Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“But let no one bring a charge,
    let no one accuse another,
for your people are like those
    who bring charges against a priest.
You stumble day and night,
    and the prophets stumble with you.
So I will destroy your mother—
    my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.

• Hosea 4:6

When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

• Deuteronomy 17:18-20

All his laws are before me;
    I have not turned away from his decrees.

• 2 Samuel 22:23

“Born in Austria, Feyerabend became a student of Karl Popper at the London School of Economics, but he went on to depart significantly from Popper’s rational model of science. During his time at the University of California in the 1960s and 1970s, Feyerabend became friendly with the German-born philosopher Thomas Kuhn, who argued that scientific progress is not gradual, but always jumps in ‘paradigm shifts’ or revolutions that lead to whole new frameworks for scientific thinking. Feyerabend goes even further, suggesting that when this occurs, all the scientific concepts and terms are altered, so there is no permanent framework of meaning.
“Feyerabend’s most famous book Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge, was first published in 1975. Here he sets out his vision of what he calls ‘epistemological anarchism’. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with questions and theories about knowledge, and Feyerabend’s ‘anarchism’ is rooted in the idea that all of the methodologies used in the sciences are limited in scope. As a result, there is no such thing as ‘scientific method.’ If we look at how science has developed and progressed in practice, the only ‘method’ that we can discern is that ’anything goes.’ Science, Feyerabend maintains, has never progressed according to strict rules, and if the philosophy of science demands such rules, it will limit scientific progress.”

• Sam Atkinson (senior editor), The Philosophy Book, Big Ideas Simply Explained

Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994) basically suggested that we play the game without a rule book.  As for the title, his book title included “Anarchistic Knowledge.”  If we are rebelling for rebellion sake, why go to the effort?

Yet, from such argument that we get the modern lunacy that there is no objective truth.

Let’s see.  The theory of evolution has been proven false, but since there is no other idea about creation that we like, we are sticking with it.  Hey, there are no rules, so why not?

And if we can make statements like politicians seem to do all the time, with nothing but hopes and dreams backing them up, do we even need to do the legwork to prove the latest theory?  Since the politicians are paying for the research, why prove anything, just shout loudly, with confidence.

And then when the emperor walks down the street naked, no one will notice he has no clothing on.  Hey, it was cold last night, and we burned the rule book.

I am weary of this type of philosophy.  When will we arrive at the point when we find the emperor naked?

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.