Interpreting Feyerabend

This collection of new essays interprets and critically evaluates the philosophy of Paul Feyerabend. It offers innovative historical scholarship on Feyerabend's take on topics such as realism, empiricism, mimesis, voluntarism, pluralism, materialism, and the mind-body problem, as well as certain debates in the philosophy of physics. It also considers the ways in which Feyerabend's thought can contribute to contemporary debates in science and public policy, including questions about the nature of scientific methodology, the role of science in society, citizen science, scientism, and the role of expertise in public policy. The volume will provide readers with a comprehensive overview of the topics which Feyerabend engaged with throughout his career, showing both the breadth and the depth of his thought.

Provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the topics Feyerabend engaged with throughout his career, demonstrating the breadth of his thought and corpus
Introduces readers to the depths and nuances of Feyerabend's philosophy without presupposing a great deal of background knowledge
Considers the ways in which Feyerabend's thought can contribute to contemporary debates in science and public policy

Reviews & endorsements

'All of them go beyond where Feyerabend left off, which is appropriate for a book with this subtitle. [This] is an excellent collection that has already begun to reshape our understanding of Feyerabend's contributions to philosophy, and it will continue to do so for years to come.' Michael T. Stuart, Metascience

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Product details

Published: November 2022
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781108458917
Length: 270 pages
Dimensions: 229 × 152 × 14 mm
Weight: 0.398kg
Availability: Available

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Contents

Introduction. Paul Feyerabend's Philosophy in the Twenty-First Century Jamie Shaw and Karim Bschir
1. Feyerabend on Art and Science Chiara Ambrosio
2. The Coherence of Feyerabend's Pluralist Realism Hasok Chang
3. Feyerabend's General Theory of Scientific Change Hakob Barseghyan
4. Feyerabend's Theoretical Pluralism: An Investigation of the Epistemic Value of False Theories K. Brad Wray
5. Epistemological Anarchism Meets Epistemic Voluntarism: Feyerabend's Against Method and van Fraassen's The Empirical Stance Martin Kusch
6. Feyerabend Never was an Eliminative Materialist: Feyerabend's Meta-Philosophy and the Mind-Body Problem Jamie Shaw
7. Feyerabend's Reevaluation of Scientific Practice: Quantum Mechanics, Realism and Niels Bohr Daniel Kuby
8. On Feyerabend, General Relativity, and 'Unreasonable' Universes J. B. Manchak
9. Feyerabend, Science, and Scientism Ian James Kidd
10. Matthew Brown – Against Expertise: A Lesson from Feyerabend's Science in a Free Society? Matthew Brown
11. A Way Forward for Citizen Science: Taking Advice from a Madman Sarah M. Roe.

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Contributors

Jamie Shaw, Karim Bschir, Chiara Ambrosio, Hasok Chang, Hakob Barseghyan, K. Brad Wray, Martin Kusch, Daniel Kuby, JB Manchak, Ian James Kidd, Matthew Brown, Sarah M. Roe

Editors

Karim Bschir , Universität St Gallen, Switzerland
Karim Bschir is a Lecturer at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland. His research focuses on topics in the general philosophy of science and the history of philosophy of science. He has written on the relationship of Feyerabend's pluralism to Popper's critical rationalism.
Jamie Shaw , University of Western Ontario
Jamie Shaw is SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. He has written numerous papers on Feyerabend's thought and its place in twentieth-century philosophy of science, and on the relevance of his pluralism to contemporary debates on climate change and the freedom of science.

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