Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 09:40:47 +0000
From: John Preston <j.m.preston-AT-reading.ac.uk>
Subject: PKF: Conquest of Abundance



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There's an article about this, ‘Science as Supermarket: ‘Post-Modern’ Themes
in Paul Feyerabend’s Later Philosophy of Science’, Studies in History and
Philosophy of Science, volume 29, no.3, 1998, pp.425-447. It's by me, I'm
afraid. It's also about to appear in the very-shortly-forthcoming volume
J.Preston, G.Munévar & D.Lamb (eds.), The Worst Enemy of Science?: Essays in
Memory of Paul Feyerabend, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). (ISBN
0-19-512874-5), about which I'll post more info on this list once it
appears.
    The article argues that Feyerabend's last work (exactly the stuff that
has just appeared in The Conquest of Abundance) is indeed post-modern in
some of the respects David specifies below, and others too. Without
summarising the whole thing here, here's the first paragraph, which should
convey its flavour:

"Philosophy of science is perhaps the area of philosophy in which
‘post-modernism’ has had the least penetration, and has been least
discussed. My intention here is to clarify both Feyerabend’s last work and
the nature of the post-modern by situating that work relative to three
different positions in the philosophy of science which have been called
‘post-modern’. However, I am less concerned to clinch the case for
Feyerabend’s having become a postmodernist, than to use that position as
foil against which accurately to convey and critically evaluate the central
themes in his later philosophy."

All the best,

John Preston
Senior Lecturer,
Department of Philosophy,
The University of Reading,
Reading RG6 6AA,
England.

Department Tel. 0118-931-8325 International Tel. +44-118-931-8325
Department Fax. 0118-931-8295 International Fax. +44-118-931-8295

Homepage: http://www.reading.ac.uk/AcaDepts/ld/Philos/jmp.htm


David Geelan wrote:

> I've just received a copy of Conquest of Abundance, PKF's new book. Bert
> Terpstra has done a wonderful job of editing together the unfinished
> manuscript and other archival materials to make a fascinating, coherent
> book that preserves Paul's tone and approach beautifully. I'm enjoying
> the book very much, and it's resonating very strongly with the issues I
> had already been considering. I'll try to raise some questions in the
> list once I finish reading the book, but for now I just want to urge you
> to get hold of it as soon as possible.
>
> I know I promised a review of 'For and Against Method', and I do still
> plan to do that too. One intriguing facet of that book is the insight
> into PKF's writing style - the continuing revisions and rewrites and
> dissatisfactions and illuminations. It becomes clearer why the three
> editions of AM are so different!
>
> It's great to see the list coming to life again a little (welcome
> Tomas!), and I hope this can be continued. One question that occurs to
> me:
>
> In 'Conquest of Abundance', Paul does not (so far as I can see anyway)
> use the term 'postmodernism' in relation to his point, but I have been
> coming to many of the same issues - the richness, complexity and
> fragmentariness of Being and experience, as against the relative aridity
> of our theoretical schemes for trying to describe it - from a postmodern
> (though not deconstructionist) perspective. Is PKF's perspective
> postmodern, or does it really not fit on that axis (modern-postmodern)?
>
> Warm regards,
>
> David
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