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Birth
Paul Karl Feyerabend was born in Vienna into a middle-class family. His father was a civil servant, and his mother was a seamstress. -
Period: to
Military Service
Feyerabend was drafted into the Arbeisdienst in 1942 and completed basic training in Germany. After a year of service in the second world war, he volunteered to become an officer to avoid front line fighting. In 1944, he advanced to Lieutenant for his role in leading men into a village under enemy fire. In 1945 his military service ended when he was shot by the Russian army. He was temporarily paralyzed for a year due to a bullet in his spine. -
University
Feyerabend returned to Vienna to study history and sociology at the University of Vienna's Institut für Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung. He was not happy with his path and changed to physics. -
Against Method
Feyerabend was no longer following falsification and wrote his own work called "Against Method" which lays out his own perspective on scientific method and criticizes other scientific methodology. Against Method, London: Verso, 1975. -
Death
Feyerabend passed away from a brain tumor in Switzerland overlooking Lake Geneva. He died just days after finishing the final chapter in his autobiography. -
Autobiography
Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend was published Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.