Why did Feyerabend Defend Astrology? Integrity, Virtue, and the Authority of Science
Social Epistemology 30 (4):464-482 (2016)
Abstract
This paper explores the relationship between epistemic integrity, virtue, and authority by offering a virtue epistemological reading of the defences of non-scientific beliefs, practices, and traditions in the writings of Paul Feyerabend. I argue that there was a robust epistemic rationale for those defences and that it can inform contemporary reflection on the epistemic authority of the sciences. Two common explanations of the purpose of those defences are rejected as lacking textual support. A third “pluralist” reading is judged more persuasive, but found to be incomplete, owing to a failure to accommodate Feyerabend’s focus upon the integrity of scientists and the authority of science. I therefore suggest that the defences are more fully understood as defences of the epistemic integrity of scientists that take the form of critical exposures of failures by scientists to act with integrity. An appeal is made to contemporary virtue epistemology that clarifies Feyerabend’s implicit association of epistemic...Author's Profile
DOI
10.1080/02691728.2015.1031851
My notes
Similar books and articles
Was Sir William Crookes epistemically virtuous?Ian James Kidd - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 48:67-74.
‘“What’s So Great About Science?” Feyerabend on the Ideological Use and Abuse of Science.Ian James Kidd - 2016 - In Elena Aronova & Simone Turchetti (eds.), Science Studies during the Cold War and Beyond. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 55-76.
The Epistemic Integrity of Scientific Research.Jan De Winter & Laszlo Kosolosky - 2013 - Science and Engineering Ethics 19 (3):757-774.
The Epistemic Integrity of Scientific Research.Jan Winter & Laszlo Kosolosky - 2013 - Science and Engineering Ethics 19 (3):757-774.
Could Integrity Be An Epistemic Virtue?Greg Scherkoske - 2012 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 20 (2):185-215.
Whither Integrity I: Recent Faces of Integrity1.Greg Scherkoske - 2013 - Philosophy Compass 8 (1):28-39.
Feyerabend, Pseudo-Dionysius, and the Ineffability of Reality.Ian Kidd - 2012 - Philosophia 40 (2):365-377.
The abundant world: Paul Feyerabend's metaphysics of science.Matthew J. Brown - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 57:142-154.
A Critique of Integrity: Has a Commander a Moral Obligation to Uphold his Own Principles?Peter Olsthoorn - 2009 - Journal of Military Ethics 8 (2):90-104.
Integrity and the Virtues of Reason: Leading a Convincing Life.Greg Scherkoske - 2013 - Cambridge University Press.
Integrity and the Emotions.Jane Ellen Reid - 1998 - Dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Analytics
Added to PP
2015-10-31
Downloads
97 (#129,275)
6 months
7 (#117,875)
2015-10-31
Downloads
97 (#129,275)
6 months
7 (#117,875)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
Notes on a complicated relationship: scientific pluralism, epistemic relativism, and stances.Sophie Juliane Veigl - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):3485-3503.
Was Feyerabend a Postmodernist?Ian James Kidd - 2016 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 30 (1):55-68.
Pandemics, policy, and pluralism: A Feyerabend-inspired perspective on COVID-19.Karim Bschir & Simon Lohse - 2022 - Synthese 200 (6):1-26.
A Pluralism Worth Having: Feyerabend's Well-Ordered Science.Jamie Shaw - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Western Ontario
References found in this work
Is Water H2O? Evidence, Realism and Pluralism.Hasok Chang - 2012 - Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science.