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Early Studies
After the second world war Paul Feyerabend studied history, sociology, and physics in Vienna. After meeting Felix Erenhaft, a scientist that would greatly influence his views on the philosophy if science, Paul Feyerabend changed his studies to philosophy and submitted a thesis on observation sentences. In 1948 he met Karl Popper, and for a time he supported Popper's ideas, but would eventually grow to oppose Popper and the idea of falsification. -
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Development of Anarchistic Views
During this time period Paul Feyerabend lectured at many different universities in both the United States and Europe. While lecturing at these schools, he developed his anarchistic views of science and completely rejected the common idea that science must have a set of rules and a method by which it is conducted. -
Against Method
Paul Feyerabend collaborated with a student of Popper's, Imre Lakatos, in order to write a joint publication in which Lakatos would argue for a rationalistic view of science and Feyerabend would argue against it. Before the work could be finished however, Lakatos died, leaving Feyerabend to publish his half of the work by itself, which he entitled "Against Method." It argues against a set method and rule of conducting scientific research and presenting findings. -
Science In A Free Society
Paul Feyerabend further expanded upon his ideas of anarchism in science by publishing another work entitled "Science In A Free Society." In it, he argues that having a set of rules that scientists must follow will greatly limit their ability to experiment and achieve their desired findings. He also argued that having rules will remove the humanitarian aspect of science, reducing scientists to more machine like thinkers that would cause more harm than good.
