Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction versus the Richness of Being

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Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction versus the Richness of Being

by Paul Karl Feyerabend, Bert Terpstra (Editor)

4.09 of 5 stars 4.09 · rating details · 34 ratings · 2 reviews

From flea bites to galaxies, from love affairs to shadows, Paul Feyerabend reveled in the sensory and intellectual abundance that surrounds us. He found it equally striking that human senses and human intelligence are able to take in only a fraction of these riches. "This a blessing, not a drawback," he writes. "A superconscious organism would not be superwise, it would be...more

Paperback, 303 pages

Published May 1st 2001 by University Of Chicago Press (first published 1999)

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Jul 18, 2008 Rob rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction-for-egghead-spacealiens, non-fiction-for-humans

this book is filled with 4-star ideas, and several times i could feel him stretching out and almost touching a 5-star epiphany. so close. unfortunately, Feyerabend died while writing it, leaving a half-finished manuscript, and no clear instructions what to do with it. his wife let one of his admirers cobble together this book in two parts. the first part is the unfinished manuscript, and the second is twelve previously published short essays on themes introduced in part one. but the result is th...more this book is filled with 4-star ideas, and several times i could feel him stretching out and almost touching a 5-star epiphany. so close. unfortunately, Feyerabend died while writing it, leaving a half-finished manuscript, and no clear instructions what to do with it. his wife let one of his admirers cobble together this book in two parts. the first part is the unfinished manuscript, and the second is twelve previously published short essays on themes introduced in part one. but the result is that the book is extremely repetitive, with certain quotes from aristotle and einstein repeated 5 or 6 times, and whole paragraphs and pages repeated verbatim. hence my 3-star rating.

anyway, the basic idea is to expose the myth that there is this monolith called "science" which has proved itself every time in its quest to encapsulate all of reality in a few universal, exact, mathematical laws.

first of all, he argues, there is not one universally accepted "scientific method". some scientists start from data and try to find laws which fit patterns they find (e.g. kepler). others start from abstract principles and deduce the conequences, in spite of the fact that experience seems to contradict the resulting law (e.g. einstein). sometimes these speculations turn out to be supported by new data. usually they are tossed on the scrap heap.

second of all, there is this belief among scientists that the "scientific method" is value-free and "objective", and thus is the only reliable way to find the Truth, which surely exists independently of history and ethics. but this way of thinking shows a profound blindness to the UNPROVEN ASSUMPTIONS upon which this philosophy is based. how does one prove the objective truth of the statement, "the scientific method is the only way to establish the objective truth"? by use of the scientific method? haha! how does one ignore the implict values, norms, and politics contained in the statement, "it is very important for all good scientists to strive to find universal laws, and never to be distracted by politics, personal values, or subjective thinking"?

making a definition of knowledge requires knowledge. theories about theorizing are self-referential. the criticism determines what is being criticized. there is a relationship between a platonic argument and the thing it proves.

the reason the scientific method succeeds again and again is not because it is universally successful, but because it is only used on problems where it can succeed. it follows the path of least resistance, and ignores the difficult problems, such as psychology, politics, and basically every aspect of actual human experience.

the claim is not that science is bad, but simply that its practitioners refuse, like adherents in so many other universal faiths, to concede that it has any limitations, even in the face of numerous glaring problems.

usually, when i stumble upon an interesting thinker/writer (often while wikipediaing) and decide to try one of his books, i choose the latest one, since i figure it will be the most up-to-date and modern. well, this one taught me never to start with posthumously-published half-written ones. duh. i will read more Feyerabend, but this book is not the place to start. good ideas, bad editing.(less)

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Jun 20, 2012 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone, especially philosophers, artists, scientists

Shelves: philosophy, science-studies, science-and-values, likely-reread

Re-reading for a paper I'm writing. I'm sure I'll have more to say along the way.

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This is Feyerabend's unfinished manuscript published posthumously, along with a collection of later published papers on the theme of the manuscript. Covers greek mythology, philosophy, and medicine, renaissance art, quantum physics, and "Reality." Really interesting read, engaging, demonstrates the sheer breadth and subtlety of Feyerabend's scholarship.

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About Paul Karl Feyerabend

Paul Karl Feyerabend was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades (1958–1989).

His life was a peripatetic one, as he lived at various times in England, the United States, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, and finally Switzerland. His major works include Against Method (publis...more

More about Paul Karl Feyerabend...

Books by Paul Karl Feyerabend

Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge

Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend

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