John Preston

Since the publication of Sein und Zeit in 1927, scholars have coupled Martin Heidegger’s reflections on authenticity with a rich tradition of thought which reminds us that philosophy can, from time to time, function as a catalyst for self-discovery. While this function is an undeniable feature of Heideggerian authenticity, I would like to suggest that it is secondary to the role that authenticity plays in Heidegger’s philosophical investigations. By analyzing the full phenomena of authenticity and tracing its first technical uses back to Heidegger’s early lectures on Aristotle, I show that Heidegger’s methodological breakthrough in the early 1920s, the development of hermeneutic phenomenology, and the very structure of Being and Time are the result of Heidegger’s appropriation of Aristotle’s philosophical method. By analyzing these lectures and traditionally ignored uses of authenticity in Being and Time, I develop an account of the methodological sense of authenticity which looks to the tradition to uncover phenomena which have been obscured and covered over. In comparing this methodological reading to some standard readings, what I call the existential, intentional, and practical readings of authenticity, I show that the problems which arise in these accounts can be addressed by considering the full phenomena of authenticity and its methodological role in Heidegger’s thinking. Ultimately, I show that the term “authenticity [Eigentlichkeit]” is not only an ineliminable part of the structure of Heidegger’s Being and Time but that it is also at the heart of his phenomenological method.

I summarise certain aspects of Paul Feyerabend’s account of the development of Western rationalism, show the ways in which that account is supposed to run up against an alternative, that of Karl Popper, and then try to give a preliminary comparison of the two. My interest is primarily in whether what Feyerabend called his ‘story’ constitutes a possible history of our epistemic concepts and their trajectory. I express some grave reservations about that story, and about Feyerabend’s framework, finding Popper’s views less problematic here. However, I also suggest that one important aspect of Feyerabend’s material, his treatment of religious belief, can be given an interpretation which makes it tenable, and perhaps preferable to a Popperian approach.

Science as Salvation: a Modern Myth and its Meaning, Mary Midgley, 1994. London, Routledge x +256pp., Hb 04 15062713, £35; Pb 04 15107733, £8.99 Philosophical Naturalism, David Papineau, 1993 Oxford, Basil Blackwell xii +219pp., Hb 0631189025, £40; Pb 0631189033, £14.99 F. H. Bradley, Writings on Logic and Metaphysics, James W. Allard & Guy Stock (Eds), 1994. Oxford, Clarendon Press xv+357pp, Hb 0–198–24445–2, £40.00; Pb 0–198–24438‐X, £14.95 Invariance and Heuristics: Essays in Honour of Heinz Post, Steven French & Harmke Kamminga (Eds), 1993 Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 148 Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht Beyond Reason: Essays on the Philosophy of Paul Feyerabend, GONZALO MUNÉVAR (Ed.), 1991. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers xxi + 535pp., hb, ISBN 0–7923–1272–4, £104.20 World Changes: Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Science, Paul Horwich (Ed.), 1993. Cambridge, MA, Bradford Books/mit Press vi + 356pp., pb, ISBN 0262581388, £14.95 Realism Rescued: How Scientific Progress is Possible, Jerold L. Aronson, Rom Harré & Eileen Cornell Way, 1994 London, Duckworth vii +213pp., Hb 0715624768, £30.00 Scientific Nihilism: On the Loss and Recovery of Physical Explanation, Daniel Athearn, 1994. State University of New York Press, Albany ix + 387pp., Hb ISBN 0–7914–1807–3, £52 Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology, William Lane Craig & Quentin Smith, 1993. Oxford, Clarendon Press x +342pp., Hb 0198263481, £35; Pb 019826383X, £13.95.

Rudolf Carnap introduced and endorsed a philosophical methodology which he called the method of ‘explication’. P.F. Strawson took issue with this methodology, but it is currently undergoing a revival. In a series of articles, Patrick Maher has recently argued that explication is an appropriate method for ‘formal epistemology’, has defended it against Strawson’s objection, and has himself put it to work in the philosophy of science in further clarification of the very concepts on which Carnap originally used it (degree of confirmation, and probability), as well as some concepts to which Carnap did not apply it (such as justified degree of belief. We outline Carnap’s original idea, plus Maher’s recent application of such a methodology, and then seek to show that the problem Strawson raised for it has not been dealt with. The method is indeed, we argue, problematic and therefore not obviously superior to the ‘descriptive’ method associated with Strawson.

This book is the first comprehensive critical study of the work of Paul Feyerabend, one of the foremost twentieth-century philosophers of science. The book traces the evolution of Feyerabend's thought, beginning with his early attempt to graft insights from Wittgenstein's conception of meaning onto Popper's falsificationist philosophy. The key elements of Feyerabend's model of the acquisition of knowledge are identified and critically evaluated. Feyerabend's early work emerges as a continuation of Popper's philosophy of science, rather than as a contribution to the historical approach to science with which he is usually associated. In his more notorious later work, Feyerabend claimed that there was, and should be, no such thing as the scientific method. The roots of Feyerabend's 'epistemological anarchism' are exposed and the weaknesses of his cultural relativism are brought out. Throughout the book, Preston discusses the influence of Feyerabend's thought on contemporary philosophers and traces his stimulating but divided legacy. The book will be of interest to students of philosophy, methodology, and the social sciences.