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

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.)