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Without Constant Misuse of Languge There cannot be any discovery , any progess. Paul Feyerabend
Born to a seamstress and a civil Servant in Vienna Austria -
Drafted
Drafted into the Pioneer Corps of the German army. After basic training, volunteered for Officers’ School. -
Period: to
WWII
1944 Feyeraband was Decorated with the Iron Cross. Promoted to Lieutenant. he also Lectured in Officers’ School.
1945 Shot in the hand and in the belly during the retreat from the Russian Army. The bullet damaged his spinal nerves. -
Change to physics
Feyerabend Returned to Vienna to study history and sociology at the University. though he Soon transferred in to physics. Feyerabend first article, was on the concept of illustration in modern physics. -
Thesis in Philosophy
Feyerabend Received a doctorate in philosophy for his thesis on “basic statements”. Applied for a British Council scholarship to study under Wittgenstein at Cambridge. But Wittgenstein died before Feyerabend arrived in England, so Feyerabend chose Popper as his supervisor instead. -
Quantum Mechanics
Feyerabend writes his First articles on quantum mechanics. -
First Adademic Job
Feyerabend takes his full-time academic job as lecturer in philosophy at the University of Bristol, England. His summary of Philosophical Investigations appeared as a review of the book in The Philosophical Review. -
Quantum Theory
Gave a paper on the quantum theory of measurement to the Colston Research Symposium -
Early Papers
Feyerabend visiting lectures at the University of California, erkeley. Two of his most important early papers, “An Attempt at a Realistic Interpretation of Experience”, and “Complementarity” . In them, Feyerabend argued against positivism and in favour of a scientific realist account of the relation between theory and experience, -
Moves to the US
Accepted a permanent position at Berkeley, and applied for a Green Card to work in the US. -
All Entities are Hypothetical
Feyerabend published “Das Problem der Existenz theoretischer Entitäten”, in which he argued that there is no special “problem” of theoretical entities, and that all entities are hypothetical. -
Against Method
Feyerabend’s book, Against Method, “epistemological anarchism”, whose main thesis was that there is no such thing as the scientific method. Great scientists are methodological opportunists who use any idea that come to hand, even if they violate canons of the empiricist methodology. -
Change, but no progess
Publishes “Science as an Art”, in which he defends an explicitly relativistic account of the history of science according to which there is change, but no “progress”. -
Farewell
Publication of Farewell to Reason, a collection of the papers Feyerabend had published between 1981 and 1987. -
Period: to
Against Method
The Against Method was revised a second and a third time. adding in science in a free society, and removing history of the visual arts. -
End of an era
Feyerabend died in Switzerland February 11th. Several major memorial symposium on his work took place over the next two years. -
Killing Time
Killing time an autobiography is published