Paul Feyerabend: biography of this philosopher

When we think of science as a whole we can often get a somewhat romanticized idea of ​​something unified in its conception despite being able to be divided. in multiple disciplines, there being great coincidences in how the data is interpreted and what methodology is used in order to try to explain the reality. However, this is not so: throughout history there have been numerous ways of seeing and doing science, going through empiricism, rationalism or scientific realism, among others.

Each of these perspectives has different implications at the research level and has different considerations regarding what things are, how they should be investigated and even what effect the belief in a certain theory has on the phenomena observed. One of the most critical visions is that of Paul Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism. It is about this author that we are going to talk about in this article, in which we are going to carry out a short biography of Paul Feyerabend.

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Brief biography of Paul Feyerabend

Paul Karl Feyerabend was born in the city of Vienna in 1924, being the only son of a middle-class family in a time characterized by the famine after the First World War and the inflation that weighed down the country's economy. From a civil servant father and a seamstress mother, he was born at an advanced age due to the difficulties of life at that time.

Already from childhood he showed great intelligence. He studied at a Realgymnasium in his hometown, learning natural sciences, Latin and English and obtaining very high marks. Likewise, in some subjects such as physics and mathematics he seemed to have a greater command even than his own teachers. Also would display certain eccentric, ironic and sarcastic behavior, to the point of being expelled from school.

During this same life stage he began to acquire a great taste for reading (including books on philosophy, a subject he would begin to interest him and in which he would stand out many years later), theater and singing (even taking classes in the latter and participating in choirs).

When in 1938 Germany annexed Austria to the Third Reich, his parents were happy about it and the young Feyerabend (at that time a teenager) was left impressed by Hitler's oratory, although he would never become an extremist supporter of the nazis. According to his own autobiography, those years prior to World War II in which he would observe political changes and ethnic persecutions were confusing for him.

The Second World War

World War II would break out in 1939, a year before Feyerabend graduated from high school. Once graduated, in 1940, he was enlisted in the Nazi-introduced compulsory labor service, the Arbeitsdienst. After being trained in Pirmasens he would be sent to France, carrying out the task of digging and preparing trenches. At that time he would begin to value the idea of ​​joining the army, specifically the SS, asking to join the front.

After leaving the compulsory service, he returned to Vienna but immediately enlisted in the army. He joined the Wehrmacht Pioneer Corps, receiving military training and later entering the officer school in Yugoslavia as a volunteer in 1942. There he would receive harsh news, which, however, did not generate an intense response in him: his mother had died, committing suicide. His autobiography indicates that he hoped the war would be over before he finished his training, but it was not: Feyerabend would be sent to the battlefront in Russia.

He was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class in 1944, having successfully led the occupation of a village under enemy fire, being promoted to lieutenant the same year. After that he would be sent to Poland in 1945, where the Nazi army had to start withdrawing while the Soviets advanced. There he would receive several shots in his hands and stomach, one of them affecting his spine and leaving him paralyzed. He was sent to a hospital in Apolda, where he would spend the rest of the war recovering from his injuries. Yet though he walked again the impact of the bullet caused him to need a cane from now on the rest of his life.

With the war over and still recovering, he would temporarily work as a playwright in Apolda and work in the town's education department. According to him, his state of health improved and his abilities moved to Weimar. There he entered various centers such as the Weimar Academy to take different courses in singing, theater, Italian, piano, stage direction and vocalization.

university studies

In 1947 Feyerabend he returned to Vienna, where he would begin university studies. Initially he studied History and Sociology since another of his favorite branches, physics, seemed far from reality after his experiences in the war. However, the studies he was doing did not seem satisfactory to him and he decided to leave History and start studying Physics at the University of Vienna.

During his studies he also received philosophy classes, which would deeply draw his attention. Initially he would embrace a positivist and empiricist vision of science, although contact with professionals such as Ehrenhaft would influence his later vision. He wrote his first paper in 1947, on illustration in physics.

in 1948 he met Karl Popper at a seminar at the Austrian Society in Alpbach, something that would awaken the germ of a change in his position regarding science. He continued to attend the meetings and seminars of said society, at first as a mere spectator but little by little coming to exhibit and even act as scientific secretary. There he would also meet Hollitscher, who would convince him that it is realism that guides and allows the progress of scientific research and not positivism or empiricism. That same year he would marry for the first time with an ethnography student named Edeltrud, although they would soon separate.

