“Facts” come from negotiations between different parties and the final product - the published report - is influenced by physical events, dataprocessors, compromises, exhaustion, lack of money, national pride and so on.

Only twenty years ago the idea that the mind affects physical well- being, though supported by experience, was rather unpopular - today it is mainstream.

An increased liberalism in the definition of “fact” can have grave repercussions,[

while the idea that truth is concealed and even perverted bi the processes that are meant to establish it makes excellent sense.[

I am neither a populist

nor a relativist

non- experts often know more than experts and should therefore be consulted and that prophets of truth (including those who use arguments) more often than not are carried along by a vision that clashes with the very events the vision is supposed to be exploring.

the imposition of “rational” or “scientific” procedures, though occasionally beneficial (removal of some parasites and infectious diseases), can lead to serious material and spiritual problems.

I prefer more paradoxical formulations, however, for nothing dulls the mind as thoroughly as hearing familiar words and slogans.

the events, procedures and results that constitute the sciences have no common structure;

procedures that paid off in the past may create havoc when imposed on the future.

the moves that advance it and the standards that define what counts as an advance are not always known to the movers.

given any rule, or any general statement about the sciences, there always exist developments which are praised by those who support the rule but which show that the rule does more damage than good.

All we can do is to give a historical account of the details, including social circumstances, accidents and personal idiosyncrasies.

the success of “science” cannot be used as an argument for treating as yet unsolved problems in a standardized way.

“non- scientific” procedures cannot be pushed aside by argument.

science is always successful”) is not true,

successes are due to uniform procedures - is not true

judged only after the event,

the public can participate in the discussion without disturbing existing roads to success (there are no such roads).

such participation is the best scientific education the public can get - a full democratization of science

“Rationalism”, that uses a frozen image of science to terrorize people unfamiliar with its practice.

there can be many different kinds of science.

Western science now reigns supreme all over the globe; however, the reason was not insight in its “inherent rationality” but power play

Western science so far has created the most efficient instruments of death.

The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes.

Proliferation of theories is beneficial for science, while uniformity impairs its critical power.

There is no idea, however ancient and absurd, that is not capable of improving our knowledge.

The new natural interpretations constitute a new and highly abstract observation language.

The first telescopic observations of the sky are indistinct, indeterminate, contradictory and in conflict with what everyone can see with his unaided eyes.

Copernicanism and other essential ingredients of modern science survived only because reason was frequently overruled in their past.

Science is neither a single tradition, nor the best tradition there is, except for people who have become accustomed to its presence, its benefits and its disadvantages.

History is full of “accidents and conjunctures and curious juxtapositions of events”[ 28] and it demonstrates to us the “complexity of human change and the unpredictable character of the ultimate consequences of any given act or decision of men”.[

the revolutionary class [i.e. the class of those who want to change either a part of society such as science, or society as a whole] must be able to master all forms or aspects of social activity without exception [it must be able to understand, and to apply, not only one particular methodology, but any methodology, and any variation thereof it can imagine]…;

history of science will be as complex, chaotic, full of mistakes, and entertaining as the ideas it contains, and these ideas in tum will be as complex, chaotic, full of mistakes, and entertaining as are the minds of those who invented them.

simplifies “science” by simplifying its participants:

His imagination is restrained, and even his language ceases to be his own.

The attempt to increase liberty, to lead a full and rewarding life, and the corresponding attempt to discover the secrets of nature and of man, entails, therefore, the rejection of all universal standards and of all rigid traditions.

there is not a single rule, however plausible, and however firmly grounded in epistemology, that is not violated at some time or other.

catastrophic changes in the physical environment, wars, the breakdown of encompassing systems of morality, political revolutions, will transform adult reaction patterns as well, including important patterns of argumentation.

Creation of a thing, and creation plus full understanding of a correct idea of the thing, are very often parts of one and the same indivisible process and cannot be separated without bringing the process to a stop.

The passion gives rise to specific behaviour which in tum creates the circumstances and the ideas necessary for analysing and explaining the process, for making it “rational”.

let us consider the rule that it is “experience”, or the “facts”, or “experimental results” which measure the success of our theories, that agreement between a theory and the “data” favours the theory (or leaves the situation unchanged) while disagreement endangers it, and perhaps even forces us to eliminate it. This rule is an important part of all theories of confirmation and corroboration. It is the essence of empiricism.

The counterinductive procedure gives rise to the following questions: Is counterinduction more reasonable than induction? Are there circumstances favouring its use?

the evidence that might refute a theory can often be unearthed only with the help of an incompatible alternative:

some of the most important formal properties of a theory are found by contrast, and not by analysis.

adopt a pluralistic methodology.

try to improve rather than discard the views that have failed in the competition.

an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible alternatives,

each single theory, each fairy- tale, each myth that is part of the collection forcing the others into greater articulation and all of them contributing, via this process of competition, to the development of our consciousness.

no view can ever be omitted from a comprehensive account.

the history of a science becomes an inseparable part of the science itself

make the weaker case the stronger”

to sustain the motion of the whole.

there is not a single interesting theory that agrees with all the known facts in its domain.

