Re: minds of our own?

Jay Lemke (jllbc who-is-at cunyvm.cuny.edu)
Wed, 03 Sep 1997 23:32:41 -0400

I would be interested, Vera, as others might in the reference for
Feyerabend's biography (an auto-biography?). Most radical of the critics of
Vienna postivism, and of the idolatry of method in scientistic thinking
(give me the right method and I will produce for you truth and only truth),
he chided the narrow optimists with their straitening effect on the course
of inquiry, reminding us that canons of method easily become self-limiting
constrictors of the paradigm of a science (I think of Chomsky's
linguistics, but there are many modern examples). Unless we say 'anything
goes', we set out small faces against the tides of cultural and historical
change -- who could call that _science_?

I would love to know how a man of his era came to such contrary wisdom! JAY.

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JAY L. LEMKE

CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
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