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Life of Paul Feyerabend
Paul Feyerabend was born in Vienna and died in 1994. -
Drafted into the German Arbeitsdienst
On April 01, 1942 Feyerabend was drafted into the German Arbeitsdienst. A major organization established in Nazi Germany to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the German economy. He was stationed in Quelerne en Bas, France. According to Paul, he described the work he did during that period as monotonous: "we moved around in the country side, dug ditches, and filled them up again." -
Meeting Karl Popper
After the war, Feyerabend took various classes in different academies and universities. First studying History and sociology in Vienna, he eventually became dissatisfied, so he switched to physics. After exploring physics, he changed his course of studies to philosophy, which is around the time where he first me Karl Popper. -
Early Works
During 1957 Feyerabend was a professor at the University of Berkeley. He wrote 2 of his most important early papers there, "An Attempt at Realistic Interpretation of Experience" and "Complimentary". In these papers he argued against positivism and in favor of scientific real accounts of the relation between theory and experience. These were largely influenced by Karl Popper's view of Falsification. -
"Against Method"
Feyerabend published his first book "Against Method". It was about epistemological anarchism, which its main idea being that there is no such thing as scientific method. He believed that accepting the idea that full on creativity and out of the box thinking was the way to go in order to progress in science. This was one of the most controversial methods that shook most of the major ideas and beliefs in science. -
Interview with Paul Feyerabend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDwoGtPbO5w "My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is, rather, to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits." -Paul Feyerabend, p.24, Against Method -
Final Days
Paul spent most of his final days writing his autobiography.
