Paul

Paul Feyerabend Jan 13, 1924- Feb 11, 1994

  • Philosopher from Austria

    Feyerabend was born in 1924 in Vienna, where he attended primary and high school. In this period he got into the habit of frequent reading, developed an interest in theater, and started singing lessons.
  • Northern part of the Eastern Front

    December 1943 on, he served as an officer on the northern part of the Eastern Front, was decorated with an Iron cross, and attained the rank of lieutenant. When the German army started its retreat from the advancing Red Army, Feyerabend was hit by three bullets while directing traffic. One bullet hit him in the spine.
  • Post–WWII

    Feyerabend took various classes at the Wiemar Academy, and returned to Vienna to study history and sociology. He became dissatisfied, however, and soon transferred to physics. After meeting and being influenced by Felix Ehrenhaft, hes view of natural science shifted and changed his course of studies once again to philosophy, also submitted his final thesis on observation science.
  • Colleagues

    In 1955, He received his first academic appointment at the University of Bristol, where he gave lectures about the philosophy of science.Feyerabend met his colleagues of K. R. Popper, Imre Lakatos with whom he planned to write a dialogue volume in which Lakatos would defend a rationalist view of science and Feyerabend would attack it.
  • Against Method

    Feyerabend described science as being essentially anarchistic, obsessed with its own mythology, and as making claims to truth well beyond its actual capacity. He introduced these describes in his famous work "Against Methods".
  • His Influence extends

    Some of Feyerabend's work concerns the way in which people's perception of reality is influenced by various rules. In his last book, unfinished when he died, he talks of how our sense of reality is shaped and limited. Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction versus the Richness of Being bemoans the propensity we have of institutionalizing these limitations.
  • Final work and Death of Feyerabend

    The last philosophy book that Feyerabend finished is The Tyranny of Science (written 1993, published May 13, 2011). In it Feyerabend challenges what he sees in his view as some modern myths about science, e.g., he believes that the statement 'science is successful' is a myth. He passed away in 1994
  • Citation of major work/ video

    Feyerabend, Paul. Against Method. London: Verso, 1975
    Feyerabend, Paul. Science in a Free Society. London: New Left
    Books, 1978. Feyerabend, Paul. Philosphy of Nature. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.
    [link text]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dldwH8paLH8