In the 1930's, British philosopher Karl Popper proposed the
idea that scientific theories could not be verified but only
falsified. Popper also made a career out of attacking Marxism.
Popper's notion of unverifiability is often appealed to today by
those who attack the reliability of scientific knowledge.
Michael Polanyi's 1958 book, Personal Knowledge, which
extols the value of "tacit knowledge", "intuition", etc. is now
very popular in academic circles among those who are against
objectivity and rationalism. The book's introduction specifically
states that it was written to oppose dialectical materialism.
Some more recent attacks on rationalism are launched in the
name of Marxism, revolution, Lenin, etc. Thomas Kuhn's notorious
attack on the rationality of science is misleadingly called The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn openly declares that
science cannot give us reliable knowledge of the world, as well
as implies that revolution does not lead to progress.
Feyerabend, a modern American anti-rational philosopher,
quotes Marx, Lenin, and the "Chinese communists" to defend his
anti-science, anti-rational ideas. These include that the most
productive scientific method is anarchy and that science differs
little from myth. Feyerabend also uses the name of Lysenko in
order to slander Stalin's leadership.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
