Resumen

GARGIULO DE VAZQUEZ, María Teresa. The Galilean case or the paradoxes of a positivist notion of science according to Paul Karl Feyerabend. Tópicos (México) [online]. 2014, n.47, pp.53-88. ISSN 0188-6649.

The Galilean case meant for Feyerabend the opportunity to prove methodological and historically the paradoxes and limitations of a positivist notion of science. Feyerabend demonstrates the contradictions that suppose the different attempts of neo-positivism logical to establish a demarcation criterion that defines what science is. He realizes how in the case of Galileo Galilei those elements against which the logical positivism tries to delimit a negative definition of science, paradoxically constitute the heart of the scientific endeavor. Now this does not mean -as a considerable number of critics have pointed out- that Feyerabend uphold an anarchic, irrational or relativist view about science. Conversely, in a positive sense it is possible to say that the emblematic case of Galileo not only offered to Feyerabend the occasion to formulate a negative and sceptical argumentation with regard to that notion of science but, at the same time, it represented for him a chance to rethink the science from a broader perspective or rationality.

Palabras llave : Feyerabend; epistemological anarchism; logical positivism; science; science-metaphysics; demarcation criterion.