The irrationalism in the theory of Schopenhauer’s knowledge and Paul Feyerabend's epistemology

Abstract

This article intends to analyze the origin of irrationalism present in the theory of knowledge of Schopenhauer and Paul Feyerabend's epistemology. On one side, Schopenhauer, directly attacking the hegelian philosophy, it claims that, as a secondary activity, it is not possible to human rationality conceive, understand or explain the real, to be constituted by something that, at least abstractly in the form of concepts, cannot be abstracted, but only intuited. He defends a kind of spontaneous knowledge and, therefore, demonstrates how innocuous is the rational attempt to establish ways or methods that make it possible. On the other side, Feyerabend postulates that the great scientific discoveries, by coming in history and taking into consideration the cultural context of each people, they were not caused, in their majority, for the observance of rigorous methods and defined a priori, but especially discovered for a given field of study. Thus, it would not be possible to establish universal and absolute methods that could lead to human rationality to the knowledge of real. And when this happens, these are nothing more than impositions that aims much more maintenance of power relations than true search of real. Although arisen in different ways and contexts, both conclude that the reason is se condary and therefore, you can not trust on them for the progress of knowledge.