In addition to the above, in 1949 He also became part of the Kraft Circle, a group of students and philosophers gathered around the figure of the sole survivor of the members of the Circle of Vienna, Víctor Kraft, and whose activity was based on the discussion of philosophical topics from a perspective scientific. In this circle he met numerous personalities of great relevance.

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Development of his philosophy

After finishing his studies, Feyerabend began to write a doctoral thesis focused on electrodynamics, but he did not he managed to solve a series of problems in this field and chose to vary the theme of his thesis from physics to philosophy. Thus, and under the direction of Kraft, he received his doctorate in 1951 with the thesis Zur Theorie der Basissatze, in which he discussed the basic statements that support scientific knowledge according to logical positivism.

After that, and after rejecting an offer to become Bertolt Brecht's secretary, he tried to be accepted as a disciple by another of the Kraft Circle authors, Wittgenstein. Although he accepted, unfortunately he died before Feyerabend could work with him, in 1951. Despite this, he managed to enter to work with Karl Popper, whose defense of falsificationism (belief that the veracity of a theory cannot be demonstrated but can the falsity of it through experimentation) and critical rationalism convinced him initially, abandoning empiricism and positivism definitely.

In 1952 Feyerabend presented his ideas concerning scientific change. A year later he would return to Vienna, where he would work at various universities and later as an assistant to Arthur Pap. This would introduce him to Herbert Feigl, who would influence Feyerabend's ideas with his realistic stance (in line with Popper's point of view). He wrote several philosophical articles on quantum mechanics., of great relevance that he considered that the quantum theory was not unquestionable.

In 1955 he was appointed Professor of the Philosophy of Science at the University of Bristol. A year later and after meeting and being influenced by professionals such as David Bohm, Joseph Agassi or Philipp Frank, he would marry for the second time with a ex-student named Mary O'Neill from whom he would also separate after a year (she would not be the last of his wives, having married a total of four times throughout his life). Some of his most critical works with empiricism began to be published, embracing scientific realism and Popper's vision and considering that the interpretation of a relationship is determined by the theories used to explain it.

Relocation and life in the United States

In 1958 he also received an offer to work as a professor at the University of Berkeley, an offer he accepted. In 1959 he became a naturalized American, and in 1960 he started working at the University of California where, influenced by Kuhn, he would begin to use historical examples in his work. In his works from this period, the concept of incommensurability arises., which determines the impossibility of comparing two theories that do not enjoy the same theoretical language.

He participated in the student revolts and a certain interest in politics began to arise in him, carrying out various types of protests and he was even about to be expelled from the University of Berkeley after approving students without having finished the course as a method of protest. Also the contact with the hippie movement that predominated in those years influenced his thinking. In 1965 he participated in a seminar in Hamburg, in which his thoughts would end up being derived from what he would later call epistemological anarchism, which is one of his main contributions.

In this context, and alternating his work in Berkeley with those in California (which he would end up giving up in 1968) and later with others that he would carry out in London, Berlin, Yale and Auckland, the author's thinking moved further and further away from traditional positions and also moved away from falsificationism and rationalism.

She met Imre Lakatos in London, with whom he would have a great friendship that would last until his death. With him I had planned to make a publication as an intellectual debate called For and Against Method, making Lakatos a defense of the rationalist conception of science while Feyerabend would attack it.

However Lakatos died in 1974, without completing his part of the work. Feyerabend would finish and publish his in the book Against Method, a year after the death of his friend. In this publication he would fully embrace epistemological anarchism., considering that there are no universal methodological rules that always generate the progress of the science and that it is necessary to vary the methodology in order to carry out an authentic development of the knowledge. Deep criticism of this publication was made, something that despite responding actively caused him to fall into depression (as it happened after the death of Lakatos).

in the 80s I continue to work at Berkeley as well as Zurich, mostly as a philosophy professor.

His death and legacy

Feyerabend's health had several ups and downs throughout his life, but it would be in the 1990s when the author suffered a final decline. In 1991 he retired, planning to enjoy his retirement and write one last book. However, unfortunately in 1993 a brain tumor was found. He continued and finished writing the book, his autobiography, with the title of Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend. In 1995 and after several problems such as suffering from a stroke, the tumor would end up causing his death on February 11, 1994, at the Genolier clinic in Switzerland.

Although his ideas were highly controversial and criticized, the legacy of Paul Feyerabend is of great interest to science, given that his idea of ​​epistemological anarchism and his contributions throughout his life life allow a different vision of science and stimulate the need to vary the general methodology that it applies in order to generate new progress from him.