杏吧原创

I READ the latter, more philosophical half of this book in front of The Grifters, a movie about con artists who get conned. I don鈥檛 often detail the circumstances of writing 鈥� but when Paul Feyerabend is involved, it feels appropriate. The man demands a response. And the response he gets from me is as closely related to the plot development of entertainment as it is to formal philosophy.

When someone chooses in his autobiography to quote Nature describing him as 鈥渢he worst enemy of science鈥�, you have to ask why, and what his rhetorical method is. When that person discovers, while writing the final chapter, that he has an inoperable brain tumour, the dramatic tension positively jangles. Will it be an apologia, a self-justification, a clarification, or a mea culpa?

It is all the above, but first and foremost it is the story of a man baffled by the sometimes vitriolic response to his philosophical enquiry. Reading it, I began to share his puzzlement, and ruefully to recall many attempts to define 鈥渟cience鈥� to non- and antiscientists. Feyerabend鈥檚 statements about the meaninglessness of independent, objective experience are hard to reconcile with the day-to-day practice of science. Take: 鈥溾�� an experience without theory is just as incomprehensible as is (allegedly) a theory without experience: eliminate part of the theoretical knowledge and you have a person who is completely disoriented 鈥︹��, from his Against Methodology. If this were so 鈥� and the hard science of cognitive psychology does not seem to refute it 鈥� science would simply be a way of telling a story about the world 鈥� one with very special narrative rules, far more subtle than those for a sonnet or a thriller.

Earlier this year Robert L. Park of the American Physical Society wrote in Scientific American of scientists鈥� worry that historians of science have taken the discussion too far. Social constructivists conclude, he said, that 鈥渟cience is just another narrative and has no greater claim to authority than any other narrative鈥�. Do you detect a note of panic here? Panic at the drudgery of having to respond to the sillier consequences of Feyerabend鈥檚 scientific anarchism among his enthusiasts is reasonable. But the disturbing quality of Feyerabend鈥檚 own statements suggests that something is missing in our theory of theories 鈥� or in the way the story of 鈥渨hat science is鈥� is told.

Consciousness can be described as a way of telling a story, too: a way of filtering and editing the data from our senses to form a compelling narrative. There is more than one way of telling a story to convey and refine truths: science is one of the most successful. The legal process and ethical journalism are somewhat less so. The unsatisfactory debate over DNA evidence in courts illustrates the mutual incomprehension between these three genres.

From this point of view, it is worth answering Feyerabend鈥檚 challenge in kind. This means taking the criticism of 鈥渙bjective reality鈥� at face value, making an effort to describe precisely why science and mathematics are such special narrative structures, and why they are better than religion and magic at handling the future tense.

This might allow us, for example, to deal with the question of the beauty of theories 鈥� an important but apparently embarrassing subject which gains a mention in New 杏吧原创 less than twice a year. It could provide a narrative structure (or methodology) for stories (and theories) which scientists and philosophers could develop jointly. It might even be possible to begin to bridge C. P. Snow鈥檚 notorious 鈥渢wo cultures鈥� divide or to defuse some of the public hostility to the perceived arrogance of science.

For this to happen, scientists would have to make much more effort to explain what science is. It shocks me that it is possible to complete a science degree without encountering Occam鈥檚 razor or the principle of falsifiability, let alone Feyerabend鈥檚 critique. I meet more people who understand the narrative rules of the 鈥渟tory arc鈥� which takes movie plots to a satisfying resolution than who grasp proof by counterexample. Without a debate across such divides, responses to provocateurs like Feyerabend inevitably get personalised.

So what, at last, of the man鈥檚 presentation of himself? Killing Time is a strange narrative. On the surface, it is deeply unsatisfactory as biography. There are no dates to speak of; characters appear at random and unindexed, identified only by first name. But having read it, I like the man (at least the man who left Austria). I like the insouciance of his arrogance as much as anything, and his determination to question everything, including this.

In part, he has written a love story, whose central character is a man who, rendered impotent by a gunshot when retreating before the Red Army, seems to have had dozens of affairs, and who terminated them all for fear of being confined 鈥� until he met, aged over 50, Grazia Borrini. He suggests a parallel tendency in intellectual relationships, exemplified by his instinct to flee when asked to 鈥渂ecome a faithful Popperian鈥�. In the narrative this man made for his life, consistency is not a major theme.

He describes a central European childhood of a kind that these days would not be allowed, one in which he apparently floated in serene detachment past his mother鈥檚 alcoholism and suicide, in which the finger-amputating fairytale fiend Der Struwwelpeter 鈥渟eemed rather commonplace鈥�. He was similarly disengaged from the arrival of the Nazis, we are told, and throughout his military service. He quotes a talk he gave to army officers concluding that 鈥渨e must not put the blame on any Jew鈥�. He kept very few papers, he says; the cynical journalist must wonder what was in the talks that have not survived.

He describes the production of sequels to Against Method as 鈥淲riting and re-writing of tedious chapters about tedious things鈥� which 鈥渨asted precious time that I could have spent lying in the sun, watching television, going to the movies, or even producing a few plays.鈥� It is a shame that he does not mention Richard Feynman: they should surely have met, and perhaps played bongo.

But immediately after this, he recaps an argument, clearly still painful, with Hilary Rose. She took his statement, made ten years earlier, that a 鈥渢olerant methodology鈥� changes science 鈥渇rom a stern and demanding mistress into an attractive and yielding courtesan鈥� to argue that the 鈥渁nything goes鈥� of Against Method was 鈥減rofoundly gendered鈥�. He responds, now, with a defence of 鈥渃onsenting courtesanship鈥�.

A man who can say, knowing that he is writing his own epitaph, that 鈥淥ne of my motives for writing Against Method was to free people from the tyranny of philosophical obfuscations and abstract concepts such a 鈥榯ruth,鈥� 鈥榬eality,鈥� or 鈥榦bjectivity 鈥︹�� is dangerous. Anyone who adopts such a position must be addicted to living dangerously. Such people have their value 鈥� as performance artists at the least. Feyerabend deserves appreciation for his performances, which so effectively raise these arguments about truth, if not for his conclusions.