Traditions are neither good nor bad, they simply are. . . Rationality is not an arbiter of traditions, … - Paul Feyerabend

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Quote of the day

Twelve years ago I made a mock Of filthy trades and traffics; I considered what they meant by stock; I wrote delightful sapphics; I knew the streets of Rome and Troy, I supped with fates and Fairies-- Twelve years ago I was a boy, A happy boy at Drury's.

Paul Feyerabend

Traditions are neither good nor bad, they simply are. . . Rationality is not an arbiter of traditions, it is itself a tradition or an aspect of a tradition.

Arbiter, Aspect, Rationality, Tradition, Traditions

Same Author Quotes

The attitude of the Church was not as dogmatic as is often assumed. Interpretations of Bible passages had been revised in the light of scientific research before. Everyone regarded the earth as spherical and as freely floating in space though the Bible tells a different story.

Attitude, Dogmatic, Earth, Light, Passages, Space

Events and developments, such as. . . the Copernican Revolution,. . . occurred only because some thinkers either decided not to be bound by certain "obvious" methodological rules, or because they unwittingly broke them.

Copernican, Development, Events, Obvious, Revolution, Science

The material which a scientist actually has at his disposal, his laws, his experimental results, his mathematical techniques, his epistemological prejudices, his attitude towards the absurd consequences of the theories which he accepts, is indeterminate in many ways, ambiguous, and never fully separated from the historical background. This material is always contaminated by principles which he does not know and which, if known, would be extremely hard to test.

Attitude, Fully, Historical, Law, Separated, Towards

Given any rule, however "fundamental" or "necessary" for science, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite. For example, there are circumstances when it is advisable to introduce, elaborate and defend ad hoc hypotheses, or hypotheses which contradict well-established and generally accepted experimental results, or hypotheses whose content is smaller than the content of the existing and empirically adequate alternative, or self-inconsistent hypotheses, and so on.

Adopt, Hypotheses, Introduce, Opposites, Science, Self

Confronted with such a variety most philosophers try to establish one approach to the exclusion of all others. As far as they are concerned there can only be one true way- and they want to find it. Thus normative philosophers argue that knowledge is a result of the application of certain rules, they propose rules which in their opinion constitute knowledge and reject what clashes with them.

Exclusion, Knowledge, Opinion, Trying, Want, Way