Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being

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Overview

From flea bites to galaxies, from love affairs to shadows, Paul Feyerabend reveled in the sensory and intellectual abundance that surrounds us. He found it equally striking that human senses and human intelligence are able to take in only a fraction of these riches. "This a blessing, not a drawback," he writes. "A superconscious organism would not be superwise, it would be paralyzed." This human reduction of experience to a manageable level is the heart of Conquest of Abundance, the book on which Feyerabend was at work when he died in 1994.
Prepared from drafts of the manuscript left at his death, working notes, and lectures and articles Feyerabend wrote...

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Overview

From flea bites to galaxies, from love affairs to shadows, Paul Feyerabend reveled in the sensory and intellectual abundance that surrounds us. He found it equally striking that human senses and human intelligence are able to take in only a fraction of these riches. "This a blessing, not a drawback," he writes. "A superconscious organism would not be superwise, it would be paralyzed." This human reduction of experience to a manageable level is the heart of Conquest of Abundance, the book on which Feyerabend was at work when he died in 1994.
Prepared from drafts of the manuscript left at his death, working notes, and lectures and articles Feyerabend wrote while the larger work was in progress, Conquest of Abundance offers up rich exploration and startling insights with the charm, lucidity, and sense of mischief that are his hallmarks. Feyerabend is fascinated by how we attempt to explain and predict the mysteries of the natural world, and he looks at the ways in which we abstract experience, explain anomalies, and reduce wonder to formulas and equations. Through his exploration of the positive and negative consequences of these efforts, Feyerabend reveals the "conquest of abundance" as an integral part of the history and character of Western civilization.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Feyerabend (1924-1994) was the preeminent antisystemic philosopher. His most famous work is the aptly titled Against Method. This posthumous work--half unfinished manuscript, half related essays compiled by Bert Terpstra with the help and support of Feyerabend's widow--attempts to understand how the scientific worldview gained its foothold and at what cost to experiential richness. Feyerabend is enthralled by the posited split between appearance and reality that exploded in the philosophies of Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato and that was countered by Aristotle's insistence that specific practices involve specific virtues, divorced from any transcendent good. From that starting point he explores the scientific worldview--the reigning view of Western civilization--and articulates what he believes has been gained and lost by such a commitment to categorization and abstraction. Feyerabend's habit of repeatedly returning to key examples--heightened by textual overlaps between essays and unfinished manuscript--should draw readers into his idiosyncratic exploration of how knowledge is acquired and named, radically deepening their understanding of the issues at stake. Feyerabend displays a marvelous knack for bringing alive fully rounded views. The result is a first-rate and consistently pleasurable meditation on epistemology. 19 illustrations. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Best known for Against Method (1975), his critique of the philosophy of science, and for his autobiography, Killing Time, Feyerabend (1924-94) was working on this tentatively titled volume when he died of a brain tumor. Completed via Feyerabend's notes, letters, and lectures, it is a fascinating work. Feyerabend argues that humans have an innate desire to simplify reality into stereotypes and that since the Renaissance this has been done largely through the methods of science, resulting in the loss of a rich part of reality. Using examples from various disciplines, he argues persuasively that no one epistemology has priority over others. The ascendancy of science has been examined in greater detail--in Morris Berman's The Reenchantment of the World, for example--and Feyerabend does not carry his arguments as far as Berman. However, as an antidote to the claim that a particular epistemological paradigm is superior to others, Feyerabend's book warrants serious consideration. Recommended for all libraries.--Terry C. Skeats, Bishop's Univ. Lib., Lennoxville, Quebec Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
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Booknews
Philosopher of science Feyerabend (1924-94) was working on this book when he died. Bert Terpstra, with the help of Feyerabend's widow, has reconstructed it from manuscript drafts and notes, and accompanied it with 12 essays he wrote on the same themes while he was working on the book. His underlying theme is how people in western society have reduced the abundance of experience into abstract principles, and how that process has condemned some people to a drab world obedient only to scientific data and economic imperatives. Unfortunately, but perhaps appropriately, he never began the final chapter that would have synthesized all his examples into a single account. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780226245348
  • Publisher: University of Chicago Press
  • Publication date: 5/28/2001
  • Edition description: 1
  • Edition number: 2
  • Pages: 303
  • Sales rank: 815,429
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.60 (d)

Meet the Author

Paul Feyerabend (1924-94) held numerous teaching posts throughout his career in Europe and the United States. Among his books are Against Method; Science in a Free Society; Farewell to Reason; and Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend, the last published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Preface vii
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
A Note on the Editing xv
Part 1 The Unfinished Manuscript
Introduction 3
1. Achilles' Passionate Conjecture 19
2. Xenophanes 41
3. Parmenides and the Logic of Being 60
Interlude: On the Ambiguity of Interpretations 83
4. Brunelleschi and the Invention of Perspective 89
Part 2 Essays on the Manuscript's Themes
1. Realism and the Historicity of Knowledge 131
2. Has the Scientific View of the World a Special Status Compared with Other Views? 147
3. Quantum Theory and Our View of the World 161
4. Realism 178
5. Historical Comments on Realism 197
6. What Reality? 206
7. Aristotle 217
8. Art as a Product of Nature as a Work of Art 223
9. Ethics as a Measure of Scientific Truth 242
10. Universals as Tyrants and as Mediators 252
11. Intellectuals and the Facts of Life 265
12. Concerning an Appeal for Philosophy 269
Index 275

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