Paul feyerabend

Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994)

  • The Kraft Circle

    Feyerabend's earliest philosophical works come from his time as the student leader of the Kraft circle, a philosophy club who “considering philosophical problems in a nonmetaphysical manner and with special reference to the findings of the sciences (Preston)". Viktor Kraft also became Feyerabend's dissertation supervisor.
  • Feyerabend studies under Popper

    Popper helps shape Feyerabend's early work in the philosophy of science as a falsificationist. He was an unorthodox falsificationist, although, claiming "the tenacity with which scientists should defend their theories, and allowing that scientific theories can start by being untestable," (Preston) unlike the strictest of faslsificationists. In his later works he goes on to being one of Popper's harshest critics.
  • “An Attempt at a Realistic Interpretation of Experience”

    His most important of his early publications, “An Attempt at a Realistic Interpretation of Experience” is published. Mirroring Popper's views, Feyerabend makes the argument against positivism and in favor of a scientific realist account of the relation between theory and experience. He introduces the stability thesis that states; "the interpretation of an observation-language is determined by the theories which we use to explain what we observe, and it changes as soon as those theories change. "
  • Against Method

    [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85pzjUvBZSI&t=40s]
    Against Method was Feyerabend's most famous work. Within it, he makes his most famous claims of "anything goes" in science. He argued for epistemological anarchism, opposing all rules and constraints to science. Science is a free and creative enterprise, he argued, and rules only hinder true science. "anything goes" to Feyerabend, is the only rule that truly works for the epistemological anarchist.