Paul Karl Feyerabend: Quotes about the trip

“Such assumptions may be perfectly plausible and even true. Still, one should occasionally put them to a test. Putting them to a test means that we stop using the methodology associated with them, start doing science in a different way and see what happens.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

Pg 295-296.
Against Method (1975)
Context: Naive falsificationism takes it for granted that the laws of nature are manifest an not hidden beneath disturbances of considerable magnitude. Empiricism takes it for granted that sense experience is a better mirror of the world than pure thought. Praise of argument takes it for granted that the artifices of Reason give better results than the unchecked play of our emotions. Such assumptions may be perfectly plausible and even true. Still, one should occasionally put them to a test. Putting them to a test means that we stop using the methodology associated with them, start doing science in a different way and see what happens.

Way , Science

“Confronted with such a variety most philosophers try to establish one approach to the exclusion of all others. As far as they are concerned there can only be one true way- and they want to find it. Thus normative philosophers argue that knowledge is a result of the application of certain rules, they propose rules which in their opinion constitute knowledge and reject what clashes with them.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend

Pg 84.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

Way , Knowledge

“A Universal Good should reflect the reality of the individual benefits that are collected under its name, not the other way around.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend

pg 218.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

Way , Reality , Universe

“Rational discourse is only one way of presenting and examining an issue and by no means the best. Our new intellectuals are not aware of its limitations and of the nature of the things outside.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Science in a Free Society

Source: Science in a Free Society (1978), p. 184.

Way , Nature

“There is no coherent knowledge, i. e. no uniform comprehensive account of the world and the events in it. There is no comprehensive truth that goes beyond an enumeration of details, but there are many pieces of information, obtained in different ways from different sources and collected for the benefit of the curious. The best way of presenting such knowledge is the list - and the oldest scientific works were indeed lists of facts, parts, coincidences, problems in several specialized domains.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Farewell to Reason

pg 98, italics are feyerabends.
Farewell to Reason (1987)

Truth , World , Way , Knowledge

“Truth', written 'in capital letters', is an orphan in this world, without power and influence… ['Reason'] cannot stand diverging opinions - it calls them 'lies'; it puts itself 'above' the real lives of human beings, demanding, in a way characteristic of all totalitarian ideologies, the right to rebuild the world from the height of 'what it should be', i. e. in accordance with its own 'invincible' precepts. It refuses to recognize the many ideas, actions, feelings, laws, institutions, racial features which separate one nation (culture, civilization) from another… The reason of ordinary people trying to create a better and safer world for themselves and their children (which is reason with a small 'r' and not Reason 'written in capital letters') has very little in common with these ignorant dreams of domination.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Farewell to Reason

pg 102.
Farewell to Reason (1987)

Children , People , Truth , World

“Human paint, produce films and videos; they dance, dream and make music; they engage in political action, exchange goods, perform rituals, build houses start wars, act in plays, try to please patrons- and so on… They contain patterns, press the practitioners to "conform" and in this way mold their thought, their perception, their actions, and their discriminative abilities.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend

pg 28.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

War , Dreams , Music , Way

“The ideas survived and they can now be said to be in agreement with reason. They survived because prejudice, passion, conceit, errors, sheer pigheadedness, in short because all the elements that characterize the context of discovery, opposed the dictates of reason and because these irrational elements were permitted to have their way. To express it differently: Copernicanism and other "rational" views exist today only because reason was overruled at some time in their past. (The opposite is also true: witchcraft and other "irrational" views had ceased to be influential only because reason was overruled at some time in their past.)”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

Pg. 155.
Against Method (1975)

Way , Error , Idea , Passion

“The existence of antagonistic "conspiracies" was recognized by the defenders of religious and political views. Iconoclasts knew that images might distort the basic message of their creed (which consisted of words and resided in Holy Books). Church architecture and church music were adapted to the needs of the Holy Faith. Alternative styles were either fought or made part of religious PR. I conclude that our 'field of experience' is molded, overlaid, and 'conspired' against not just by language, but by numerous other patterns and institutions, many of them in mutual conflict. An inference from a style, a particular linguistic apparatus, or, more recently, from scientific beliefs, to a cosmology, corresponding ways of life and an all-embracing "spirit of the age therefore needs special support; it cannot be made as a matter of course.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend

pg 28.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

Life , Books , Age , Faith

“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

“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 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

“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