http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=335
http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=336
XinZhaiLaoJiang
Feyerabend Quotations 3
“I did not say that epistemology should become anarchist, or that philosophy of science should become anarchist. I said that these two disciplines should accept anarchism as a medicine. Epistemology is sick now and must be treated, and the medicine is anarchism. Medicine is not something people have to take all the time. People take medicine only during a certain period, and then stop.”
Science in a Free Society: P139-140
[楼主] | Posted: 2008-01-24 01:01
GuChen
This kind of “medicine” is too fierce and stimulating; it is not in keeping with the Chinese medicine way of nourishing life and regulating and supplementing the body~~
[1 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 01:35
GuChen
So-called fighting poison with poison may indeed cure disease, but it is bound to leave behind hidden troubles.
[2 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 01:39
GuChen
Chinese medicine aims to “treat before illness arises” and to “nourish life.” Medicine is not useful only when one is sick; it also has significance when one is not yet ill. If the fierce medicine prescribed by Old Feyerabend does take effect, then what we need to consider now is: after that, what then?
Many of us, after falling suddenly ill, first look for Western medicine to control the condition (in fact, to suppress it). Later, we often ask for some Chinese medicine, or dietary therapy, or at least Chinese medical advice on nourishing and regulating the body. And if the fierce medicine still has no effect, then we will still go looking for Chinese medicine to see what other possibilities there are.
So after Feyerabend has prescribed this fierce medicine, whether it works or not, we still have to seek a new path, to change to a Chinese medicine formula that balances yin and yang and regulates the body~~
[3 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 01:53
Speaking of the toxicity of medicine, today’s anti–Chinese medicine people are completely making things up. Chinese medicine has from the very beginning clearly proposed using poison as medicine; the reason medicine works is precisely because it is poisonous.
Ginseng in the hands of a quack can also be poison, and can also kill people;
arsenic in the hands of a good doctor can also save lives.
The question is: the prescription Old Feyerabend has written out, the patient seems not to have taken it yet.
BTW: The reason Mr. Chen Zhu now strongly supports Chinese medicine is that back then, drawing on Chinese medicine’s experience of using arsenic to treat leukemia, he analyzed it with modern scientific methods……
[4 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 09:14
GuChen
I did not say that fighting poison with poison is a special feature of Western medicine, but after administering a fierce medicine, to then regulate and replenish vital energy should be a special feature of Chinese medicine. Western medicine only knows to target disease, and that is why there is this saying that once Old Feyerabend’s patient has recovered, his medicine is no longer useful. But even after the illness has been cured, after the disease’s signs have been thoroughly suppressed, that is still far from enough; one must analyze where the illness in fact came from, from what imbalance, so as to also give appropriate advice in future life.
Also, Old Feyerabend seems to have a tendency toward “abolishing medicine while preserving drugs.” His understanding of medicine is pragmatic—I judge whether the prescription I write is good or not by whether it can cure disease. This is of course an important aspect, but a philosopher is not only a doctor, but should rather be a medical theorist, a pathologist, a pharmacologist.
To prescribe medicine for society, to make the age “take medicine”—these tasks really belong to politicians; the mission of philosophers is to trace things back to their source, to analyze and diagnose.
[5 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 11:54
GuChen
“Old Feyerabend’s prescription seems not to have been taken by the patient yet” — this shows that however much a philosopher may “preach,” whether the “patient” is willing to take the medicine is not up to you. You say take it, but they refuse to. And then once they do take the medicine? When they stop taking it is also not up to you; you say stop taking it, but they will keep on taking it.
“Ginseng in the hands of a quack can also be poison, and can also kill people. Arsenic in the hands of a good doctor can also save lives.” — The question now is: what role does the philosopher play? Is he the actual user of medicinal materials? A quack can use ginseng to kill people, and a good doctor can use arsenic to save lives, that much is true. Yet whether quack or good doctor, neither is the role actually played by the philosopher. The philosopher is not a doctor who directly faces the patient; the patient does not listen to you. What the philosopher faces is precisely the doctors. The philosopher is a pathologist and pharmacologist; his duty is to analyze and explain: what effects ginseng has, what results arsenic may produce, what the causes of a certain disease may be, and so on. After hearing these explanations, the doctors may then be able to use the medicine more appropriately.
[6 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 12:26
XinZhaiLaoJiang
Little Gu is indeed quite classical!
Old Feyerabend’s line of thought is of a piece with what people like Wittgenstein call “climb up the ladder and then kick it away,” or “scratch wherever it itches.”
Young Gu, following Uncle Kant to study medicine, always tries to get away from specific contexts and work out some universal “cure-all”; as for that, I’m not optimistic about the result.
So many distinctions and boundaries—I don’t like them.
Theory is of course useful, but its scope of application and its meaning can never be detached from specific contexts.
[7 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 14:30
GuChen
“Theory is of course useful, but its scope of application and its meaning can never be detached from specific contexts.” — Of course that is so. In ordinary terms, theory comes from practice and ultimately has to return to practice; that is correct.
But the construction of theory after all must involve a process of transcending specific contexts and individual experiences, moving toward generalization; this cannot be denied. But does this effort at generalization necessarily mean pursuing the absolute, pursuing universally applicable laws beyond all epochs? That is not necessarily so.
Persistently revising theory is precisely in order to make theory contemporary, to let theory keep pace with the times, and to illuminate the times. That is what is meant by “keeping pace with the times.” If one does not make efforts to revise theory, then one will not be able to keep pace with the times.
In actual medical treatment, of course, one cannot mechanically copy dogma; one must make adjustments according to specific circumstances. However, if there are no dogmas at all, can that work? Is Chinese medicine without theory still Chinese medicine? Learning “dogma,” learning theory, is also basic training for a doctor.
