In May 1992, Feyerabend gave a series of freestyle lectures at the University of Trent. Their original title was Ambiguità e armonia, or Conflict and Harmony. Alas, Polity Press apparently decided that that title was either too imprecise or too out of keeping with Feyerabend's idiosyncratic reputation, and so they substituted the spiky, charged title The Tyranny of Science, complete with a blood-red cover image of atomic bombs falling onto a city.

Provocative as that title and image are, they do not properly reflect the tone, content and aims of these lectures. Feyerabend does not think that science is tyrannous. Indeed, the claim does not make sense for him. The term ‘science’ refers not to a single entity, but rather to a complex and ever-changing array of practice, theories, values and institutions. Therefore to speak of science in the singular, let alone to describe it as ‘tyrannous’, is a category error. What Feyerabend does say in these lectures is that the modern sciences are far more complicated than is often supposed and that these complexities need to be examined and understood, because they are implicated both in long-standing philosophical disputes and in contemporary social and political problems.

These lectures reflect Feyerabend's uniquely pluralistic approach to the history and philosophy of science. In order to explore the political, social and intellectual aspects of the modern sciences, we are treated to the immense learning and intellectual agility of which Feyerabend was capable. His immense erudition is in evidence, as he moves easily from physics to classics, mathematics to philosophy, Lessing and Corneille's theories of tragedy to irrational proofs in mathematics, and always back to his beloved ancient Greeks. The lectures here are reproduced verbatim and they preserve Feyerabend's flexibility of style: he moves easily from one subject to another, introducing themes, developing them, then darting off to a parallel debate elsewhere, only to return, newly informed and enlightened. For this reason, the lectures are engaging, educative and entertaining – public lecturing at its best.

Notable, too, is Feyerabend's emphasis upon history and context. There are no ‘grand narratives’ or ‘rational reconstructions’ here, only carefully selected and developed descriptions of historical and biographical context. Although Feyerabend makes no sweeping generalizations, one leitmotif apparent in these lectures is the existence of a historically persistent tension concerning the nature of knowledge with implications for human life and inquiry. Taking his cue from Michael Polanyi, Feyerabend explains that our practical engagement with the world yields us a vast body of knowledge which cannot be wholly articulated, yet it discloses to us a rich, varied universe. This practical knowledge arises from our status as embodied, inquiring beings that both inhabit and modify their social and physical environment. Alongside this practical knowledge, there is also a considerable body of theoretical knowledge – that expressed in the scientific, philosophical and mathematical abstractions. For much of the history of science, these two aspects were in harmony, but today, alleges Feyerabend, they are in conflict – partly due to the deleterious legacy of the logical positivists, which has not yet wholly been compensated for by careful historical and philosophical studies of scientific practices.

Feyerabend is not opposed to theoretical knowledge. Nor does he think that the distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge is sharp or even necessarily genuine. The point is that ongoing scientific innovation and creativity require us to acknowledge the complex interactions – between theory and practice, philosophy and science, science and society, and so on. Appreciating science as performed by embodied creatures, socially and historically situated and operating with certain philosophical presuppositions, will not only give us a clearer idea of the nature of scientific inquiry, but also help to reintegrate science, philosophy and society.

Feyerabend offers an optimistic and humane vision. Human beings are epistemic marvels, able to generate not only practical knowledge, based upon their everyday activities, but also startling theoretical structures. Such intellectual achievements are informed by our social, emotional, religious and creative capacities; we have ideas about the world – about Truth, the Good, and the like – which we play with and develop. Our cognitive and creative capacities have produced a wonderful ‘abundance’, which affords us multiple alternative conceptions of reality and, with them, ways of living within the world in a meaningful way. Feyerabend obviously delights in this pluralistic vision, hence his hostility to those scientists and philosophers who ‘think they have nailed things down’, only to be subsequently humbled as they ‘catch up with ambiguity later’ (pp. 86–87).

Science appears during these lectures as a powerful force for good. However, its positive and emancipatory potential is contingent upon our being able to understand and appreciate it in all its context and complexity. Feyerabend also offers a political thought: such engagement with and application of science will be a fundamentally social and political process. One must consult those who are affected by scientific knowledge and products as much as with those who produce them. Putting that into practice is another matter, of course, but certainly these lectures offer a persuasive case for Feyerabend's deeply pluralistic, humane insistence that one should be suspicious of those who ‘start believing that their way is the only way’ (p. 112).

Perhaps the new title of these lectures is apt in one sense. Although science is not a tyranny in itself, certain of those persons engaged in it have the potential to become tyrants – and the critical vigilance of scholars and laymen is urgently needed to prevent it. In any case, Feyerabend offers an intriguing, entertaining and very original application of the history and philosophy of science to contemporary social, intellectual and political issues.