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Birth
Paul Karl Feyerabend was born in Vienna, Austria to Parents Rosa Ritz Feyerabend, who was a seamstress, and Paul Feyerabend who worked in civil service. -
Childhood
During Feyerabend's early childhood, Vienna was a very dangerous place. There were riots, hunger and unrest. Paul spent most of his time in their family's three bedroom apartment due to the dangers of the outside world. -
HIgh School
During High School, Feyerabend was considered to be exceptionally bright and was regarded by many as knowing more then his teachers. Paul also enjoyed drama and came to be fascinated with philosophy through plays and other theatrical works. Paul was convinced to take an interest in physics and science and gave a lecture on the subjects while still in High School. -
World War II
During the war, Feyerabend initially expressed an interest in staying as far away from the fighting as possible. After a while though, Paul, out of boredom asked to be transferred to a combat unit. He states that he doesn't have much recollection of his time during the war, but was awarded the Iron Cross for bravery during a battle with the Russians in 1944, eventually receiving a commission to Lieutenant. Paul was shot in the spine and paralyzed in 1945, during the retreat from the Russians. -
Post War
After the war, Feyerabend found work in the education department of the town of Apolda, He was put in charge of entertainment and worked there until he moved to Wiemar in 1946 to study cinema and stage management at Institut zur Methodologischen Erneuerung des Deutschen Theaters after recovering from his war wounds and regaining his ability to walk, albeit with a cane. -
University
In 1947, Feyerabend enrolled at university of Vienna to study Sociology and history but later switched to theoretical Physics and began to show interest in philosophy and adopted a radical positivism line of thinking that seemed to take a rigid view of what is science vs non-science. In 1948, he met Karl Popper, who would provide an influence that would alter his thinking and make him reconsider his stance on emperical vs non-emperical science. -
Kraft and Ehernhaft
In the early 50's, Feyerabend went to work for Victor Kraft as student supervisor for the Kraft circle while working on his Ph.D. During this time, Feyerabend would be influenced by some of the University's Physicists including Felix Eherenhart, who would become a major influence on the shift in Feyerabend's views on positivism. -
Popper
In 1952, Feyerabend attended a series of lectures by Popper at the London school of economics that further influenced and altered his views on science as being a rigid, linear pursuit. He began to see Popper's views on science not being a straightforward process with inflexible methods and rules. https://youtu.be/6QgRFxr4tu8 -
University of Bristol
Feyerabend got his first academic job lecturing on Philosophy at the University of Bristol and married a former student in 1956. -
UC Berkley
In 1958, Feyerabend took an appointment to lecture at UC Berkley, and by 1960 was there full-time and began publishing some of his most important papers.. -
New Zealand and Lakatos
In 1970, Feyerabend took a position at University of New Zealand where he and Lakatose, whom he was good friends with by this time gave a series of debates with opposing views on scientific method and rationalism. -
Anti-methodism in the 90's
in the 1990's, Feyerabend spend much of his time publishing papers that attacked emperialism and further explained his previous papers on his anti-method line of thinking. He also wrote papers on many other subjects such as physics.
https://youtu.be/GXgIKGBJq4s -
Death
Paul Karl Feyerabend died in Switzerland on February 11, 1994.