So the question now is: Western scientific dogma can no longer keep up with reality’s development; to keep mechanically copying those dogmas will be terrible, so what should be done? On the one hand, of course, those dogmas must be criticized, but on the other hand? If one does not revise and perfect the dogmas, can that work? If tradition is thrown away and nothing new is put forward, are we really to let doctors go back to the time when Shennong tasted a hundred herbs and start practical experimentation all over again?
Nowadays, as soon as people mention a “theoretical system,” or “dogma,” or “rule,” they immediately react: absolute, universal, cure-all… But reality is not like that. Reconstructing and perfecting a theory is precisely to preserve its contemporaneity, to let theory adapt to the times and illuminate the times. By contrast, the phrase “specific context” has become the new “cure-all,” as if wherever that phrase is brandished, one can dispense with theory and dispense with the universal altogether.
The “universal” we pursue is universality in a relative sense, but if one uses the “particular” as a shield and no longer pursues the universal at all, then that “particular” instead becomes something absolute in an absolute sense.
[8 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 15:32
XinZhaiLaoJiang
I have no objection to the position in the 8th-floor post.
[9 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 15:45
GuChen
What is “dogma”? The meaning of “dogma,” as the word itself suggests, is “teaching” — education, instruction. It is what is used for transmission and inheritance.
Of course criticism and reflection are important, but criticism, reflection, and innovation are all built on a foundation of learning and inheritance; without inheritance, there is no soil for rebellion and no object of rebellion, and innovation is impossible to speak of. And in the process of teaching and transmission, dogma is inevitably needed.
Learning anything is learning a kind of technique; dogma is secondary. The key lies in imitation. A simple technique does not need dogma at all; for example, learning to ride a bicycle—you grope around, fall a few times, and then you learn it. But some complex skills won’t do. For example, Chinese medicine and science are both too complex to be learned merely through imitation, so one needs to summarize certain key points in writing, to distill them into some essentials and methods; only then is teaching and transmission facilitated.
As this craft develops, the content passed down and accumulated becomes richer and richer, the craft becomes more and more complex, and many methods also continually change with the times. Then it becomes necessary to keep revising dogma in step with the development of the times, so that the craft can be transmitted onward in keeping with the times. Human civilization is precisely like this: because of language and writing, because of theory, tradition came into being, and only then did it become possible for people’s ways of life to become ever richer and more diverse.
Philosophy is a useless discipline and has never really pursued “results,” because the most direct and fundamental “result” of the establishment of theory is not that it guides practice, but its significance for teaching and transmission, its significance of “preserving” and “illuminating.”
I also admire Vico’s “climb up the ladder and then kick it away,” but who is to take on the work of building the ladder? Is that not the philosopher’s mission?
[10 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 15:50
GuChen
What I am saying here is not aimed at Old Feyerabend, nor at Teacher Jiang, because I do not yet know very much about Old Feyerabend. I am merely taking the opportunity to air my own position~
[11 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 15:53
XinZhaiLaoJiang
Feyerabend Quotations 4
They cannot imagine that an author might write an account of one way of life while living another, yet still belong to a group connected with a third way of life, and advocate a way of life different from all three. They think that human beings are like statues molded from dry sand: touch one point and the whole thing collapses.
Science in a Free Society, P203
GuChen
Who are “they”? As a reader of philosophy, one would not make such a mistake. The great philosophers and thinkers throughout history have all been like this: the ideal state, utopia, communism—all are like this. Marx wrote an account of the actual condition of the working class, lived the life of a social activist, belonged to a group connected with the bourgeoisie, and advocated communism different from any real form of life… This is easy to understand; indeed, if a person were not like this, then he simply could not be called a political philosopher.
So does Old Feyerabend mean that the “anarchism” he advocates is a “utopia,” an idealist hope to be pinned on? If that is the case, then I support it. But if one takes some distant ideal and uses it as a “prescription” for real society, then that is dangerous; everyone can see the result of the Soviet Union’s attempt to put communism into practice. Now perhaps one can say that people have not yet officially taken Old Feyerabend’s prescription, but if they truly do take it, then it will be too late, because the work of “medicating” society is not something a philosopher can carry out. At that point, if you say, “Enough, time’s up, no need to keep taking the medicine!” can you stop the great tide of society?
[1 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 12:10
XinZhaiLaoJiang
Old Feyerabend is indeed criticizing his opponents in philosophy of science, because they use this to criticize him.
The Soviet result does not necessarily show that ideals cannot be used to treat real society. In my view, that ideal was not ideal enough, and therefore not realistic enough (before I studied philosophy of science, I was a fan of Uncle Hegel, though I never really understood him).
What kind of ideal is one that cannot truly transform reality, an ideal that cannot play a role in the present?
Of course, when one truly uses it to transform reality and society, one cannot be dogmatic; the prescription must be adjusted in a timely manner according to the condition (Chinese medicine has a great deal of insight in this respect).
The sage has no fixed mind and does not cling; one should keep pace with the times and continuously adjust, and thus must not cling to the broken remnants while abandoning the greater whole.
The philosopher is the one who diagnoses, writes prescriptions, and cajoles people into taking the medicine.
The problem now is that the medicine of scientism has been taken too much; Old Feyerabend shouts to stop, and everyone still says: in the old days, when one came down with typhoid, one only got better after taking the fierce medicine of scientism and sweating out a whole body full of foul sweat; we should now drink up the remaining half jin of medicine left in the pot before talking about anything else……
[2 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 14:44
I like idealism.
[3 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-24 15:32
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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