Abstract

Feyerabend is mainly known for "Against Method" (1975), in which he claims that "the Scientific Method" does not exist and that "anything goes" is the only methodological rule surviving the scrutiny of the history of science. However, in the first phase of his career, roughly between 1955 and 1970, Feyerabend conceived of methodology as a normative discipline aiming at proposing rules of theory-choice instrumental in producing good science. Here it is argued that, nevertheless, there is a substantial continuity to be found between the early and the late Feyerabend, consisting in his peculiar understanding of theoretical pluralism as "libertarian pluralism" and in his ideal of knowledge as an ever-increasing ocean of alternatives.