-
Paul Feyerabend's Birth
Paul Karl Feyerabend, aka P.K. Feyerabend, was born on January 13th, 1924 in Vienna. He would later become a Philosopher of Science and in some ways, one of Sciences worst critics. He would author many books that are for and against philosophies that were presented during the close of the century.
"Paul Feyerabend." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2019. Web. 5 May 2019. https://www.biographies.net/people/en/paul_feyerabend>. -
Feyerabend Serves in the Reich Labour Service & Joins Wehrmacht Pioneer Corps
After spending a short time in the Reich Labour Service, which was Nazi Germany's solution for employment. He joined the Wehrmacht Pioneer Corps. Despite the fact he was modest about his view of himself as a soldier, he was awarded the Iron Cross for his displays of leadership in combat in enemy territory. In July he would discover his mother's suicide but was reportedly had little effect on him since he promoted quickly through the ranks from private to lieutenant by 1944. -
Iron Cross & the End of the War for Feyerabend
March 1944, Paul K. Feyerabend earns the Iron Cross for leadership while leading a retreat from the Russians. In 1945, Feyerband would get shot while performing another act of heroism, while retreating from Russian soldiers. He was shot three times, suffering one of them to the spine, which would result in his spending the rest of the war recovering from his injuries which would cause him to walk with a cane for the rest of his life. He was glad the war was over. -
P.K. Feyerabend Meets Popper
Feyerabend returns to Vienna and meets Popper at the international summer seminar of the Austrian College Society in Alpbach. After being bored with history, he studied theoretical physics. This is was the time period in which he was introduced to Marxism, as well as Popper's falsification. He would later go on to work under Popper, who would prove to be influential to his career in Scientific Philosophy. Feyerabend takes on a positivist scientific approach. -
Feyerabend Argues Realism
Here is where Feyerabend argues that science needs realism to advance through positivism. Although his views were parallel to Popper's approach, these views would mature and change throughout the years as he progressed through life. He would join the Vienna Circle, and later become a critic of philosophy itself. In his autobiography, Feyerabend would describe Popper as the single most influential philosopher in his life. He would adopt his approach and defend it, for now. -
Against Method
Popper abandons the Falsification method and wrote the article, Against Method". Lakatos and Feyerabend would work together to write a debate article, "The For or Against Method", where Feyerabend would attack the rationalist methods proposed by Lakatos. Lakatos death would end this project. During this time Feyerabend would revolutionize the scientific world by questioning everything. He would take on a radical approach that would later dub him as the epistemological anarchist. -
Science in a Free Society
"The Against Method", was harshly criticized. Feyerabend's reaction to this was to turn the tables and write "Science in a Free Society, Conversations with Illiterates." Here is he pointed out that critics were unable to accept playfulness. He argued science was a threat to society. He left academia after ten years of teaching between Berkley University and in Switzerland. He found his mother's suicide note and start his autobiography.
https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2020263 -
Epistemological Anarchism
Feyerabend challenges everything. He attacks relativism, realism, rationalism. Asks the questions of whether or not is it what it is. His "anything goes", approach to science was that science was the only thing that was absolute was that there were no absolutes. He aimed to dispute the empirical methods he once so wholeheartedly supported in his earlier years, believing science was incomplete and un-unified. He posed the questions, what is science? What is knowledge? -
Feyerabend's Death
P.K. Feyerabend dies from a brain tumor. Weeks prior to his death, he would finish his autobiography, "Killing Time", which would recount his life, unlike other autobiographies. Here Feyerabend would share his life's moments and his thoughts and feelings, in almost no particular order. His true character would shine through as he even made jokes within his writing.
The picture is a memorial in Vienna to the late P.K. Feyerabend.
