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Author: Paul K. Feyerabend
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9780745651903
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Paul Feyerabend is one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century and his book Against Method is an international bestseller. In this new book he masterfully weaves together the main elements of his mature philosophy into a gripping tale: the story of the rise of rationalism in Ancient Greece that eventually led to the entrenchment of a mythical ‘scientific worldview’. In this wide-ranging and accessible book Feyerabend challenges some modern myths about science, including the myth that ‘science is successful’. He argues that some very basic assumptions about science are simply false and that substantial parts of scientific ideology were created on the basis of superficial generalizations that led to absurd misconceptions about the nature of human life. Far from solving the pressing problems of our age, such as war and poverty, scientific theorizing glorifies ephemeral generalities, at the cost of confronting the real particulars that make life meaningful. Objectivity and generality are based on abstraction, and as such, they come at a high price. For abstraction drives a wedge between our thoughts and our experience, resulting in the degeneration of both. Theoreticians, as opposed to practitioners, tend to impose a tyranny on the concepts they use, abstracting away from the subjective experience that makes life meaningful. Feyerabend concludes by arguing that practical experience is a better guide to reality than any theory, by itself, ever could be, and he stresses that there is no tyranny that cannot be resisted, even if it is exerted with the best possible intentions. Provocative and iconoclastic, The Tyranny of Science is one of Feyerabend’s last books and one of his best. It will be widely read by everyone interested in the role that science has played, and continues to play, in the shaping of the modern world.
Author: Paul K. Feyerabend
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9780745651897
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Paul Feyerabend is one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century and his book Against Method is an international bestseller. In this new book he masterfully weaves together the main elements of his mature philosophy into a gripping tale: the story of the rise of rationalism in Ancient Greece that eventually led to the entrenchment of a mythical ‘scientific worldview’. In this wide-ranging and accessible book Feyerabend challenges some modern myths about science, including the myth that ‘science is successful’. He argues that some very basic assumptions about science are simply false and that substantial parts of scientific ideology were created on the basis of superficial generalizations that led to absurd misconceptions about the nature of human life. Far from solving the pressing problems of our age, such as war and poverty, scientific theorizing glorifies ephemeral generalities, at the cost of confronting the real particulars that make life meaningful. Objectivity and generality are based on abstraction, and as such, they come at a high price. For abstraction drives a wedge between our thoughts and our experience, resulting in the degeneration of both. Theoreticians, as opposed to practitioners, tend to impose a tyranny on the concepts they use, abstracting away from the subjective experience that makes life meaningful. Feyerabend concludes by arguing that practical experience is a better guide to reality than any theory, by itself, ever could be, and he stresses that there is no tyranny that cannot be resisted, even if it is exerted with the best possible intentions. Provocative and iconoclastic, The Tyranny of Science is one of Feyerabend’s last books and one of his best. It will be widely read by everyone interested in the role that science has played, and continues to play, in the shaping of the modern world.
Author: Paul K. Feyerabend
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9780745651903
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book
Book Description
Paul Feyerabend is one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century and his book Against Method is an international bestseller. In this new book he masterfully weaves together the main elements of his mature philosophy into a gripping tale: the story of the rise of rationalism in Ancient Greece that eventually led to the entrenchment of a mythical ‘scientific worldview’. In this wide-ranging and accessible book Feyerabend challenges some modern myths about science, including the myth that ‘science is successful’. He argues that some very basic assumptions about science are simply false and that substantial parts of scientific ideology were created on the basis of superficial generalizations that led to absurd misconceptions about the nature of human life. Far from solving the pressing problems of our age, such as war and poverty, scientific theorizing glorifies ephemeral generalities, at the cost of confronting the real particulars that make life meaningful. Objectivity and generality are based on abstraction, and as such, they come at a high price. For abstraction drives a wedge between our thoughts and our experience, resulting in the degeneration of both. Theoreticians, as opposed to practitioners, tend to impose a tyranny on the concepts they use, abstracting away from the subjective experience that makes life meaningful. Feyerabend concludes by arguing that practical experience is a better guide to reality than any theory, by itself, ever could be, and he stresses that there is no tyranny that cannot be resisted, even if it is exerted with the best possible intentions. Provocative and iconoclastic, The Tyranny of Science is one of Feyerabend’s last books and one of his best. It will be widely read by everyone interested in the role that science has played, and continues to play, in the shaping of the modern world.
