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Feyerabend's unpublished dissertation
This dissertation is contains Feyerabend's first development of the notion of incommensurability. ... Read more

Amazon.com
If you view the Philosophy professor as a stodgy old curmudgeon wrapped up in theories, and forever spouting eminently sensible nonsense, Paul Feyerabend's autobiography may change your view. Then again, it may not, because he held the same view himself. Iconoclast, non-conformist and brilliant philosopher, Feyerabend reveals his roots through unadorned, journalist-style prose -- his childhood in Vienna, his aspirations to sing opera, his stint in World War II as a German soldier, his time with Popper in London, his love affairs, marriage and even a little philosophy for good measure.Book Description

Customer Reviews (12)

Scènes de la vie de bohème
In his book `Reason and Culture', Ernest Gellner points his finger at certain philosophers of science for undermining reason. One of the culprits is Paul Feyerabend.
This autobiography is very revealing indeed. It gives an in depth view of Feyerabend's eventful life, his difficult character, his fierce philosophical battles, his profound (physical and intellectual) loves and his (self-) inflicted deceptions.
As young soldier, he was physically heavily marked by World War II, but astonishingly his fighting spirit was enhanced. On the other hand, was this experience not a main reason for his deep pessimism: `Me? A family? Children? Not on this planet!' He called himself an `icy egotist'. All his life he had violent outburst of inner rage: `We shall act in a barbaric way. We shall punish, kill, meet violence with violence.'
During the war, he was lived, as Nietzsche said: `the aims of Nazism - I hardly knew what they were.' Already then for him, `a clean moral vision implies simplifications and acts of cruelty and injustice.'
After the war, he had to choose between a career as a professional singer (he had a beautiful voice and loved opera) or as a scientist. He became a philosopher of science.
But now the intellectual caste became the target of his violent attacks: `intellectuals prepare a New Age of ignorance, darkness and slavery.' His main foe was the man he saw as the new POP(p)E(r) of philosophy.
Overreactions and exaggerations made him even return to animism: `two types of tumors to be removed - philosophy of science and general philosophy (ethics, epistemology etc.) ... Nor is there one way of knowing, science. There are many such ways, and before they were ruined by Western civilization, they were effective in the sense that they kept people alive and made their existence comprehensible.'??
His anger culminated in his best known book `Against Method', called by his caste `anything goes'. Already the title is a provocation. It provoked an avalanche of devastating reviews which traumatized him deeply. He defends himself: `I never denigrated reason, only some petrified and tyrannical versions of it.'
After meeting the love of his life, the rebel (sometimes without a cause) became less caustic, and even wanted children.

All in all, this book is a fascinating read.

moving
One of the most moving, insightful, and honest autobiographies I've ever read. Unduly influenced by the standard ignorant rap on Against Method, I was also very surprised. Get it, especially if you have a background in math, physics, philosophy, or even music.

An awesome spiritual odyssee
This is a slim volume, barely 200 pages, but it charts an awesome spiritual odyssee. Paul Feyerabend - enfant terrible of late 20th century philosophy - looked ruthlessly in the mirror and painted an unadorned picture of himself. At the end of his life, he painfully recognised that its course had been shaped by absences, rather than by specific events or, for that matter, ideas: absence of purpose, of content, of a focused interest, absence of moral character, absence of warmth and of social relationships.

Only when Feyerabend approached the final fifteen years of his life and settled as a professor in the philosophy of science in Zürich - after having lectured four decades at Anglo-American universities - he started to relax. And eventually, a woman came and set things right. In 1983 he met the Italian physicist Grazia Borrini for the first time. Five years later they married. His relationship with Mrs. Borrini must have been the single most important event in Feyerabend's life. Reading his autobiography is an experience akin to listening to Sibelius' tone-poem 'Nightride and Sunrise': after 1983 the colours change dramatically and his prose is infused with warmth and immense gratefulness. It is a delight to read his rapt eulogies on the companion of the last decade of his life, on his most fortunate discovery of true love and friendship. Indeed, although Feyerabend is not interested in 'spoiling' his autobiography with an extensive reiteration of his philosophical positions, there are a few messages he clearly wants to drive home. The central role in life of love and friendship is one of them. Without these "even the noblest achievements and the most fundamental principles remain pale, empty and dangerous" (p. 173). Yet, Feyerabend clearly wants us to see that this love "is a gift, not an achievement" (p. 173). It is something which is subjected neither to the intellect, nor to the will, but is the result of a fortunate constellation of circumstances.