Usually, we are not even aware of them and we recognize their effects only when we encounter an entirely different cosmology: prejudices are found by contrast, not by analysis.

How can we analyse the terms in which we habitually express our most simple and straightforward observations, and reveal their presuppositions?

we cannot discover it from the inside.

we need a set of alternative assumptions

we need a dream- world in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit

all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.

The consistency condition which demands that new hypotheses agree with accepted theories is unreasonable because it preserves the older theory, and not the better theory.

the invention and articulation of alternatives may have to precede the production of refuting facts.

When a new view is proposed it faces a hostile audience and excellent reasons are needed to gain for it an even moderately fair hearing. The reasons are produced, but they are often disregarded or laughed out of court, and unhappiness is the fate of the bold inventors. But new generations, being interested in new things, become curious; they consider the reasons, pursue them further and groups of researchers initiate detailed studies. The studies may lead to surprising successes (they also raise lots of difficulties).

The theory becomes acceptable as a topic for discussion; it is presented at meetings and large conferences.

The diehards of the status quo feel an obligation to study one paper or another, to make a few grumbling comments, and perhaps to join in its exploration.

There comes then a moment when the theory is no longer an esoteric discussion topic for advanced seminars and conferences, but enters the public domain. There are introductory texts, popularizations; examination questions start dealing with problems to be solved in its terms. Scientists from distant fields and philosophers, trying to show off, drop a hint here and there, and this often quite uninformed desire to be on the right side is taken as a further sign of the importance of the theory.

Alternatives are still employed but they no longer contain realistic counter- proposals; they only serve as a background for the splendour of the new theory.

any view and any practice that has been around for some time has achievements.

whose achievements are better or more important and this question cannot be answered for there are no realistic alternatives to provide a point of comparison.

Pre- science, according to him, is pluralistic throughout and therefore in danger of concentrating on opinions rather than on things

Debates and reasoning, he writes, are features belonging to periods of transition, when old notions and feelings have been unsettled and no new doctrines have yet succeeded to their ascendancy.

people of any mental activity, having given up their old beliefs, and not feeling quite sure that those they still retain can stand unmodified listen eagerly to new opinions.

some particular body of doctrine in time rallies the majority round it, organizes social institutions and modes of action conformably to itself, education impresses this new creed upon the new generation without the mental processes that have led to it and by degrees it acquires the very same power of compression, so long exercised by the creeds of which it had taken place.[

Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge.

(To the extent to which the consistency condition delimits variety, it contains a theological element which lies, of course, in the worship of “facts” so characteristic of nearly all empiricism.[

A scientist who is interested in maximal empirical content, and who wants to understand as many aspects of his theory as possible, will adopt a pluralistic methodology, he will compare theories with other theories rather than with “experience”, “data”, or “facts”, and he will try to improve rather than discard the views that appear to lose in the competition.[

Theories are abandoned and superseded by more fashionable accounts long before they have had an opportunity to show their virtues.

ancient doctrines and 'primitive' myths appear strange and nonsensical only because the information they contain is either not known, or is distorted by philologists or anthropologists unfamiliar with the simplest physical, medical or astronomical knowledge.[

a great country with great traditions is subjected to Western domination and is exploited in the customary way. A new generation recognizes or thinks it recognizes the material and intellectual superiority of the West and traces it back to science. Science is imported, taught, and pushes aside all traditional elements. Scientific chauvinism triumphs: “What is compatible with science should live, what is not compatible with science, should die”.[

“Science” in this context means not just a specific method, but all the results the method has so far produced. Things incompatible with the results must be eliminated. Old style doctors, for example, must either be removed from medical practice, or they must be re- educated.

Herbal medicine, acupuncture, moxibustion and the underlying philosophy are a thing of the past, no longer to be taken seriously.

It often happens that parts of science become hardened and intolerant so that proliferation must be enforced from the outside, and by political means.

Now this politically enforced dualism has led to most interesting and puzzling discoveries both in China and in the West and to the realization that there are effects and means of diagnosis which modern medicine cannot repeat and for which it has no explanation.

It revealed sizeable lacunae in Western medicine.

neglects the possibility that the herb, taken in its entirety, changes the state of the whole organism and that it is this new state of the whole organism rather than a specific part of the herbal concoction, a “magic bullet”, as it were, that cures the diseased organ.

It is possible to retain what one might call the freedom of artistic creation and to use it to the full, not just as a road of escape but as a necessary means for discovering and perhaps even changing the features of the world we live in.