Author: Yuval Levin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
The astonishing success of the natural sciences in the modern era has led many thinkers to assume that similar feats of knowledge and power should be achievable in human affairs. That assumption, and the accompanying notion that the methods of modern science ought to be applied to social and political questions, have been at the heart of a number of prominent philosophical schools in the modern age, and much of the politics of the past century. Is the application of scientific logic to the study of human affairs philosophically defensible? Does it aid or hinder our efforts at a genuine understanding of the human world? Why have so many modern ideologies, including those responsible for some of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century, advanced themselves under the banner of science? Why, in other words, do we assume that modern science holds the key to an understanding of human affairs? Are we right to make this assumption? And what does the assumption mean for contemporary society and politics? Tyranny of Reason, which is designed for the interested lay reader and for undergraduate or beginning graduate students in the social sciences, attempts to answer these important questions in the context of the history of philosophy
Author: Paul Feyerabend
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1788731921
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
No study in the philosophy of science created such controversy in the seventies as Paul Feyerabend's Against Method. In this work, Feyerabend reviews that controversy, and extends his critique beyond the problem of scientific rules and methods, to the social function and direction of science today. In the first part of the book, he launches a sustained and irreverent attack on the prestige of science in the West. The lofty authority of the "expert" claimed by scientists is, he argues, incompatible with any genuine democracy, and often merely serves to conceal entrenched prejudices and divided opinions with the scientific community itself. Feyerabend insists that these can and should be subjected to the arbitration of the lay population, whose closes interests they constantly affect-as struggles over atomic energy programs so powerfully attest. Calling for far greater diversity in the content of education to facilitate democratic decisions over such issues, Feyerabend recounts the origin and development of his own ideas-successively engaged by Brecht, Ehrenhaft, Popper, Mill and Lakatos-in a spirited intellectual self-portrait. Science in a Free Society is a striking intervention into one of the most topical debates in contemporary culture and politics.
Author: Gilles Saint-Paul
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691128170
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 175
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Book Description
Political organization and the conception of man -- The challenge to the unitary individual in Western thought -- Economics: the last bastion of rationality -- Economics goes behavioral -- From utility to happiness -- Post-utilitarianism : searching for a collective soul in the behavioral era -- The policy prescriptions of behavioral economics -- The modern paternalistic state -- Responsibility transfer -- The role of science -- Markets in a paternalistic world -- Where to go?
Author: Paul Feyerabend
Publisher: Verso
ISBN: 9780860916468
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
Modern philosophy of science has paid great attention to the understanding of scientific 'practice', in contrast to concentration on scientific 'method'. Paul Feyerabend's acclaimed work, which has contributed greatly to this new emphasis, shows the deficiencies of some widespread ideas about the nature of knowledge. He argues that the only feasible explanations of scientific successes are historical explanations, and that anarchism must now replace rationalism in the theory of knowledge. The third edition of this classic text contains a new preface and additional reflections at various points in which the author takes account both of recent debates on science and on the impact of scientific products and practices on the human community. While disavowing populism or relativism, Feyerabend continues to insist that the voice of the inexpert must be heard. Thus many environmental perils were first identified by non-experts against prevailing assumptions in the scientific community. Feyerabend's challenging reassessment of scientific claims and understandings are as pungent and timely as ever.
Author: Jerry Z. Muller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691191263
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens business, medicine, education, government—and the quality of our lives Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself—and this tyranny of metrics now threatens the quality of our organizations and lives. In this brief, accessible, and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage metrics are causing and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from business, medicine, education, government, and other fields, the book explains why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But Muller also shows that, when used as a complement to judgment based on personal experience, metrics can be beneficial, and he includes an invaluable checklist of when and how to use them. The result is an essential corrective to a harmful trend that increasingly affects us all.
Author: Paul Feyerabend
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789607434
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 430
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Book Description
Farewell to Reason offers a vigorous challenge to the scientific rationalism that underlies Western ideals of "progress" and "development," whose damaging social and ecological consequences are now widely recognized. For all their variety in theme and occasion, the essays in this book share a consistent philosophical purpose. Whether discussing Greek art and thought, vindicating the church's battle with Galileo, exploring the development of quantum physics or exposing the dogmatism of Karl Popper, Feyerabend defends a relativist and historicist notion of the sciences. The appeal to reason, he insists, is empty, and must be replaced by a notion of science that subordinates it to the needs of citizens and communities. Provocative, polemical and rigorously argued, Farewell to Reason will infuriate Feyerabend's critics and delight his many admirers.
Author: Michael J. Sandel
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720991
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
A Times Literary Supplement’s Book of the Year 2020 A New Statesman's Best Book of 2020 A Bloomberg's Best Book of 2020 A Guardian Best Book About Ideas of 2020 The world-renowned philosopher and author of the bestselling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good? These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the American credo that "you can make it if you try". The consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fueled populist protest and extreme polarization, and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens--leaving us morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time. World-renowned philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind, and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath of American life. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success--more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good.
Author: Josh Hawley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684512409
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
The reign of Big Tech is here, and Americans’ First Amendment rights hang by a keystroke. Amassing unimaginable amounts of personal data, giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple—once symbols of American ingenuity and freedom—have become a techno-oligarchy with overwhelming economic and political power. Decades of unchecked data collection have given Big Tech more targeted control over Americans’ daily lives than any company or government in the world. In The Tyranny of Big Tech, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri argues that these mega-corporations—controlled by the robber barons of the modern era—are the gravest threat to American liberty in decades. To reverse course, Hawley argues, we must correct progressives’ mistakes of the past. That means recovering the link between liberty and democratic participation, building an economy that makes the working class strong, independent, and beholden to no one, and curbing the influence of corporate and political elites. Big Tech and its allies do not deal gently with those who cross them, and Senator Hawley proudly bears his own battle scars. But hubris is dangerous. The time is ripe to overcome the tyranny of Big Tech by reshaping the business and legal landscape of the digital world.
