Some lessons from scientific practice on its development and growth of knowledge. On Feyerabend’s perceptive view in epistemology

Abstract

Feyerabend generally is known most for his discovery on the helpfulness of breaking rules when they become a hindrance and for the legitimacy of the counter-inductive approach as a way to make fundamental changes in science. But his view about the decontamination of old theories and the implantation of new theories‘ conception deserves equal recognition. And, of course, his alternative of open instead of closed exchange is invaluable as epistemological contribution. All this together make Feyerabend‘s viewpoint very distinct, especially to understand the need of openness as a condition to make easy the scientific development. Those three aspects constitute the originality of Feyerabend‘s contribution in the philosophy of science, which will be the focus of this paper. These novelties, as it will be argued, fill respective aspects where previously there were shortcomings, which made possible to clarify.