Facts are constituted by older ideologies, and a clash between facts and theories may be proof of progress.

no single theory ever agrees with all the known facts in its domain.

a theory makes a certain numerical prediction and the value that is actually obtained differs from the prediction made by more than the margin of error.

They give rise to an “ocean of anomalies” that surrounds every single theory.[

a theory is inconsistent not with a recondite fact, that can be unearthed with the help of complex equipment and is known to experts only, but with circumstances which are easily noticed and which are familiar to everyone.

Today the unity sought is a theory rich enough to produce all the accepted facts and laws;

at the time of Parmenides the unity sought was a substance.

Parmenides gave what seems to be an obvious and rather trivial answer: the substance that underlies everything that is is Being.

Parmenides knew of course that people, himself included, perceive and accept change and difference; but as his argument had shown that the perceived processes could not be fundamental he had to regard them as merely apparent, or deceptive.

“renormalization”. This procedure consists in crossing out the results of certain calculations and replacing them by a description of what is actually observed. Thus one admits, implicitly, that the theory is in trouble while formulating it in a manner suggesting that a new principle has been discovered.[

the conflict between simple and generally known facts and current theoretical ideas was recognized only slowly”.[

Occasionally it is impossible to survey all the interesting consequences, and thus to discover the absurd results of a theory. This may be due to a deficiency in the existing mathematical methods; it may also be due to the ignorance of those who defend the theory.

the most common procedure is to use an older theory up to a certain point (which is often quite arbitrary) and to add the new theory for calculating refinements.

theories fail adequately to reproduce certain quantitative results, and that they are qualitatively incompetent to a surprising degree.

In practice they are never obeyed by anyone.

Methodologists may point to the importance of falsifications - but they blithely use falsified theories, they may sermonize how important it is to consider all the relevant evidence, and never mention those big and drastic facts which show that the theories they admire and accept may be as badly off as the older theories which they reject.

The demand to admit only those theories which are consistent with the available and accepted facts again leaves us without any theory.

Methodological rules speak of “theories”, “observations” and “experimental results” as if these were well- defined objects whose properties are easy to evaluate and which are understood in the same way by all scientists.

observation languages may become tied to older layers of speculation which affect, in this roundabout fashion, even the most progressive methodology.

The sensory impression, however simple, contains a component that expresses the physiological reaction of the perceiving organism and has no objective correlate.

a theory may be inconsistent with the evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated.

It is this historico- physiological character of the evidence, the fact that it does not merely describe some objective state of affairs but also expresses subjective, mythical, and long- forgotten views concerning this state of affairs, that forces us to take a fresh look at methodology.

it would be extremely imprudent to let the evidence judge our theories directly

create a measure of criticism, something with which these concepts can be compared. Of course, we shall later want to know a little more about the measuring- stick itself;

invent a new conceptual system, for example a new theory, that clashes with the most carefully established observational results and confounds the most plausible theoretical principles, or to import such a system from outside science, from religion, from mythology, from the ideas of incompetents,[

or the ramblings of madmen.

From our very early days we learn to react to situations with the appropriate responses, linguistic or otherwise. The teaching procedures both shape the “appearance”, or “phenomenon”, and establish a firm connection with words, so that finally the phenomena seem to speak for themselves without outside help or extraneous knowledge.

The language they “speak” is, of course, influenced by the beliefs of earlier generations which have been held for so long that they no longer appear as separate principles, but enter the terms of everyday discourse, and, after the prescribed training, seem to emerge from the things themselves.

Galileo is one of those rare thinkers who wants neither forever to retain natural interpretations nor altogether to eliminate them.

He insists upon a critical discussion to decide which natural interpretations can be kept and which must be replaced.

Eliminate all natural interpretations, and you also eliminate the ability to think and to perceive.

a person who faces a perceptual field without a single natural interpretation at his disposal would be completely disoriented, he could not even start the business of science.

The fact that we do start, even after some Baconian analysis, therefore shows that the analysis has stopped prematurely. It has stopped at precisely those natural interpretations of which we are not aware and without which we cannot proceed.

the content of a concept is determined also by the way in which it is related to perception.

how can this way be discovered without circularity? Perceptions must be identified, and the identifying mechanism will contain some of the very same elements which govern the use of the concept to be investigated. We never penetrate this concept completely, for we always use part of it in the attempt to find its constituents.

using an external measure of comparison, including new ways of relating concepts and percepts.

such an external measure will look strange indeed.

the best procedure, therefore, is not to abandon the theory but to use it to discover the hidden principles responsible for the contradiction.

we must not criticize an idiom that is supposed to function as an observation language because it is not yet well known and is, therefore, less strongly connected with our sensory reactions and less plausible than is another, more “common” idiom.

