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Austrian-born philosopher of science known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley -
Started his studies in history and sociology in the University of Vienna, but soon after changed to physics and published his first article on the concept of illustration in modern physics. -
During his first visit to the Alpbach seminar (a platform for science, politics and business) he met Karl Popper and Walter Hollitscher. He attended the symposium about 15 times, 1st as a student, then as a lecturer and seminar chair. He was offered, and accepted, the post of “scientific secretary” to the society, and this he calls “the most decisive step of my life” (Science in a Free Society p. 70). He described himself as a "a raving positivist" at the time. -
He was the student leader of the Kraft Circle (philosophy club centered around Victor Kraft) they set themselves the task of “considering philosophical problems in a nonmetaphysical manner and with special reference to the findings of the sciences” (“Herbert Feigl: A Biographical Sketch”, in P. K.Feyerabend & G.Maxwell (eds.), Mind, Matter, and Method: Essays in Philosophy and Science in Honor of Herbert Feigl, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966), pp. 1–2)
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He completed his Thesis "Zur Theorie der Basissatze" in 1951under Victor Kraft supervision. He swapped to philosophy after after not being able to complete his electrodynamics problem. -
He presented his ideas on scientific change to Popper’s LSE seminar and a gathering of illustrious Wittgensteinians. His opinion, science became a repressing ideology. He thought that a pluralistic society should be protected from being influenced too much by science, just as it is protected from other ideologies. He had argued the naturalistic Theory of method which makes standards depend on practice. Falsificationism would destroy science as we know it. -
saw the publication of the first of Feyerabend’s many articles on the philosophy of quantum mechanics, the first fruits of the time he spent studying with Popper. In these publications, he generally took the line that the dominance achieved by the “Copenhagen Interpretation” of the quantum theory was undeserved. -
Feyerabend’s articles on Wittgenstein culminated in his review of the Philosophical Investigations.. (“Being of a pedantic turn of mind”, he says, “I rewrote the book so that it looked more like a treatise with a continuous argument”. (SFS, p. 116)). Anscombe translated his summary into English and sent it to The Philosophical Review. It was accepted by the editor, Norman Malcolme, editor of Mind. This review was his first English publication; he called it his “Wittgensteinian monster” (p. 115). -
With the help of references from Popper and Erwin Schrödinger, as well as his own big mouth (SFS, p. 116, KT, p. 102), Feyerabend secured his first academic post lecturing in philosophy of science at the University of Bristol, England. -
Feyerabend published an article expanding on his critique of Wittgenstein book The Philosophical Investigations, In his review he argued that consideration of G.E.Moore’s famous “paradox of analysis” showed that “philosophy cannot be analytic and scientific, i.e., interesting, progressive, about a certain subject matter, informative at the same time” (“A Note on the Paradox of Analysis”, p. 95). Feyerabend thenceforth plumped for (what he conceived of as) scientific philosophy. -
During the Colston Research Symposium, he presented paper “On the Quantum Theory of Measurement”. This introduced what became the theme of his work: that there is no separate and neutral “observation-language” or “everyday language” against which the theoretical statements of science are tested, but that “the everyday level is part of the theoretical rather then something self-contained and independent” (Philosophical Papers, Volume I, p. 217). -
Feyerabend argued against positivism and in favor of a scientific realist account of the relation between theory and experience, largely on grounds familiar from Karl Popper’s falsificationist views. Positivist theories of meaning, he complained, have consequences which are “at variance with scientific method and reasonable philosophy” (Philosophical Papers, Volume 1, p. 17). -
He argued what is important about observation-sentences is not their having a special core of empirical meaning, but their causal role in the production and refutation of theories. -
Criticized existing empiricist accounts of explanation and theoretical reduction (Hempel, Nagel), and introduced the concept of incommensurability, based on the “contextual theory of meaning” which Feyerabend claimed to find in Wittgenstein’s Investigations. -
Paper summing up his point of view, was published, along with his two main articles on the Mind/Body Problem in which he introduced the position now known as “eliminative materialism”.
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in which Feyerabend made his last serious attempt to construct a “tolerant”, “disinfected” empiricism. Although beginning to put some distance between himself and Popper, Feyerabend was still able to write a glowing review of Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations. -
Focus of his published papers had by now moved to “theoretical pluralism”, the view that in order to maximize the chances of falsifying existing theories, scientists should construct and defend as many alternative theories as possible.
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Setting out “epistemological anarchism”, whose main thesis was that there is no such thing as the scientific method. Great scientists are methodological opportunists who use any moves that come to hand, even if they thereby violate canons of empiricist methodology -
Provided clarification of epistemological anarchism, and very little retreat from the position set out in Against Method. Explored further the political implications of epistemological anarchism. The book also included one of Feyerabend’s major endorsements of relativism, one of the views for which he was becoming known. -
Is a collection of papers published between 1981 and 1987 that puts relativism first and challenges other ideas -
Place of death: Genolier, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland -
John Preston. (1997, August 26). Paul Feyerabend. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved November 7, 2021, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feyerabend/Paul Feyerabend. (2008, May). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 7, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
