Science as Supermarket ‘Postmodern’ Themes in Paul Feyerabend’s Later Philosophy of Science

Abstract

Abstract he work Paul Feyerabend published in scattered journals during the 1990s mainly comprises essays and pieces d’occasion, many of which are being brought together in the form of a book, The Conquest of Abundance. But only the last of his books that he saw into print, Three Dialogues on Knowledge (1991), has received the attention it deserved. Philosophy of science is perhaps the area of philosophy in which ‘postmodern ism’ has had the least penetration and has been least discussed. My intention here is to clarify both Feyerabend’s last work and the nature of the postmodern by situating that work relative to three different positions in the philosophy of science which have been called ‘postmodern’. However, I am less concerned to clinch the case for Feyerabend’s having become a postmodernist than to use that position as foil against which accurately to convey and critically evaluate the central themes in his later philosophy.