The new natural interpretations constitute a new and highly abstract observation language. They are introduced and concealed so that one fails to notice the change that has taken place (method of anamnesis).

Galileo uses propaganda. He uses psychological tricks in addition to whatever intellectual reasons he has to offer.

they obscure the new attitude towards experience that is in the making, and postpone for centuries the possibility of a reasonable philosophy.

is nothing but the result of his own fertile imagination, that it has been invented.

Galileo wants to persuade us that no change has taken place, that the second conceptual system is already universally known, even though it is not universally used.

we have the impression that this readiness was in us all the time, although it took some effort to make it conscious.

it is the result of Galileo’s propagandistic machinations.

a change of our conceptual system.

An empiricist who starts from experience, and builds on it without ever looking back, now loses the very ground on which he stands.

Neither the earth, “the solid, well- established earth”, nor the facts on which he usually relies can be trusted any longer.

Classical physics intuitively adopts such principles; at least its great and independent thinkers, such as Newton, Faraday, Boltzmann proceed in this way.

But its official doctrine still clings to the idea of a stable and unchanging basis.

a tendentious presentation of the results of research that hides their revolutionary origin and suggests that they arose from a stable and unchanging source.

Galileo invents an experience that has metaphysical ingredients.

propaganda and appeal to distant, and highly theoretical, parts of common sense are used to defuse old habits and to enthrone new ones.

The telescope is a “superior and better sense” that gives new and more reliable evidence for judging astronomical matters. How is this hypothesis examined, and what arguments are presented in its favour?

The first telescopic observations of the sky are indistinct, indeterminate, contradictory and in conflict with what everyone can see with his unaided eyes.

the only theory that could have helped to separate telescopic illusions from veridical phenomena was refuted by simple tests.

I do not at all regard it as impossible that a single person may see what thousands are unable to see.

senses applied under abnormal conditions are liable to give an abnormal response.

the practice of telescopic observation and acquaintance with the new telescopic reports changed not only what was seen through the telescope, but also what was seen with the naked eye.

the occasional disregard for the stability of the face was due not to a lack of clear impressions, but to some widely held views about the unreliability of the senses.

It is this harmony rather than any deep understanding of cosmology and of optics which for Galileo proves Copernicus and the veracity of the telescope in terrestrial as well as celestial matters.

the “unknowns” were not so much unknown as known to be false,

while the pre- Copernican astronomy was in trouble (was confronted by a series of refuting instances and implausibilities), the Copernican theory was in even greater trouble (was confronted by even more drastic refuting instances and implausibilities); but that being in harmony with still further inadequate theories it gained strength, and was retained, the refutations being made ineffective by ad hoc hypotheses and clever techniques of persuasion.

Statements are compared with each other without regard to their history and without considering that they might belong to different historical strata.

almost everyone takes it for granted that precise observations, clear principles and well- confirmed theories are already decisive; that they can and must be used here and now to either eliminate the suggested hypothesis, or to make it acceptable, or perhaps even to prove it.

timeless entities which share the same degree of perfection, are all equally accessible, and are related to each other in a way that is independent of the events that produced them.

science deals with propositions and not with statements or sentences.

the procedure overlooks that science is a complex and heterogeneous historical process which contains vague and incoherent anticipations of future ideologies side by side with highly sophisticated theoretical systems and ancient and petrified forms of thought.

Some of its elements are available in the form of neatly written statements while others are submerged and become known only by contrast, by comparison with new and unusual views.

In our examination of new hypotheses we must obviously take the historical situation into account.

A theory of perception of this kind (which one might regard as a sophisticated version of naive realism) does not permit any major discrepancy between observations and the things observed.

Nor does the theory encourage the use of instruments, for they interfere with the processes in the medium. These processes carry a true picture only as long as they are left undisturbed.

Aristotle is an empiricist.

Aristotle explains the nature of experience and why it is important.

Experience is important for knowledge because, given normal circumstances, the perceptions of the observer contain identically the same forms that reside in the object.

sensations obey the same physical laws as does the rest of the universe.

no decisive empirical argument could be raised against it

This harmony between human perception and the Aristotelian cosmology is regarded as illusory by the supporters of the motion of the earth.

there exist large- scale processes which involve vast cosmic masses and yet leave no trace in our experience.

the observer is indeed separated from the laws of the world by the special physical conditions of his observation platform, the moving earth (gravitational effects; law of inertia; Coriolis forces; influence of the atmosphere upon optical observations; aberration; stellar parallax; and so on…), by the idiosyncrasies of his basic instrument of observation, the human eye (irradiation; after- images; mutual inhibition of adjacent retinal elements; and so on…) as well as by older views which have invaded the observation language and made it speak the language of naive realism (natural interpretations).

non- Aristotelian cosmologies can be tested only after we have separated observations and laws with the help of auxiliary sciences describing the complex processes that occur between the eye and the object, and the even more complex processes between the cornea and the brain.

subdivide what we perceive to find a core that mirrors the stimulus and nothing else.

