Feyerabend's Monster and the Critique of Scientism

Abstract

In this dissertation, I identify and develop the social-democratic tendency within Paul Feyerabend’s political thought to lay the groundwork for a critical social theory of scientism. Across his political writings, Feyerabend develops a critical diagnosis of late modernity vis-à-vis pervasive misrepresentations of science and the authority of experts. He also presents a vision of a ‘free society’ as an alternative political arrangement. However, Feyerabend’s political work is unsystematic, ambivalent, and inconsistent, such that one can distinguish contrasting political tendencies throughout. The aforementioned social-democratic tendency coheres around themes of relationality, interactionism, expansive democratic politics, and intercultural collaboration towards the common good. It stands in contrast to the libertarian tendency, which coheres around themes of individualism, voluntarism, state neutrality, and intercultural toleration. Following a three-part scheme, I extract core elements of a theory of scientism from Feyerabend’s political thought based on the social- democratic tendency. After presenting a schematic account of Feyerabend’s political thought and its reception among scholars, I begin by reconstructing Feyerabend’s diagnosis of the politics of late modern expertise in dialogue with neo-republican political thought and as a theory of technocratic domination. Next, I systematise his critical arguments regarding scientific methodology and expert authority as an instance of ideology critique in the vein of Marxist critical theory. Finally, I investigate Feyerabend’s vision for a free society according to its social conditions, revealing the radical character of his proposal. These three elements—the theory of technocratic domination, the critique of scientific ideology, and the radical account of the free society—come together as groundwork for a theory of scientism as a composite social pathology. By using Feyerabend’s political philosophy to lay the groundwork for a social theory of scientism, I aim to contribute to scholarly discussions regarding his thought and to wider debates regarding political constraints on knowledge and expertise.