Against Method

Abstract In the last few years Paul Feyerabend has developed an interesting and in some ways important critique of positivist philosophy of science, and in particular, of the Popperian school. It is ironic that it should emanate from a former acolyte of Popper's ‘critical rationalism,’ and doubly ironic that the position in which Feyerabend ends up should still nevertheless bear the stigmata of Popper's influence. Popper's characterization of the advance of scientific knowledge as a revolutionary process, whereby theories vigorously compete with each other, the successful ones being the survivors of repeated tests devised by an open, self-critical, scientific community, had already been called into question by Kuhn.