The same applies to the acquisition of 'moral character'. This too "cannot be created by argument, 'education' or an act of will." (p.174). Yet, it is only in the context of a moral character - something which Feyerabend confesses to having only acquired a trace of after a long life and the good fortune of having met Grazia - that ethical categories such as guilt, responsibility and obligation acquire a meaning. "They are empty words, even obstacles, when it is lacking." (p.174) (Consequently, he did not think himself responsible for his behavior during the Nazi period).

Contrary to someone like Karl Kraus, Feyerabend seems to think that men, at least as long as they have not acquired moral character, are morally neutral, whilst ideas are not. A question which remains, of course, is who is to be held responsible for intellectual aberrations and intentional obfuscation if this character is only to be acquired by an act of grace, an accidental constellation of circumstances.

There is an enigmatic passage in the autobiography which may shed light on this important problem. After having seen a performance of Shakespeare's Richard II, in which the protagonist undoes himself of all his royal insigna, thereby relinquishing not just "a social role but his very individuality, those features of his character that separated him from other", Feyerabend notes that the "dark, unwieldy, clumsy, helpless creature that appeared seemed freer and safer, despite prison and death, than what he had left behind." (p. 172) It prompts him to the insight that "the sum of our works and/or deeds does not constitute a life. These . . . are like debris on an ocean . . . They may even form a solid platform, thus creating an illusion of universality, security, and permanence. Yet the security and the permanence can be swept away by the powers that permitted them to arise." (p. 172) These ideas do not exactly solve the question about moral responsibility, but they do suggest a tragic 'Lebensgefühl' - an acknowledgment of the fact that the spheres of reason, order and justice are terribly limited and that no progress in our science and technical resources will change their relevance - which seems to underpin Feyerabends very earthbound philosophy.

The impotent Don Juan cared more for opera than philosophy
Typical Feyerabend arrogance, spiced with unbearable charm.Brimming with intimate details of his sexual experiences, fighting with the Nazi Army on the Western Front, his lifelong (almost) apathy toward academic philosophy, and his real passion: opera singing.Philosophy, it turns out, was "just a job."I had *no* idea that Paul Feyerabend once possessed a "world voice" for opera.It was opera he loved.About 1/3 of the story is about operas he'd seen worldwide, who sang the roles, his critical opinion of the singing!

Also includes his bookish, only-child upbringing; his horribly depressed mother and her suicide in his teens; his adult depressions; his affairs and marriages; and finally, his mature love for the beautiful Graziana, which allowed him some actual truth in this life.It ends with Graziana's reminder that most of Feyerabend's life was spent in chronic pain, the result of a gunshot to his groin during the Nazi retreat from Russia.That was the injury which rendered him sexually impotent at 20 - a recurring theme in the story.

By the last page, I was in tears.Imagine tears of compassion after reading the words of that anarchist maniac who wrote "Against Method"!!But tears there were.It's a very good book.

Killing Time
This is one of the most touching autobiography I have read.PaulFeyerabend was not only an important thinker or philosopher, I was also aninteresting human being.It is not, however, so much his story that isintriguing as it is the moral we can draw from his experiences that isilluminating.Perhaps the most valuable counsel he gives us in this bookis the following:"If you want to achieve something, if you want towrite a book, paint a picture, be sure that the center of your existence issomewhere else and that it's solidly grounded; only then will you be ableto keep your cool and laugh at the attacks that are bound tocome"(147).I think any student of philosophy, literature and thearts should take this advice to heart.Feyerabend is one of the rarephilosophers who realized that, after all, a worthwile life is not onedevoted to abstract thinking but one devoted to love.As he says,"There are strong inclinations after all;...they are not about abstractthings such as solitude or intellectual achievements but about a live humanbeing"(169).I cannot but recommend you to read this veryenlightening autobiography.Vladimir Pintro, studentof philosophy at S.U.N.Y. ... Read more

Book Description
Criticism and the History of Science deals with Thomas Kuhn's,ImreLakatos's and Paul Feyerabend's criticism of Karl Popper'sfalsificationistconception of science. It argues that this criticismis based on two importantmethodological problems: the problem thatobservations and tests statementsare fallible and impregnated withtheory, and the problem of how to testcomplex theoretical systems. Inorder to solve these problems it shows howproblematic test statementscan be criticised and whole theoretical systemsfalsified. In this waythe falsificationist conception of science is developedand defendedin a way making a deeper understanding of science and its history possible. ... Read more

