Anything Goes: Origins of the Cult of Scientific Irrationalism

A philosophical antidote to confusion over the field of "science studies", an attempt to bridge the gap between science and humanities. The author demonstrates how extravagant has been the verbiage wasted on this issue and how irrational are the combatants.

"With a combination of dazzling philosophical acumen and scarifying wit, Stove does for irrationalism in the philosophy of science what the Romans did for Carthage in the Third Punic War. He assaults and destroys it utterly. It has been a long time since I have read a book of philosophy as entertaining and illuminating." - Roger Kimball, The New Criterion.

"Written in a bracing, take-no-prisoners style, David Stove's literary analysis of the linguistic devices by means of which Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn and Feyerabend make the irrationalist themes in their philosophies of science credible is genuinely illuminating and his 'Helps to Young Authors' who hope to emulate them are wickedly funny. After reading this book you will look with new eyes at the rash of scare quotes - 'knowledge', 'evidence', 'fact', 'rationality' etc. - that afflicts recent radical sociology of science." - Professor Susan Haack, University of Miami.

Previously published as: Popper and after: four modern irrationalists.