Paul feyerabend berkeley

Paul Feyerabend

By MrMatos

  • Paul Feyerabend

    Born January 13 1924 and died Feb 11, 1994 at the age of 70.

  • Follower of Popper

    Paul Feyerabend used to follow Popper's idea of scientific testing. He wrote papers defending Poppers idea of the scientific method and how testing should be conducted. He later, however, moved to a more liberal view of science. He was known as the "Worst enemy of Science" in a paper published by 'Nature'.

  • Falsificationism

    Feyerabend disagreed with falsificationism saying that all the facts could not or ever be possibly known. Due to this, theories can never be proven false just because we don't agree with the theory based off known facts at the time.

  • The Tower Argument

    Feyerabend used the tower argument to support his stance. This argument states that if a stone was dropped from a tower to the ground below, the stone would be 'left behind' by the earth since. If the stone dropped straight down then the earth was not in motion. This he argued was true at the of Aristotle due to the known facts but was later hypothesized against by Galileo based of new evidence and facts.

  • New Theories

    Feyerabend argued that new theories were not reliable when the scientific method was used to develop those theories. He said the supporters of the method would use tricks so as to push forward the theory being proposed. He believed the only way to counter this was to make science without a set method. He said "'anything goes' is not a 'principle' I hold… but the terrified exclamation of a rationalist who takes a closer look at history." (Dirac)

  • The Tyranny of Science

    This book was written by Paul Feyerabend and published 2 years after his death.

  • Works Cited

    Dirac, Paul. “Paul Feyerabend”. New World Encyclopedia. January 7th, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Paul_Feyerabend Image. “The philosopher Paul Feyerabend in Berkeley.” Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend#/media/File:Paul_Feyerabend_Berkeley.jpg Retrieved on October 15, 2010 Image. "The Tyranny of Science" Retrieved from http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41mlAzVYmmL._SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_.jpg Retrieved on October 15, 2020