Observations become relevant only after the processes described by these new subjects have been inserted between the world and the eye.

it is only after these sciences have arrived that a test can be said to make sense.

This need to wait, and to ignore large masses of critical observations and measurements, is hardly ever discussed in our methodologies.

the old and the new are different and out of phase. It does not show which view is the better one.

we must retain the new cosmology until it has been supplemented by the necessary auxiliary sciences.

the new view is arbitrarily separated from data that supported its predecessor and is made more “metaphysical”: a new period in the history of science commences with a backward movement that returns us to an earlier stage where theories were more vague and had smaller empirical content.

it is essential if we want to overtake the status quo, for it gives us the time and the freedom that are needed for developing the main view in detail, and for finding the necessary auxiliary sciences.[

It will have to be brought about by irrational means such as propaganda, emotion, ad hoc hypotheses, and appeal to prejudices of all kinds.

a blind faith until we have found the auxiliary sciences, the facts, the arguments that turn the faith into sound “knowledge”.

The ideas survived and they now are said to be in agreement with reason.

it is advisable to let one’s inclinations go against reason in any circumstances, for it makes life less constrained and science may profit from it.

our chances to progress may be obstructed by our desire to be rational.

Once it has been realized that a close empirical fit is no virtue and that it must be relaxed in times of change, then style, elegance of expression, simplicity of presentation, tension of plot and narrative, and seductiveness of content become important features of our knowledge.

interest must be created at a time when the usual methodological prescriptions have no point of attack; and because this interest must be maintained, perhaps for centuries, until new reasons arrive.

Today most researchers gain a reputation, a salary and a pension by being associated with a university and/ or a research laboratory. This involves certain conditions such as an ability to work in teams, a willingness to subordinate one’s ideas to those of a team leader, a harmony between one’s ways of doing science and those of the rest of the profession, a certain style, a way of presenting the evidence - and so on.

In Galileo’s time patronage played a similar role.

Galileo’s method works in other fields as well. For example, it can be used to eliminate the existing arguments against materialism and to put an end to the philosophical mind/ body problem.

(The corresponding scientific problems remain untouched, however.) It does not follow that it should be universally applied.

changing familiar connections between words and words (he introduced new concepts), words and impressions (he introduced new natural interpretations), by using new and unfamiliar principles such as his law of inertia and his principle of universal relativity, and by altering the sensory core of his observation statements.

neither the rules, nor the principles, nor even the facts are sacrosanct.

We may therefore change them, create new facts and new grammatical rules, and see what happens once these rules are available and have become familiar.

Such an attempt may take considerable time, and in a sense the Galilean venture is not finished even today.

But concepts have not only a logical content; they also have associations, they give rise to emotions, they are connected with images. These associations, emotions and images are essential for the way in which we relate to our fellow human beings.

The inquisitorial process removed safeguards provided by Roman law and led to some well- publicized excesses.

the excesses of royal or secular courts often matched those of the Inquisition.

It was a harsh and cruel age.[

By 1600 the Inquisition had lost much of its power and aggressiveness.

they were supposed to exterminate heresy, i. e. complexes consisting of actions, assumptions and talk making people inclined towards certain beliefs.

The trial of Galileo was one of many trials. It had no special features except perhaps that Galileo was treated rather mildly, despite his lies and attempts at deception.[

The Inquisition started to examine the matter. Experts (qualificatores) were ordered to give an opinion about two statements which contained a more or less correct account of the Copernican doctrine.[

what would today be called the scientific content of the doctrine and its ethical (social) implications.

On the first point the experts declared the doctrine to be “foolish and absurd in philosophy” or, to use modern terms, they declared it to be unscientific.

based exclusively on the scientific situation of the time.

On the second point, the social (ethical) implications, the experts declared the Copernican doctrine to be “formally heretical”.

This means it contradicted Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Church, and it did so in full awareness of the situation, not inadvertently (that would be “material” heresy).

Scripture is an important boundary condition of human existence and, therefore, of research.

According to Newton knowledge flows from two sources - the word of God - the Bible - and the works of God - Nature; and he postulated divine interventions in the planetary system, as we have seen.[

The Roman Church in addition claimed to possess the exclusive rights of exploring, interpreting and applying Holy Scripture.

First, it is assumed that the quality of life can be defined independently of science, that it may clash with demands which scientists regard as natural ingredients of their activity, and that science must be changed accordingly.

Secondly, it is assumed that Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Roman Church adumbrates a correct account of a well- rounded and sanctified life.

Scientific results and the scientific ethos (if there is such a thing) are simply too thin a foundation for a life worth living.

