Epistemological Anarchism
Updated 2026-08-01
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Proposed by Paul Feyerabend in Against Method. The position holds that no single set of methodological rules accounts for scientific progress, and that major advances have occurred precisely because researchers broke the prevailing rules. Feyerabend's slogan is anything goes. He argued against a universal scientific method and for methodological pluralism, while also insisting that science should not be granted special authority over other forms of knowledge.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Break deadlock: when standard methods stall, deliberately try an unconventional or cross-domain approach - Justify pluralism: cite historical precedent when defending methods your field considers illegitimate - Judge by results: evaluate an approach by what it produces rather than by whether it follows protocol
Anchor fast decisions
Rules are abstractions from past successes and lag behind novel problems. Where a problem's structure differs from those that produced the rules, adherence forecloses the very moves that could solve it, while violations sometimes open paths that rule-following cannot reach. Pluralism therefore preserves optionality across problem types, at the cost of losing the guarantees that shared rules provide.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabendverified
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