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Early Beginnings
Paul Feyerabend was a wayward philosopher of the twentieth century. Born in Vienna, Austria Feyerabend admits to stumble on his career in philosophy by chance, after starting a career as a physicist and opera singer. He outwardly rejects the rigorous structure of scientific methods (Kidd, 2009). -
Epistemological Anarchist
Feyerabend's ideas of epistemology anarchism, is explained in his book Against Methods. With Feyerabend being the erratic thinker of this time Agains Methods had the general premise of disputing rather than pursuing strict methods of observation. -
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Conversation with Illiterates
After his book Against Methods was releases Feyerabend was shocked to be criticized so harshly by the readers of his book. Exclaiming that the readers had greatly misunderstood his argument that scientific method does not exist. In 1978 he followed up with the writings of Science in a Free Society, as further explanation for Against Methods. -
Conversation with Illiterates Continued
He wrote "A scientist, an artist, a citizen is not like a child who needs papa methodology and mama rationality to give him security and direction, he can take care of himself, for he is the inventor not only of laws, theories, pictures, plays, forms of music, ways of dealing with his fellow man, institutions, but also entire world view, he is the inventor of entire forms of like" (Feyerabend, 1978). -
...Last continuation!
It's not hard to imagine why Feyerabend had so much push back from the philosophy of science community. Many thinkers before him rationalized things using scientific methods. With Feyerabend and his free spirit towards science, many philosophers could not wrap their head around the lack of structure his arguments called for. -
Farewell to Reason
In Feyerabend's Farewell to Reason, he admits that much of his work does not focus on the discovery of science advances but rather a humanitarian achievement. An acceptance for how science shapes human well-being (Kidd, 2009). -
1987
In Farewell to reason he argues “diversity is beneficial while uniformity reduce our joys and our intellectual, emotional, and material resources.” -
Death
A rebel for his time and the philosophy of science, I much admire his disapproval for organized science. Towards the end of his career he was know as the the anti-science philosopher. Even with this reputation he influence many philosophers such as John Dupre and Cliff Hooker. Feyerabend's views and beliefs led the way for other philosophers to question science and the role science plays in our society (Preston, 2016)