A truth supported by scientific reasoning was not pushed aside. It was used to revise the interpretation of Bible passages apparently inconsistent with it. There are many Bible passages which seem to suggest a flat earth. Yet Church doctrine accepted the spherical earth as a matter of course. On the other hand the Church was not ready to change just because somebody had produced some vague guesses.

It wanted proof— scientific proof in scientific matters.

Galileo was advised to teach Copernicus as a hypothesis; he was forbidden to teach it as a truth.

there are now many scientists, especially in high energy physics, who view all theories as instruments of prediction and reject truth- talk as being metaphysical and speculative.

Discovery may be irrational and need not follow any recognized method. Justification, on the other hand, or - to use the Holy Word of a different school - criticism, starts only after the discoveries have been made, and it proceeds in an orderly way.

Inventing theories and contemplating them in a relaxed and “artistic” fashion, scientists often make moves that are forbidden by methodological rules.

replacing the mixture by an order that contains discovery on one side and justification on the other would have ruined science:

How can this fact be reconciled with the expectation and with the principles that underlie the expectation? Does it show that the expectation is mistaken? Or have we failed in our analysis of the facts? This is the problem.

To sum up this part of the Popperian doctrine: research starts with a problem. The problem is the result of a conflict between an expectation and an observation which is constituted by the expectation.

Having formulated a problem, one tries to solve it. Solving a problem means inventing a theory that is relevant, falsifiable (to a degree larger than any alternative), but not yet falsified.

Is it desirable to live in accordance with the rules of a critical rationalism?

Is it possible to have both a science as we know it and these rules?

Critical rationalism arose from the attempt to understand the Einsteinian revolution, and it was then extended to politics and even to the conduct of one’s private life.

“Is it not possible,” asks Kierkegaard, “that my activity as an objective [or a critico- rational] observer of nature will weaken my strength as a human being?”[

I believe that a reform of the sciences that makes them more anarchic and more subjective (in Kierkegaard’s sense) is urgently needed.

wherever we look, whatever examples we consider, we see that the principles of critical rationalism (take falsifications seriously; increase content; avoid ad hoc hypotheses; “be honest” - whatever that means; and so on) and, a fortiori, the principles of logical empiricism (be precise; base your theories on measurements; avoid vague and untestable ideas; and so on), though practised in special areas, give an inadequate account of the past development of science as a whole and are liable to hinder it in the future.

“Anything goes” does not mean that I shall read every single paper that has been written

I make my selection in a highly individual and idiosyncratic way,

partly because I can’t be bothered to read what doesn’t interest me - and my interests change from week to week and day to day - partly because I am convinced that humanity and even Science will profit from everyone doing his own thing:

Science needs people who are adaptable and inventive, not rigid imitators of “established” behavioural patterns.

Special problems arise with foundations that distribute money and want to do this in a just and reasonable way.

Justice seems to demand that the allocation of funds be carried out on the basis of standards which do not change from one applicant to the next and which reflect the intellectual situation in the fields to be supported.

The demand can be satisfied in an ad hoc manner without appeal to universal “standards of rationality”: any free association of people must respect the illusions of its members and must give them institutional support.

each organization, each party, each religious group has a right to defend its particular form of life and all the standards it contains. But scientists go much further. Like the defenders of The One True Religion before them they insinuate that their standards are essential for arriving at the Truth, or for getting Results and they deny such authority to the demands of the politician.

One must remember those cases where science, left to itself, committed grievous blunders and one must not for9et the instances when political interference did improve the situation.[

separation of state and science

Science is only one of the many instruments people invented to cope with their surroundings. It is not the only one, it is not infallible and it has become too powerful, too pushy, and too dangerous to be left on its own.

As far as I am concerned the first and the most pressing problem is to get education out of the hands of the “professional educators”.

The constraints of grades, competition, regular examination must be removed and we must also separate the process of learning from the preparation for a particular trade.

The standards taught need not be “rational” or “reasonable” in any sense, though they will be usually presented as such; it suffices that they are accepted by the groups one wants to join,

the special standards which define special subjects and special professions must not be allowed to permeate general education and they must not be made the defining property of a “well- educated person”.

I recommend to put science in its place as an interesting but by no means exclusive form of knowledge that has many advantages but also many drawbacks:

languages and the reaction patterns they involve are not merely instruments for describing events

but that they are also shapers of events

that their “grammar” contains a cosmology, a comprehensive view of the world, of society, of the situation of man[

which influences thought, behaviour, perception.[

If these resistances oppose not just the truth of the resisted alternatives but the presumption that an alternative has been presented, then we have an instance of incommensurability.

Given appropriate stimuli, but different systems of classification (different “mental sets”), our perceptual apparatus may produce perceptual objects which cannot be easily compared.[

mental sets may become frozen by illness, as a result of one's upbringing in a certain culture, or because of physiological determinants not in our control.