Book Description
Every philosopher of science, and every student of the philosophy of science, has heard of Paul Feyerabend: the iconoclast who supposedly asserted that science is not rational, nor objective, but is characterised by anarchism, relativism, subjectivism and power. In this book it is argued that this picture of Feyerabend is false. Though Feyerabend was an iconoclast, his destructive philosophy was also creative. Feyerabend was deeply critical of a particular theory of scientific rationality, herein labelled 'Rationalism' - characterised as the algorithmic application of universal, necessary, atemporal rules - but he did not completely reject the idea of scientific rationality. It is argued that Feyerabend implicitly supported an alternative theory of rationality, herein labelled tightrope-walking rationality, characterised as the context-sensitive balancing of inherently irreconcilable values.
The first half of the book deals with the entrenched misunderstandings of Feyerabend's philosophy that have arisen through a lack of appreciation of the target of Feyerabend's criticisms. The second half of the book brings together the positive elements to be found in Feyerabend's work, and presents these elements as a coherent alternative conception of scientific rationality.
This book is of interest to all philosophers of science, students of the philosophy of science, and anyone interested in science and the rationality of science. It constitutes the first book-length study of Feyerabend's post-1970 philosophy and will be an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to understand the views of one of the most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century. ... Read more

Book Description
This book is the first comprehensive critical study of the work of Paul Feyerabend, one of the foremost twentieth-century philosophers of science. The book traces the evolution of Feyerabend's thought, beginning with his early attempt to graft insights from Wittgenstein's conception of meaning onto Popper's falsificationist philosophy. The key elements of Feyerabend's model of the acquisition of knowledge are identified and critically evaluated. Feyerabend's early work emerges as a contribution to the historical approach to science with which he is usually associated. In his more notorious later work, Feyerabend claimed that there was, and should be, no such thing as the scientific method. The roots of Feyerabend's 'epistemological anarchism' are exposed and the weaknesses of his cultural relativism are brought out. Throughout the book, Preston discusses the influence of Feyerabend's thought on contemporary philosophers and traces his stimulating but divided legacy. The book will be of interest to students of philosophy, methodology and the social sciences. ... Read more

Book Description
This stimulating collection is devoted to the life and work of the most flamboyant of twentieth-century philosophers, Paul Feyerabend. Feyerabend's radical epistemological claims, and his stunning argument that there is no such thing as scientific method, were highly influential during his life and have only gained attention since his death in 1994. The essays that make up this volume, written by some of today's most respected philosophers of science, many of whom knew Feyerabend as students and colleagues, cover the diverse themes in his extensive body of work and present a personal account of this fascinating thinker. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Method in that madness
This series of essays reanimates the real Feyerbend, too often associated with a series of much denounced one-liners, such as the 'anything goes' pronouncement. In fact, Feyerbend rides the dialectical red zone in hairpin turns near the unexplored terrain where science fans, groupies, Darwin fanatics, and the 'anally overtrained' fear to tread, lest their weltanschaung be seen as Romantic poets once saw it. As a science fan myself, I can only watch in wonder and some sadness the 'social construction', in the age of Big Science, of something more sophisticated than, but not altogether different from, what the Church Fathers concocted from thin air, thereby freezing the minds of the many for millennia. It can't happen again, but it can attempt to happen again. That's the nice thing about science, you will lose all your paradigms, sooner better than later.

Where did that title really come from?
There is a very short explication of the title "The Worst Enemy ofScience" in the Preface (pp. v-vi, signed by Gonzalo Munevar), whereit is curtly stated:"Paul Feyerabend was once described in Nature as"The Worst Enemy of Science"."A more detailed referencethan this briefest of mentions is nowhere given in the whole book.Thebook naturally contains (like all Academic books) hundreds of other(scrupulously) full references of much lesser importance.What is theprecise Nature reference to Feyerabend as "The Worst Enemy ofScience"?Or is this a pure legend, perhaps invented by Feyerabendhimself (who loved exaggerations, farcical tricks, and hoaxes of the"Anything Goes" type) so as to bolster his well-deservednotoriety? ... Read more