Feyerabend 4

Paul Karl Feyerabend 1924-1994

By Mitchell_Epler_23

  • Birth

    Paul Karl Feyerabend was born in Vienna, Austria. He took up reading and theatre as a hobby as well as taking singing lessons. He graduated from high school in 1942 and was drafted into the German Arbeitsdienst or Labor Force during World War 2.
  • Period: to

    Service in WW2

    Feyerabend was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Labour Service) in 1942. He would do a short tour in western France before attending officer school in the German Army. From December 1943 to the end of the war, Feryerbend was stationed along the Eastern Front. Feyerabend reached the rank of Lieutenant and received the Iron Cross. In 1945 Feyerabend was shot three times during a German retreat, including one shot to the spine, which left him temporarily paralyzed.

  • Poppers Protege

    Feyerabend would travel to London, where he studied under Karl Popper. Feyerabend would study Popper's philosophy of Faslificationism and argue its inadequacy in science.

  • UC Berkeley

    UC Berkeley
    Feyerabend moved to the University of California Berkeley and became a US Citizen. He would stay at UC Berkeley for 31 years.

  • Science's "Worst Enemy"

    Science's "Worst Enemy"
    Feyerabend’s first major work “Explanation, Reduction, and Empiricism” is published and where he criticizes empiricists' views of science. He advocated for science to be chaotic and without rules or methods. This stance went against the ideas of Thomas Kuhn and many other philosophers of the time.

  • "Anything Goes"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coJF--qWeVc

  • Against Method

    Against Method
    Paul Feyerabend's most notable work "Against Method" is published. In his book, he says there is no such thing as the scientific method and that science had become rigid and oppressive. Feyerabend coins himself as an Epistemological Anarchist, which holds the idea that Science being restricted to fixed methods, rules, and practices, is detrimental to science.

  • Later Works

    Later Works
    Feyerabend would publish a combination of essays in a book called "Farewell to Reason." In this book he wanted to bring the light the idea that diversity was important in the world of science. The book would be generally unsuccessful due to the wide majority of philosophers having such an entrenched mindset at how science was to be conducted.

  • Death

    Death
    Paul Karl Feyerabend would pass away due to a brain tumor in Geneva, Switzerland.

  • Paul Feyerabends Notable Works

    Explanation, Reduction, and Empiricism (1962)
    Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (1975)
    Science in a Free Society (1978)
    Realism, Rationalism and Scientific Method: Philosophical papers, Volume 1 (1981)
    Problems of Empiricism: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2 (1981)
    Farewell to Reason (1987)
    Three Dialogues on Knowledge (1991)
    Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend (1995)

  • Works Cited

    “Farewell to Reason.” Only a Game, 29 June 2006, onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2006/06/farewell_to_rea.html. "Philosophy of Science 10 - Against Method 1" Youtube, uploaded by
    Kane B, Aug 17, 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXgIKGBJq4s Preston, John. “Paul Feyerabend.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 26 Aug. 1997, plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/feyerabend/.