Current Reading

This blog is primarily for me to blog my responses to books that I'm reading. Sometimes I blog about other stuff too, though.

Poverty by America by Matthew Desmond.

Word cloud

Word cloud

Sunday, May 20, 2018

My basic problem with Feyerabend

Besides the fact that he attaches great significance to any report in conflict with accepted results (not distinguishing between work that has been replicated, work that has not yet been subject to replication efforts, and work that failed in replication efforts), he spends much time noting the non-existence of sharp lines and little time conceding that here might nonetheless be degrees of scientific/unscientific character in work.  He is content to note that there are no sharp lines but doesn't pay much attention to the fact that even in this gray continuum some work is much closer to one side than the other.

Once one establishes that binary categories are insufficient to describe a complex reality, it does not follow that there are no differences of degree.  This is a common problem in postmodernism (a label that he may or may not have accepted for himself).

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