This morning I am processing the discussion of last night, an exchange of ideas within our amateur philosophers group about the work of Paul Feyerabend.  Feyerabend was Austrian.  He taught philosophy at the University of California at Berkley for three decades.  He passed in 1994.

Attracted by Feyerabend’s anarchistic view of the methods of science, I am eager to think about his ideas with others willing to entertain his idiosyncratic approach to the philosophy of science.

Science appears to have a fading cache in our society.  The institutions, a legacy of individuals and groups of the curious who disciplined themselves to inquire of Nature — from Galileo, to Einstein, to Jonas Salk are forgotten in the miasma of the global warming faux controversy, and a general stampede toward the fortress of ignorance that’s been coming on for the past 20 years or so.  In the throes of a world struggle against the deadly, highly contagious Delta variant of the corona virus — a full third of the population in the United States is reluctant to receive the vaccine.  Aversion to any authority, distrust of government, all but guarantees many unnecessary deaths, and potentially more deadly editions of the virus in the future.  Antipathy for authority is bundled with addiction to screen mediated advertising, right wing/near-fascist “news” on social media, and fealty to the old Republican Party captured by totalitarian-minded Trump.

The old institutions that structured society: public education, higher education, science, and government fracture — become brittle due to lassitude, resistance to renovation and refreshment of conception, etc.

I offer a sample of Paul Feyerabend’s thought as a treatment for our condition.

Is the patient terminal?  Who knows…

The future is unforeseeable, created by our acts, our preparations and exercise of purpose today, — in the present.

“The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths.”
— Paul Feyerabend

“The world we inhabit is abundant beyond our wildest imagination. There are trees, dreams, sunrises; there are thunderstorms, shadows, rivers; there are wars, flea bites, love affairs; there are the lives of people, Gods, entire galaxies. The simplest human action varies from one person and occasion to the next-how else would we recognize our friends only from their gait, posture, voice, and divine their changing moods? Only a tiny fraction of this abundance affects our minds. This is a blessing, not a drawback. A superconscious organism would not be superwise, it would be paralyzed.”
— Paul Feyerabend

“Science is only ‘one’ of the many instruments people invented to cope with their surroundings. It is not the only one, it is not infallible and it has become too powerful, too pushy and too dangerous to be left on its own.”
— Paul Feyerabend

“No single theory ever agrees with all the facts in its domain”
— Paul Feyerabend

“Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise…”
— Paul Feyerabend

“Without a constant misuse of language there cannot be any discovery, any progress”
— Paul Feyerabend

“All religions are good ‘in principle’ – but unfortunately this abstract Good has only rarely prevented their practitioners from behaving like bastards.”
— Paul Feyerabend

“An anarchist is like an undercover agent who plays the game of Reason in order to undercut the authority of Reason (Truth, Honesty, Justice and so on).”
— Paul Feyerabend

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Some of the books authored by Feyerabend are:

• Against Method
• Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction vs The Richness of Being
• Killing Time:The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend
• Farewell To Reason

All are available on Amazon.  I recommend a used copy.