ana Hatları, Ara: Istanbul 1989, 325 pp. Chinese translation by Changzhong Zhou: Shanghai Translation Publishing House: Shanghai 1994, 269 pp.
The 4th edition, released after Feyerabend's death on the 35th anniversary of the initial book release, includes an introduction from Ian Hacking.
Content Epistemological anarchism The primary thesis of Against Method is that there is no such thing as the scientific method and that it is not appropriate to impose a single methodological rule upon scientific practices. Rather, 'anything goes', meaning that scientists should be free to pursue whatever research seems interesting to them. The primary target of Against Method is 'rationalism', or the view that there are rational rules that should guide scientific practices. The German title of Against Method, Wider den Methodenzwang translates more directly to "Against the Forced Constraint of Method" emphasizing that it is the imposition of methodological rules that is rejected rather than the uses of methods altogether. Feyerabend offers two parallel arguments for this position, one conceptual and one historical. The conceptual argument aims to establish that it is always legitimate to violate established forms of scientific practice with the hopes of establishing a new form of scientific rationality. The historical argument provides examples of scientists profitably violating rules. Against Method contains dozens of case studies, though the majority of them are relegated to footnotes or passing remarks. The primary case study in Against Method is Galileo's hypothesis that the earth rotates on its axis.
Scholars have disputed the precise meaning of epistemological anarchism. John Preston claims that 'anything goes' signals Feyerabend's abandonment of normative philosophy. In other words, while Feyerabend defended pluralism in his works in the 1950s and 60s, Against Method represents a development in Feyerabend's thought where he abandons pluralism as well as normative theorizing altogether. A more common interpretation is that 'anything goes' does not represent a positive conviction of Feyerabend's but is the conclusion of a reductio ad absurdum. 'Anything goes' is therefore not a methodological prescription but "the terrified exclamation of the rationalist who takes a closer look at history". More recently, it has been argued that epistemological anarchism is a positive methodological proposal but comes in two inconsistent guises. On the one hand, epistemological anarchism means that scientists should be opportunists who adapt their methods to the situation at hand while, on the other hand, anarchism also signifies an unrestricted pluralism and therefore constitutes a radical generalization of his earlier arguments for pluralism.
Counterinduction Feyerabend contends that for every methodological rule, there is a 'counter rule' – namely, a methodological rule that recommends the opposite of its counter – which also has value. As an example of this general hypothesis, Feyerabend defends 'counterinduction' as the counter rule to inductivism and "induction by falsification" as a valuable methodological rule. Counterinduction involves developing theories that are inconsistent with currently accepted empirical evidence, which is the opposite of the (then) commonly accepted rule that theories should be developed that are consistent with known facts. Feyerabend argues for counterinduction by showing that theories that conflict with known facts are useful for revealing 'natural interpretations' which must be made explicit so that they can be examined. Natural interpretations are interpretations of experience, expressed in language, that follow automatically and unconsciously from describing observations. After a theory has been accepted for a long period of time, it becomes habit to describe events or processes using certain concepts. Because, Feyerabend argues, observation underdetermines the ways we describe what we observe, theories that redescribe experience in new ways force us to make comparisons between old natural interpretations and new ones. This is the first step to evaluating the plausibility of either and so counterinduction aids in providing a thorough critical assessment of our acceptance of particular theories.
Galileo case study The primary case study in Against Method is Galileo's hypothesis that the earth rotates on its axis. According to Feyerabend's reconstruction, Galileo did not justify this hypothesis by reference to known facts, nor did he offer an unfalsified conjecture that had more empirical content than its predecessor. Rather, Galileo's hypothesis would rationally have been considered to be false by the existing evidence at the time, and it is lower in empirical content than Aristotelian theory of motion. Moreover, Galileo did not provide arguments to justify his contention but instead used propaganda.
According to the existing evidence in the early 17th century, the position that the earth rotates on its axis would have rightly been regarded as false. For example, Galileo's theory of the tides suggested by the motion of the earth was inaccurate and the differences "were big enough to be known even to the most bleary-eyed sailor." In addition, the motion of the earth on its axis leads to the wrong predictions of the relative brightness of Mars and Venus when measured with the naked eye. To correct for these mistakes, Galileo introduces new evidence through his telescope. However, the telescope was not theoretically understood at the time. The best theory of optics was Kepler's, which Galileo did not understand personally, which says nothing about how light reflects off convex lenses. Moreover, there were well-confirmed reasons to think – as the Aristotelians thought – that light behaves differently outside of the sublunar sphere and so telescopic vision would not have any justification for being veridical. In addition, when Galileo tested the telescope with many observational astronomers in Padua, it produced indeterminate and double images, optical illusions about the placement and magnification of celestial bodies, and after images even when tested on terrestrial objects. Because of this, Galileo had no new evidence to support his conjecture that the earth completes a diurnal rotation on its axis and the existing evidence suggested that it was false.
Galileo's hypothesis also does not follow Popper's falsificationism, which suggests that we do not use ad hoc hypotheses. Aristotle's theory of motion was a part of a broader theory of change, which included growth, decay and qualitative changes (such as changes in color). Galileo's theory of motion focuses solely on locomotion and, therefore, has less empirical content than Aristotle's theory. This also makes it more ad hoc, because it makes no new predictions and offers only a promissory note that locomotion will eventually explain everything Aristotle's theory was able to explain.
Feyerabend does not just argue that Galileo and his followers acted "irrationally" from the perspective of inductivism and falsificationism, but that it was reasonable that they did so. This is because Galileo's conjecture was able to reveal the natural interpretations that followed from the Aristotelian worldview. Natural interpretations, defined by Feyerabend, are interpretations of phenomena which happen naturally and automatically in our perception and the ways we attach language to what we observe. After accepting a theory for a long period of time, natural interpretations become implicit and forgotten and, therefore, difficult to test. By contrasting natural interpretations with other interpretations, they are made explicit and can be tested. Therefore, to fully scrutinize the Aristotelian worldview, Feyerabend suggests that Galileo was right to conjecture a new theory that revealed its natural interpretations.