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Birth
Born in Vienna. -
Period: to
Paul Feyerabend
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Youtube Video
This was the best youtube video I could find on him which is kind of shocking, the rest were either incomprehensibly long, lectures, or in distracting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QgRFxr4tu8 -
First article on the philosophy of quantum mechanics
This article was one of the first that had actually taken the stance of saying that the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of the quantum theory didn't solve a lot of the problems that would microphysics or quantum mechanics still posed. He was on the side of the "hidden-variable" theorists that hypothesized an unobserved deterministic substructure that would later be discovered as true. -
First full-time academic job
He began teaching as a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Bristol, England. This was a big step as he had thought of pursuing a career in singing previously. This seems to be the turning point for him really cementing himself in the realm of Academics. -
The University of California at Berkeley.
Invited to spend one year in 1958 he accepted, when the year was over he was then invited to a full time position by the Berkeley administration, the merits of which were his publications and "of course, his big mouth." He had prior engagements and only started lecturing full time in 1960. -
Student Revolution.
In the mid to late 1960's Feyeraband got more involved in political questioning of science. This was defined as one of the defining periods of his intellectual life. "a time in which he became deeply suspicious of these intellecttuals and "Western rationalism" as a whole." He became distrustful of the Berkeley administration and had developed a rather callous attitude. Continued. -
Student Revolution Continued.
He wrote "For it dawned on me that the intricate arguments and the wonderful stories I had so far told to my more or less sophisticated audience might just be dreams, reflections of the conceit of a small group who had succeeded in enslaving everyone else with their ideas. Who was I to tell these people what and how to think" He started to develop more of this rationale of disputing everything, questioning everything. This would come help shape his ideologies down the line. -
Against Method
This book was the proverbial turning point, prior he had been arguing in favor of a pluralistic methodology. This book showed that he became dissatisfied with any methodology. He showed that Galileo had been making use of rhetoric, propaganda, and epistemological tricks to support his heliocentric position." He argued that the history of science was so complex that if peopled insisted on a general methodology it would be defined as "anything goes". This is considered his most successful work. -
Death
Aged 70 Paul Feyerabend died in Genolier, Vaud, Switzerland. -
Citations
Preston, John, "Paul Feyerabend", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/feyerabend/.