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The Early Years
Paul Feyerabend, born in Vienna during the fallout of the first World War. In school he found his love for science drawing inspiration from the works of Ernst Mach and Hugo Dingler (Horgan, 2016). After Highschool Feyerabend was drafted into the German Army in 1942. During his time in the Army he gave many lectures at the officer school in Dessau Rosslau, with a historicist approach. Feyerabend served in the army until he was injured in 1945, the war ended during his recovery (Preston, 2016). -
The University of Vienna and the Austrian College Society
At the University of Vienna, Feyerabend focused on history and sociology before he returned to physics. He would invite himself into philosophy lectures which caused his interest in the subject to grow forming his positivist approach that science is the foundation of knowledge. In August of 1948 he attended the first seminar of the Austrian College Society at Alpbach where he met Karl Popper whom would go on to influence one of his greatest works (Preston, 2016). -
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Wittgenstein and the Kraft Circle
Feyerabend became the student leader of the Kraft Circle where his positivist approach grew as problems in philosophy where discussed with scientific findings in mind. During this time, he was introduced to Wittgenstein, a guest speaker at the Circle, leading his London transfer where he would study under him. Unfortunately, Wittgenstein passed before the transfer completed, though his works still inspired Feyerabend (Preston, 2016). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL600Mafzf0 -
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London and Popper
Feyerabend studied under Popper at the London School of Economics where Popper would show that simplistic ideas and requirements brought order to the complex research process, this would lead Feyerabend to consider falsificationism for a time. In 1952 he presented his ideas for scientific change at Popper’s LSE seminar forming his view of hidden variables concerning defined facts that may depend on unforeseen circumstances to little support (Preston, 2016). -
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America and the Stability Thesis
1957 saw Feyerabend in America where “An Attempt at a Realistic Interpretation of Experience” was published. Influenced by Popper and Wittgenstein, he reevaluated the relationship between theories and experiences creating his stability thesis (Preston, 2016) . Feyerabend defined this as “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” (Feyerabend, 1996). -
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Theoretical Pluralism
Feyerabend formed the idea of theoretical pluralism, which theorized that creating numerous incompatible theories increases the number of falsifiers, which therefore increases the test-ability of theories. Evidence of this was found in his papers “How to be a Good Empiricist” and “Problems of Empiricism”. In 1969 “Science Without Experience” stated that experience isn’t needed in the creation or testing of empirical theories, showing his move away from empiricist traditions (Feyerabend, 1996). -
Against Method "Anything Goes"
In 1970 Feyerabend rejected falsificationism, and wrote a new view in his book “Against Method”. Originally intended to be a collaboration with Lakatos where they would take dichotomous views, Feyerabend argued against a rationalist viewpoint. At this time he had abandoned not only his pluralistic views, but all methodology (Preston, 2016). He believed that no useful or exception-less methods governed science, for restricting science to one methodology would destroy it (Horgan, 2016).
