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Paul Karl Feyerabend Quotes
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Paul Karl Feyerabend was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades . At various different points in his life, he lived in England, the United States, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, and finally Switzerland. His major works include Against Method , Science in a Free Society and Farewell to Reason . Feyerabend became famous for his purportedly anarchistic view of science and his rejection of the existence of universal methodological rules. He was an influential figure in the sociology of scientific knowledge. Asteroid Feyerabend is named in his honour. Wikipedia  

✵ 13. January 1924 – 11. February 1994
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend: 81   quotes 16   likes

Paul Karl Feyerabend Quotes

“Arguments hardly affect the faithful- their beliefs have an entirely different foundation.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend

pg 212.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

Faith

“There is no "scientific worldview" just as there is no uniform enterprise "science"- except in the minds of metaphysicians, school masters, and scientists blinded by the achievements of their own particular niche… There is no objective principle that could direct us away from the supermarket "religion" or the supermarket "art" toward the more modern, and much more expensive supermarket "science." Besides, the search for such guidance would be in conflict with the idea of individual responsibility which allegedly is an important ingredient of a "rational" or scientific age.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend

Pg 159.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

Age , School , Religion , Art

“The material which a scientist actually has at his disposal, his laws, his experimental results, his mathematical techniques, his epistemological prejudices, his attitude towards the absurd consequences of the theories which he accepts, is indeterminate in many ways, ambiguous, and never fully separated from the historical background. This material is always contaminated by principles which he does not know and which, if known, would be extremely hard to test.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

Pg. 66.
Against Method (1975)

Law , Way , Mathematics

“The separation of state and church must be complemented by the separation of state and science, that most recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institution.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

Source: Against Method (1975), p. 295

Science

“A scientist, an artist, a citizen is not like a child who needs papa methodology and mama rationality to give him security and direction, he can take care of himself, for he is the inventor not only of laws, theories, pictures, plays, forms of music, ways of dealing with his fellow man, institutions, but also entire world view, he is the inventor of entire forms of like.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Science in a Free Society

pg 38, italics are feyerabends.
Science in a Free Society (1978)

World , Law , Music , Way

“The purpose of education, so one would think, is to introduce the young into life, and that means: into the society where they are born and into the physical universe that surrounds the society. The method of education often consists in the teaching of some basic myth. The myth is available in various versions. More advanced versions may be taught by initiation rites which firmly implant them into the mind. Knowing the myth, the grown-up can explain almost everything (or else he can turn to experts for more detailed information). He is the master of Nature and of Society. He understands them both and he knows how to interact with them. However, he is not the master of the myth that guides his understanding.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend

How To Defend Society Against Science (1975)

Life , Education , Understanding , Nature

“The members of the Japanese enlightenment of the early 1870's, Fukuzawa among them, now reasoned as follows: Japan can keep its independence only if it becomes stronger. It can become stronger only with the help of science. It will use science effectively only if it does not just practice science but also believes in the underlying ideology. To many traditional Japanese this ideology-the scientific worldview- was barbaric. But, so the followers of Fukuzawa argued, it was necessary to adopt barbaric ways, to regard them as advanced, to introduce the whole of Western civilization in order to survive. Having been thus prepared, Japanese scientists soon branched out as their Western colleagues had done before and falsified the uniform ideology that had started the development. The lesson I draw from this sequence of events is that a uniform 'scientific view of the world' may be useful for people doing science… However, it is a disaster for outsiders(philosophers, fly-by-night mystics, prophets of a new age, the (educated public"), who, being undisturbed by the complexities of research, are liable to fall for the most simpleminded and most vapid tale.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend

pg 160.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

People , Age , World , Education

“So far Unitarian realism claiming to possess positive knowledge about Ultimate Reality has succeeded only by excluding large areas of phenomena or by declaring, without proof, that they could be reduced to basic theory, which, in this connection, means elementary particle physics.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend

pg 215
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

Knowledge , Reality

“The material which a scientist actually has at his disposal, his laws, his experimental results, his mathematical techniques, his epistemological prejudices, his attitude towards the absurd consequences of the theories which he accepts, is indeterminate in many ways, ambiguous, and never fully separated from the historical background.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

This material is always contaminated by principles which he does not know and which, if known, would be extremely hard to test.
Pg. 66.
Against Method (1975)

Way , Mathematics , Law