Should we welcome the fact, if it is a fact, that an adult is stuck with a stable perceptual world and an accompanying stable conceptual system, which he can modify in many ways but whose general outlines have forever become immobilized?

One must be able to produce and to grasp new perceptual and conceptual relations, including relations which are not immediately apparent (covert relations - see above) and that cannot be achieved by a critical discussion alone

It is much more interesting and instructive to examine what kinds of things can be said (represented) and what kinds of things cannot be said (represented) if the comparison has to take place within a certain specified and historically well- entrenched framework.

The need to show every essential part of a situation often leads to a separation of parts which are actually in contact. The picture becomes a list.

have knowledge because they are close to things - they do not have to rely on rumours— and because they know all the many things that are of interest to the writer, one after the other.

A great variety of words is used for expressing what we today regard as different forms of knowledge, or as different ways of acquiring knowledge.

the modes of representation used during the early archaic period in Greece are not just reflections of incompetence or of special artistic interests, they give a faithful account of what are felt, seen, thought to be fundamental features of the world of archaic man. This world is an open world. Its elements are not formed or held together by an “underlying substance”, they are not appearances from which this substance may be inferred with difficulty. They occasionally coalesce to form assemblages. The relation of a single element to the assemblage to which it belongs is like the relation of a part to an aggregate of parts and not like the relation of a part to an overpowering whole. The particular aggregate called “man” is visited, and occasionally inhabited by “mental events”. Such events may reside in him, they may also enter from the outside. Like every other object man is an exchange station of influences rather than a unique source of action, an “I”

we perceive things, not aspects.

Moving swiftly among complex objects we notice much less change than a perception of aspects would permit.

languages can be bent in many directions and that understanding does not depend on any particular set of rules.

the researcher must exercise firm control over his urge for instant clarity and logical perfection.

The researcher who is not too familiar with Nuer thought will find the concepts “unclear and insufficiently precise”. To improve matters he might try explicating them, using modem logical notions. That might create clear concepts, but they would no longer be Nuer concepts.

must keep his key notions vague and incomplete until the right information comes along,

We must approach science like an anthropologist approaches the mental contortions of the medicine- men of a newly discovered association of tribes.

we must be prepared for the discovery that these contortions are wildly illogical (when judged from the point of view of a particular system of formal logic) and have to be wildly illogical in order to function as they do.

the inventor of a new world- view (and the philosopher of science who tries to understand his procedure) must be able to talk nonsense until the amount of nonsense created by him and his friends is big enough to give sense to all its parts.

it has emerged that science is full of lacunae and contradictions, that ignorance, pigheadedness, reliance on prejudice, lying, far from impeding the forward march of knowledge may actually aid it and that the traditional virtues of precision, consistency, “honesty”, respect for facts, maximum knowledge under given circumstances, if practised with determination, may bring it to a standstill.

Situations which made sense when tied to a particular type of cognition now become isolated, unreasonable, apparently inconsistent with other situations: we have a “chaos of appearances”. The “chaos” is a direct consequence of the simplification of language that accompanies the belief in a True World.[

Moreover, all the manifold abilities of the observers are now directed towards this True World, they are adapted to a uniform aim, shaped for one particular purpose, they become more similar to each other which means that humans become impoverished together with their language. They become impoverished at precisely the moment they discover an autonomous “I” and proceed to what some have been pleased to call a “more advanced notion of God” (allegedly found in Xenophanes), which is a notion of God lacking the rich variety of typically human features.[

Separated from well- determined psychological sets and freed of their realistic import, concepts may now be used “hypothetically” without any odium of lying and the arts may begin exploring possible worlds in an imaginative way.[

Madness turns into sanity provided it is sufficiently rich and sufficiently regular to function as the basis of a new world- view.

the discussion will lead to sizeable changes of both views (and of the languages in which they are expressed).

different languages posit not just different ideas for the ordering of the same facts, but that they posit also different facts.

users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars towards different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent observers, but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world”.[

Science has adopted new linguistic formulations of the old facts, and now that we have become at home in the new dialect, certain traits of the old one are no longer binding on us”.[

Whorf and those who follow him regard language as the main and perhaps as the only “shaper of events”. That is much too narrow a point of view.

think that incommensurability turns up when we sharpen our concepts in the manner demanded by the logical positivists and their offspring and that it undermines their ideas on explanation, reduction and progress.

Incommensurability disappears when we use concepts as scientists use them, in an open, ambiguous and often counter- intuitive manner.

Incommensurability is a problem for philosophers not for scientists, though the latter may become psychologically confused by unusual things.

They can keep science; they can keep reason; they cannot keep both.

it is very difficult to see one’s own most cherished ideas in perspective, as parts of a changing and, perhaps, absurd tradition.

