Traditions Are Neither Good Nor Bad, They

The Separation Of Science And Non-science Is Not Only Artificial But Also Detrimental To The Advancement Of Knowledge. If We Want To Understand Nature, If We Want To Master Our Physical Surroundings, Then We Must Use All Ideas, All Methods, And Not Just A Small Selection Of Them.

Confronted With Such A Variety Most Philosophers Try To Establish One Approach To The Exclusion Of All Others. As Far As They Are Concerned There Can Only Be One True Way- And They Want To Find It. Thus Normative Philosophers Argue That Knowledge Is A Result Of The Application Of Certain Rules, They Propose Rules Which In Their Opinion Constitute Knowledge And Reject What Clashes With Them.

Science Is Not Sacrosanct. The Mere Fact That It Exists, Is Admired, Has Results Is Not Sufficient For Making It A Measure Of Excellence. Modern Science Arose From Global Objections Against Earlier Views And Rationalism Itself, The Idea That There Are General Rules And Standards For Conducting Our Affairs, Affairs Of Knowledge Included, Arose From Global Objections To Common Sense.

If The World Is An Aggregate Of Relatively Independent Regions, Then Any Assumption Of Universal Laws Is False And A Demand For Universal Norms Tyrannical: Only Brute Force (or Seductive Deception) Can Then Bend The Different Moralities So That They Fit The Prescriptions Of A Single Ethical System. And Indeed, The Idea Of Universal Laws Of Nature And Society Arose In Connection With A Life-and-death Battle: The Battle That Gave Zeus The Power Over The Titans And All Other Gods And Thus Turned His Laws Into The Laws Of The Universe.

Given Any Rule, However "fundamental" Or "necessary" For Science, There Are Always Circumstances When It Is Advisable Not Only To Ignore The Rule, But To Adopt Its Opposite. For Example, There Are Circumstances When It Is Advisable To Introduce, Elaborate And Defend Ad Hoc Hypotheses, Or Hypotheses Which Contradict Well-established And Generally Accepted Experimental Results, Or Hypotheses Whose Content Is Smaller Than The Content Of The Existing And Empirically Adequate Alternative, Or Self-inconsistent Hypotheses, And So On.