EPISTEMOLOGICAL ANARCHISM AND DEMYSTIFICATION OF SCIENCE

Abstract

The underlying idea of this paper is thematization of the criticism of scientific dogmatism, which with Karl Popper appears as a response to David Hume’s skepticism, and develops further in Paul Feyerabend’s call for demystification of science. Popper's critical rationalism manages to overcome Hume's falling into irrationalism, and his method of falsification overcomes the disadvantages of methods of verification and induction, since it insists on constant falsifiability of scientific theories, which would keep the science away from dogmatization. Since he cannot find any certainty regarding the progressive advancement of science, Popper concludes that the truth may be accepted only as a regulative principle – because in terms of the legislation it is absolutely uncertain. Feyerabend also opposes the induction, viewing it as a limited method, but he goes a step further, objecting to any concept that wants to present itself as the only true principle. In this context, he finds that science is a new ideology, even a religion, because it uses the same arguments to sustain itself as superstition and magic do, and these were once defeated by science. Feyerabend opposes Popper’s critical rationalism, with the idea that science requires epistemological anarchism. Epistemological anarchism represents the approach that accepts a plurality of views, an incommensurability of scientific theories, and an opposition to the argument that knowledge considered unscientific should be rejected as unnecessary. What also should not be rejected are once disproved theories, because “there is not one idea, however ancient and absurd it can be which is incapable of improving our knowledge”.