Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2003 02:45:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: "J.M. Adams" <ringfingers-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: [postanarchism] Feyerebend: "On Epistemological Anarchism"


On Epistemological Anarchism

by Paul Feyerabend

The hallmark of political anarchism is its opposition
to the established order of things: to the state, its
institutions, the ideologies that support and glorify
these institutions. The established order must be
destroyed so that human spontaneity may 
come to the fore and exercise its right of freely
initiating action, of freely choosing what it thinks
is best. Occasionally one wishes to overcome not just
some social circumstances but the entire physical
world which is seen as being corrupt, unreal,
transient, and of no importance. 

This religious or eschatological anarchism denies not
only social laws, but moral, physical and perceptual
laws as well and it envisages a mode of existence that
is no longer tied to the body, its reactions, and its
needs. Violence whether political or spiritual, plays
an important role in almost all forms of anarchism. 
Violence is necessary to overcome the impediments
erected by a well-organised society, or by one's own
modes of behaviour (perception, thought, etc.), and it
is beneficial for the individual, for it releases
one's energies and makes one realize the powers at
one's disposal. 

Free associations where everyone does what best suits
their talents replace the petrified institutions of
the day, no function must be allowed to become fixed -
'the commander of yesterday can become a subordinate
of tomorrow. Teaching is to be based on curiosity and
not on command, the 'teacher' is called upon to
further this curiosity and not to rely on any fixed
method. Spontaneity reigns supreme, in thought
(perception) as well as in action.

One of the remarkable characteristics of
post-enlightenment political anarchism is its faith in
the "natural reason' of the human race and its respect
for science. This respect is only rarely an
opportunistic move – one recognizes an ally and
compliments him to keep him happy. Most of the time it
is based on the genuine conviction that pure 
unadulterated science gives a true account of man and
the world and produces powerful ideological weapons in
the fight against the sham orders of the day.
Today this naive and almost childlike trust in science
is endangered by two developments. 

The first development is the rise of new kinds of
scientific institutions. As opposed to its immediate
predecessor, late 20th-century science has given up
all philosophical pretensions and has become a
powerful business that shapes the mentality of its 
practitioners. Good payment, good standing with the
boss and the colleagues in their 'unit' are the chief
aims of these human ants who excel in the solution of
tiny problems but who cannot make sense of 
anything transcending their domain of competence. 

Humanitarian considerations are at a minimum and so is
any form of progressiveness that goes beyond local
improvements. The most glorious achievements 
of the past are used not as instruments of
enlightenment but as means of intimidation as is seen
from some recent debates concerning the theory of
evolution. Let somebody make a great step forward -
and the profession is bound to turn it into a club for
beating people into submission.

The second development concerns the alleged authority
of the products of this ever-changing enterprise.
Scientific laws were once thought to be well
established and irrevocable. The scientist discovers
facts and laws and constantly increases the amount of
safe and indubitable knowledge. Today we have
recognized, mainly as a result of the work 
of Mill, Mach, Boltzmann, Duhem and others, that
science cannot give any such guarantees. Scientific
laws can be revised, they often turn out to be not
just locally incorrect but entirely false, making 
assertions about entities that never existed. There
are revolutions that leave no stone unturned, no
principle unchallenged. 

Unpleasant in appearance, untrust worthy in its
results, science has ceased to 
be an ally of the anarchist and has become a problem.
Should he abandon it ? Should he use it ? What should
he do with it? That is the question. Epistemological
anarchism gives an answer to this question. It is in
line with the remaining tenets of anarchism and it 
removes the last hardened elements. Epistemological
anarchism differs both from scepticism and from 
political (religious) anarchism. While the sceptic
either regards every view as equally good, or as
equally bad, or desists from making 
such judgements altogether, the epistemological
anarchist has no compunction to defend the most trite,
or the most outrageous statement.

 While the political or the religious anarchist wants
to remove a certain form of life, the epistemological
anarchist may want to defend it, for he has no
everlasting loyalty to, and no everlasting aversion
against, any institution or any ideology. Like the
Dadaist, whom he resembles much more than he resembles
the political anarchist, he 'not only has no
programme, [he is] against all programmes', though he
will on occasions be the most vociferous defender of
the status quo, or of his opponents: 'to be a true
Dadaist, one must also be an anti-Dadaist'. His aims
remain stable, or change as a result of argument, or
of boredom, or of a conversion experience, or to
impress a mistress, and so on. Given some aim, he may
try to approach it with the help of organized groups,
or alone; he may use reason, emotion, ridicule, an
'attitude of serious concern" and whatever other means
have been invented by humans to get the better of
their fellow men. 

His favourite pastime is to confuse rationalists by
inventing compelling reasons for unreasonable
doctrines. There is no view, however 'absurd' or
'immoral', he refuses to consider or to act upon, and
no method is regarded as indispensable. The one thing
he opposes positively and absolutely are universal
standards, universal laws, universal ideas such as
'Truth", 'Reason", 'Justice', 'Love' and the behaviour
they bring along, though he does not deny that it is
often good policy to act as if such laws (such
standards, such ideas) existed, and as if he believed
in them. 

He may approach the religious anarchist in his 
opposition to science and the material world, he may
outdo any Nobel Prize winner in his vigorous defence
of scientific purity. He has no objection to regarding
the fabric of the world as described by science and
revealed by his senses as a chimera that either
conceals a deeper and, perhaps, spiritual reality, or
as a mere web of dreams that reveals, and conceals,
nothing. 

He takes great interest in procedures, phenomena and
experiences such as those reported by 
Carlos Castaneda, which indicate that perceptions can
be arranged in highly unusual ways and that the choice
of a particular arrangement as corresponding to
reality', while not arbitrary (it almost always 
depends on traditions), is certainly not more
'rational' or more 'objective' than the choice of
another arrangement: Rabbi Akiba, who in ecstatic
trance rises from one celestial sphere to the next 
and still higher and who finally comes face to face
with God in all his Splendour, makes genuine
observations once we decide to accept his way of life
as a measure of reality, and his mind is as 
independent of his body as the chosen observations
tell him. 

Applying this point of view to a specific subject such
as science, the epistemological anarchist finds that
its accepted development (e.g. from the Closed World
to the 'Infinite Universe') occurred only 
because the practitioners unwittingly used his
philosophy within the confines of their trade - they
succeeded because they did not permit 
themselves to be bound by 'laws of reason', 'stand
ards of rationality", or 'immutable laws of nature'.
Underneath all this outrage lies his conviction that
man will cease to be a slave and gain a dignity that
is more than an exercise in cautious conformism 
only when he becomes capable of stepping outside the
most fundamental categories and convictions, including
those which allegedly make him human.

'The realisation that reason and anti-reason, sense
and nonsense, design and chance, consciousness and
unconsciousness [and, I would add, humanitarianism and
anti-humanitarianism] belong together as a necessary
part of a whole - this was the central message of
Dada,' writes Hans Richter. The epistemological
anarchist agrees, though he would not express himself
in such a constipated manner. 


===="The world is the natural setting of and field for all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions. Truth does not 'inhabit' only 'the inner man' or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world and only in the world does he know himself."

— Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 1945

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