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Birth
Paul Feyerabend was born in 1924 in Vienna. -
Major Work: Thesis I
While the development of "Thesis I" cannot be traced to any single paper or work of Feyerabend's, it is the most important contribution from his early works. Rather than experience and experiment helping us to form a theory, Thesis I states that our theories and pre-existing knowledge actually shape our experiences (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2016). According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2016) it is "a decisive break with the positivist conception of theories." -
Major Work: Against Method
Against Method is the most important work of Feyerabend's career and is largely unorthodox, sometimes described as "epistemological anarchism." In it, Feyerabend develops a kind of relativism that seeks to undermine the dominance that traditional scientific thought holds in western culture. He envisions a science without constraint in which new theories are constantly formulated to challenge established ones, without regard for any sort of guiding system or rules. (Godfrey-Smith, 2003) -
Death
Paul Feyerabend died on February 11th, 1994. -
Feyerabend and Kuhn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiNm5Ec-GuE This work discusses the interactions between Kuhn and Feyerabend while they were both at Berklee. It makes mention of their shared use of the terms incommensurability and their similarities and differences. -
References
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2016) Paul Feyerabend. Retrieved from: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feyerabend/ Godfrey-Smith, Peter (2003) Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from: http://ezproxy.apus.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=nlebk&AN=324622&site=ehost-live&scope=site