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Cambridge University Press eBooks

Feyerabend’s Re-evaluation of Scientific Practice

Daniel Kuby

Published Mar 18, 2021• 23 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this chapter, I offer a specific interpretation of how Feyerabend came from a Popperian critique of the Copenhagen interpretation to a detailed re-evaluation of Niels Bohr’s idea of complementarity. Engaging with this chapter of Feyerabend’s intellectual Werdegang is not only an interesting exercise in Feyerabendian exegesis; an explanation of this change of mind in a very narrow domain – or so it seems – gives the backdrop for Feyerabend’s thoroughgoing turn from methodological monism to methodological pluralism, for which he would became known to a wider audience with his publication of Against Method (Feyerabend 1975a). 1

DOI
10.1017/9781108575102.008

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In this chapter, I offer a specific interpretation of how Feyerabend came from a Popperian critique of the Copenhagen interpretation to a detailed re-evaluation of Niels Bohr’s idea of complementarity. Engaging with this chapter of Feyerabend’s intellectual Werdegang is not only an interesting exercise in Feyerabendian exegesis; an explanation of this change of mind in a very narrow domain – or so it seems – gives the backdrop for Feyerabend’s thoroughgoing turn from methodological monism to methodological pluralism, for which he would became known to a wider audience with his publication of Against Method (Feyerabend 1975a). 1
The aim of this paper is to give an account of the change in Feyerabend's (meta)philosophy that made him abandon methodological monism and embrace methodological pluralism. In this paper I offer an explanation in terms of a simple model of 'change of belief through evidence'. My main claim is that the evidence triggering this belief revision can be identified in Feyerabend's technical work in the interpretation of quantum mechanics, in particular his reevaluation of Bohr's contribution to it (1957-1964). This highlights an under-appreciated part of Feyerabend's early work and makes it central to an understanding of the dynamics in his overall philosophy of science.
Within the past decade there has grown an acute and highly articulate group of critics of the orthodox interpretation of quantum theory,—the so-called “Copenhagen Interpretation.” The writings of people like Bopp, Janossy, and particularly Bohm and Feyerabend, must be taken very seriously indeed. The future of some important discussions in the philosophy and the logic of science rests with these individuals. But they have, in their own writings, occasionally matched the inelegancies of Bohr and Heisenberg with as many inelegancies of their own. The present paper is meant to present a quintet of considerations which may possibly lead to a reassessment of the issues between Bohr, Heisenberg, and their critics, especially Bohm and Feyerabend.
This collection of the writings of Paul Feyerabend is focused on his philosophy of quantum physics, the hotbed of the key issues of his most debated ideas. Written between 1948 and 1970, these writings come from his first and most productive period. These early works are important for two main reasons. First, they document Feyerabend's deep concern with the philosophical implications of quantum physics and its interpretations. These ideas were paid less attention in the following two decades. Second, the writings provide the crucial background for Feyerabend's critiques of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn. Although rarely considered by scholars, Feyerabend's early work culminated in the first version of Against Method. These writings guided him on all the key issues of his most well-known and debated theses, such as the incommensurability thesis, the principles of proliferation and tenacity, and his particular version of relativism, and more specifically on quantum mechanics.
Once I tried to teach some quantum mechanics to a class of law students, philosophers, and art historians. As an advertisement for the course I put together the most sensational quotations I could collect from the most authoritative practitioners of the subject. Heisenberg was a goldmine: “The concept of the objective reality of the elementary particles has thus evaporated…”; “the idea of an objective real world whose smallest parts exist objectively in the same sense as stones or trees exist, independently of whether or not we observe them … is impossible …” Feynman did his part too: “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” But I failed to turn up anything comparable in the writings of Bohr. Others attributed spectacular remarks to him, but he seemed to take pains to avoid any hint of the dramatic in his own writings. You don't pack them into your classroom with “The indivisibility of quantum phenomena finds its consequent expression in the circumstance that every definable subdivision would require a change of the experimental arrangement with the appearance of new individual phenomena,” or “the wider frame of complementarity directly expresses our position as regards the account of fundamental properties of matter presupposed in classical physical description but outside its scope.” I was therefore on the lookout for nuggets when I sat down to review these three volumes – a reissue of Bohr's collected essays on the revolutionary epistemological character of the quantum theory and on the implications of that revolution for other scientific and non-scientific areas of endeavor (the originals first appeared in 1934, 1958, and 1963.)
The theoretical and experimental context within which the “Copenhagen Interpretation” of quantum theory was generated is underemphasized by recent critics of the Bohr-Heisenberg philosophy. When an interpretation of a theory has been as successful as this one has been, there is little practical warrant for the “alternative interpretations” which have, since Bohm, been receiving prominence. Indeed, these are not even genuine alternatives; although rich in provocative prose, they provide not a scrap of algebra with which to organize the practical physicist's thinking. Several objections to the Bohr interpretation are critically examined, as is also a particular use of the correspondence principle which has seemed to cast doubt on the Copenhagen ideas.