Quotes from book
Farewell to Reason

Farewell to Reason is a 1987 book of essays by philosopher Paul Feyerabend against the use of scientific rationalism.


Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo

“I say that Auschwitz is an extreme manifestation of an attitude that still thrives in our midst.”

pg 309
Farewell to Reason (1987)
Context: I say that Auschwitz is an extreme manifestation of an attitude that still thrives in our midst. It shows itself in the treatment of minorities in industrial democracies; in education, education to a humanitarian point of view included, which most of the time consists of turning wonderful young people into colorless and self-righteous copies of their teachers; it becomes manifest in the nuclear threat, the constant increase in the number and power of deadly weapons and the readiness of some so-called patriots to start a war compared with which the holocaust will shrink into insignificance. It shows itself in the killing of nature and of "primitive" cultures with never a thought spent on those thus deprived of meaning for their lives; in the colossal conceit of our intellectuals, their belief that they know precisely what humanity needs and their relentless efforts to recreate people in their sorry image; in the infantile megalomania of some of our physicians who blackmail their patients with fear, mutilate them and then persecute them with large bills; in the lack of feeling of so many so-called searchers for truth who systematically torture animals, study their discomfort and receive prizes for their cruelty. As far as I am concerned there exists no difference between the henchmen of Aushwitz and these "benefactors of mankind."

Similar authors

Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend 81
Austrian-born philosopher of science 1924–1994
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein 228
Austrian-British philosopher
Erwin Schrödinger photo
Erwin Schrödinger 67
Austrian physicist
Rudolf Steiner photo
Rudolf Steiner 20
Austrian esotericist
Stefan Zweig photo
Stefan Zweig 106
Austrian writer
Elfriede Jelinek photo
Elfriede Jelinek 50
Austrian writer
Friedrich Hayek photo
Friedrich Hayek 79
Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economic…
Martin Buber photo
Martin Buber 58
German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian
Wolfgang Pauli photo
Wolfgang Pauli 35
Austrian physicist, Nobel prize winner
Ludwig von Mises photo
Ludwig von Mises 62
austrian economist