KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA31 (vanFraassen / Feyerabend)

Commentary 12 (on C3 to TA31, and on TA57)

ON PK FEYERABEND
by John McCaffrey
28 August 2003, 9 September 2003

<1>
Your papers are truly complex (though thankfully intelligible), and nigh on impossible to refute ! (Of course, I now expect, nay DEMAND, somebody out there to prove me wrong in this somewhat rash statement .... please)

<2>
I have a lot of sympathy for 'radical constructivism' but still have this niggling feeling that it is, in some way, unsatisfactory. Its sheer consistency and in-built unassailability (vis-a-vis the way in which it views itself as purely instrumental) are remarkable but leave me cold. I certainly wouldn't want to adopt it as 'my' philosophy (except, perhaps in arguments that I particularly wanted to 'win').

<3>
The works of Maturana and Varela introduced me to RC - type reasoning (though it has recently become apparent to me that theirs is a particular branch of this kind of thought .... and one which seems more open to criticism than that proffered by Dr. Muller) and, frankly, I found that their claims were wholly 'reasonable' to me. However, seeing as this is the Feyerabend Forum it seems that such 'reasonableness' ought to come under fire from a different kind of angle rather than tackling it on its own terms. I'll let a quote from the intro to the 2nd edition of 'Farewell To Reason' to do this for me .... Feyerabend, discussing persistence in the retaining of a particular 'objectivity' by a group who comes up against alternative notions of what constitutes 'the objective', states that 'persistence' is the approach characterised by the view that,

<4>
"our ways are right and we are not going to change them. Peaceful cultures tried to avoid change by avoiding contact [...] More belligerent nations used war and murder to eradicate what did not fit their vision of the Good [...]

<5>
Persistence also characterises more recent developments in the (physical and social) sciences which are holistic, emphasize historical processes instead of universal laws and let 'reality' arise from an (often indivisible) interaction between observer and the things observed. For the authors who encourage the trend (Bohm, Jantsch, Maturana, Prigogine, Varela, the proponents of an 'evolutionary epistemology' and others) defuse cultural variety by showing that and how it fits into their scheme. Instead of providing guidance for personal and social choices they withdraw into their theoretical edifices and explain from there why things were as they were, are as they are and will be as they will be. This is the old objectivism all over again, only wrapped in revolutionary and pseudo-humanitarian language." (p. 5- 6, Farewell To Reason)

<6>
Feyerabend also (on p. 9 of the same) points out the delicious irony that views such as those put forward by Maturana and Varela,

"undermined universal principles of [scientific] research in a [...] direct way. Who would have thought that the boundary between subject and object would be questioned as part of a scientific argument and that science would be advanced thereby ? Yet this was, precisely what happened in the quantum theory [and] in physiological studies such as those of Maturana and Varela".

<7>
Disregarding the second quote here (for the time being) I would like to ask about the views concerning morality that are engendered by adopting the RC perspective. The 'theoretical edifice' is all well and good, but as far as living our lives goes, what does the RC position offer in terms of solace, ethical guidance, or, indeed, humanity ? I am aware that Varela had attempted to extrapolate a system of 'ethical know how' (see the book of the same name) from his observations of an RC nature ... and, I must say, I found it a pleasure to read.

<8>
I here feel inclined to mention (as does Varela) that Buddhism deserves a good look at in regards to these issues. Not the kind of Buddhism which finds itself discussed in the anthropologically / sociologically inclined Religious Studies departments (that are today in the ascendant, and the approach of which is exemplified by the writings of Donald S. Lopez and Ian Reader amongst others), but the kind which one finds in the more philosophically inclined R.S. depts. (that tend towards the 'heretical' removing of 'ideas' from the context in which they arose).

<9>
Hmmm ... I feel like I've not said in the foregoing what I wanted to say. However, there seems to be a lot of words there so I hope someone will object to a few of them, or attempt to answer some of the questions raised (if, indeed, there are any deemed important enough to warrant an answer).

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John McCaffrey