Hardly any religion has ever presented itself just as something worth trying. The claim is much stronger: the religion is the truth, everything else is error and those who know it, understand it but still reject it are rotten to the core (or hopeless idiots).

The first element - the belief that some demands are “objective” and tradition- independent - plays an important role in rationalism which is a secularized form of the belief in the power of the word of God.

(Much of the popularity of modern scientific medicine is due to the fact that sick people have nowhere else to go and that television, rumours, the technical circus of well equipped hospitals convince them that they could not possibly do better.)

An open exchange, on the other hand, is guided by a pragmatic philosophy. The tradition adopted by the parties is unspecified in the beginning and develops as the exchange proceeds. The participants get immersed into each other’s ways of thinking, feeling, perceiving to such an extent that their ideas, perceptions, world- views may be entirely changed - they become different people participating in a new and different tradition.

rationalism is not a necessary ingredient of the basic structure of a free society.

all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits”

I argue that all rules have their limits and that there is no comprehensive “rationality”, I do not argue that we should proceed without rules and standards.

According to naturalism rules and standards are obtained by an analysis of traditions.

the problem is which tradition to choose.

science is not one tradition, it is many, and so it gives rise to many and partly incompatible standards

the procedure makes it impossible for the philosopher to give reasons for his choice of science over myth or Aristotle.

when scientists become accustomed to treating theories in a certain way, when they forget the reasons for this treatment but simply regard it as the “essence of science” or as an “important part of what it means to be scientific”, when philosophers aid them in their forgetfulness by systematizing the familiar procedures and showing how they flow from an abstract theory of rationality then the theories needed to show the shortcomings of the underlying standards will not be introduced or, if they are introduced, will not be taken seriously. They will not be taken seriously because they clash with customary habits and systematizations thereof.

there are facts whose only adequate description is inconsistent and that inconsistent theories may be fruitful and easy to handle while the attempt to make them conform to the demands of consistency creates useless and unwieldy monsters.[

a contradiction implies every statement. This it does - but only in rather simple logical systems.

We don't know the region, we cannot say what will work in it. To advance we must either enter the region, or start making conjectures about it. We enter the region by articulating unusual intellectual, social, emotional tendencies, no matter how strange they may seem when viewed through the spectacles of established theories or standards.

Many people, without much thought, prefer technology to harmony with Nature; hence, quantitative and theoretical information is regarded as “real” and qualities as “apparent” and secondary.

a culture that centres on humans, prefers personal acquaintance to abstract relations (intelligence quotients; efficiency statistics) and a naturalists' approach to that of molecular biologists will say that knowledge is qualitative and will interpret quantitative laws as bookkeeping devices, not as elements of reality.

The word “science” may be a single word - but there is no single entity that corresponds to that word.

“Is it not really strange”, asks Einstein, “that human beings are normally deaf to the strongest argument while they are always inclined to overestimate measuring accuracies?”[

Science may be complex, they say, but it is still “rational”.

scientists keep complaining about the scientific illiteracy of the general public and that by the “general public” they mean the Western middle class, not Bolivian peasants (for example), we have to conclude that the popularity of science is a very doubtful matter indeed.

What about practical advantages? The answer is that “science” sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.

Some sciences (economic theory, for example) are in a pretty sorry shape.

Others are sufficiently mobile to tum disaster into triumph.

The can do so because they are not tied to any particular method or world- view.

love of truth is one of the strongest motives for lying to oneself and to others.

the quantum theory seems to show, in the precise manner so much beloved by the admirers of science, that reality is either one, which means there are no observers and no things observed, or it is many, in which case what is found does not exist in itself but depends on the approach chosen.

World- views also answer questions about origins and purposes which sooner or later arise in almost every human being.

Answers to these questions were available to Kepler and Newton and were used by them in their research; they are no longer available today, at least not within the sciences.

They are part of non- scientific world- views which therefore have much to offer, also to scientists.

When Western Civilization invaded what is now called the Third World it imposed its own ideas of a proper environment and a rewarding life.

not all ideas which seem repulsive to the prophets of a New Age come from science.

we can build world- views on the basis of a personal choice and thus unite, for ourselves and for our friends, what was once separated by a series of historical accidents.[

what counts in a public debate are not arguments but certain ways of presenting one’s case.

Enriching and changing knowledge, emotions, attitudes through the arts now seems to me a much more fruitful enterprise and also much more humane than the attempt to influence minds (and nothing else) by words (and nothing else).

Equality meant that the members of different races and cultures now had the wonderful chance to participate in the white man’s manias, they had the chance to participate in his science, his technology, his medicine, his politics.

It is conceited to assume that one has solutions for people whose lives one does not share and whose problems one does not know.

potentially every culture is all cultures.