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SPECIAL SECTION
Artists
Theoreticians, and Artisans
Paul Feyerabend
I n Book VII of his Republic,Plato enumerates the perimentalist among them. (This
subjects he thinks should be taught to the guardians of his changed with the increasing in-
ideal city-music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. Each terest in biological and palaeon-
subject has an important practical function. Music imparts tological matters-except that
harmony and grace, arithmetic aids generals in distributing molecular biology again empha-
their troops, geometry helps them to design fortifications and sizes theory.) ABSTRACT
military camps, while astronomy is needed for orientation Even practical activities such as T
and the calendar. medicine and engineering were Theauthor discussesartists
According to Plato, music, arithmetic and geometry also subjected to theoretical process- andscientists,
similarities
comparingthe
anddifferencesof
have theoretical sides. Here numbers, lines and harmonies ing-the assumption being that theiractivities
andviews.Provid-
are related not to perceptions or material objects but to each theories give better results than a ingexamples oftheideasof phi-
other. The resulting structures form an unchanging objective knowledge that is tied to memory losophers
through theages,he
world that stabilizes the mind and prepares it for grasping the and the reactions of the human usesvarioushistorical
documents
idea of the Good. Compared with the knowledge that can be body. In the 1960s, British and tosupporthisanalysis.
gained from contemplating this world, empirical information American engineering schools m
and practical skills are "base and mechanical" [1]. Yet, being started replacing practical skills
"soldier[s] and philosopher[s] in one" [2], the guardians and empirical information by theory, and a hands-on ap-
cannot disregard them. proach by a top-down procedure, where theoreticians pro-
The distinction between theories that are related to truth vided models for low-level practitioners without taking their
and observations or skills that are not-and the correspond- experience into account [5]. Major failures, the Challengerca-
ing dichotomies real/apparent, objective/subjective, knowl- tastrophe among them, and historical studies of scientific
edge/opinion-became important ingredients of Western practice showed that theoreticians need artisans to connect
thought. This created problems for scientists who used re- them with the world.
search to explore what they regarded as a research-indepen-
dent reality. Thus, as Max Planck writes,
The two statements:"thereexists a real externalworld that is Fig. 1. Illustrationfrom Descartes'sLhomme(Treatiseof Man)
(1664) [261.
independent of us" and: "the real external world cannot be
known directly"are the two basic principlesof all of physics.
However,they are opposed to each other to a certain extent
and therebyrevealthe irrationalelement inherent in physics
and in any other science [3].