Paul Feyerabend
Paul Feyerabend (1924 - February 11, 1994) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science, who later lived in England, the United States and New Zealand. His most famous works include Against Method (published in 1975), and Farewell to Reason (collection of his papers published in 1987).Feyerabend commenced an eclectic intellectual life reading history, sociology and then theoretical physics. He appears to have followed the logical positivism of the Vienna School, then coming under the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. He was accepted as a student by Wittgenstein, who died before Feyerabend moved to England. Feyerabend then studied under Popper. It was at the LSU that he met another of Popper’s students, Imre Lakatos.
Lakatos' sudden death put an end to a planed joint publication, but Feyerabend went on to write his most famous criticism of methodology, first as an article and then as a book entitled ''Against Method'.
Feyerabend argued that descriptions of the scientific method do not match how scientific discoveries have actually occurred in history. Feyerabend objected to any single prescriptive scientific method on the grounds that any such method would limit the activities of scientists, and hence restrict scientific progress. He supported this position with detailed and meticulous examinations of the history of science, showing repeatedly how new theories came to be accepted not because of their accord with scientific method, but because their supporters made use of any trick- rational, rhetorical or ribald, in order to advance their cause. Without a fixed ideology, or the introduction of religious tendencies, the only approach which does not inhibit progress (using whichever definition of progress you see fit) is "anything goes": "'anything goes' is not a 'principle' I hold [...] but the terrified exclamation of a rationalist who takes a closer look at history." (Feyerabend, 1975).
There is passion and energy in Feyerabend's writings unequaled by other philosophers of science. In his autobiography Killing Time he reveals that this came at great cost to himself. Following the initial reviews of Against Method, which were overwhelmingly negative, he fell into a deep depression.
- The depression stayed with me for over a year; it was like an animal, a well-defined, spatially localizable thing. I would wake up, open my eyes, listen --Is it here or isn't? No sign of it. Perhaps it's asleep. Perhaps it will leave me alone today. Carefully, very carefully, I get out of bed. All is quiet. I go to the kitchen, start breakfast. Not a sound. TV -Good Morning America-, David What's-his-name, a guy I can't stand. I eat and watch the guests. Slowly the food fills my stomach and gives me strength. Now a quick excursion to the bathroom, and out for my morning walk -and here she is, my faithful depression: "Did you think you could leave without me?"
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