Feyerabend Quotes

The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education.

Teachers' using grades and the fear of failure mould the brains of the young until they have lost every ounce of imagination they might once have possessed.

Without a constant misuse of language there cannot be any discovery, any progress

We need a dream-world in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit.

The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes.

All religions are good 'in principle' - but unfortunately this abstract Good has only rarely prevented their practitioners from behaving like bastards.

Science is essentially an anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.

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.

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).

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 of entire world views, he is the inventor of entire forms of life.

On the way, I shared the backseat of Feyerabend's little sports car with the inflatable raft he kept there in case an 8-point earthquake came while he was on the Bay Bridge.

The pygmies, for example, or the Mindoro of the Philippines, do not want equal rights – they just want to be left alone.

Progress has always been achieved by probing well-entrenched and well-founded forms of life with unpopular and unfounded values. This is how man gradually freed himself from fear and from the tyranny of unexamined systems.

My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is, rather, to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits. The best way to show this is to demonstrate the limits and even the irrationality of some rules which she, or he, is likely to regard as basic. In the case that induction (including induction by falsification) this means demonstrating how well the counterinductive procedure can be supported by argument.

In a democracy scientific institutions, research programmes, and suggestions must therefore be subjected to public control, there must be a separation of state and science just as there is a separation between state and religious institutions, and science should be taught as one view among many and not as the one and only road to truth and reality.

Both [Quine and Feyerabend] want to revise a version of positivism. Quine started with the Vienna Circle, and Feyerabend with the Copenhagen school of quantum mechanics. Both the Circle and the school have been called children of Ernst Mach; if so, the philosophies of Feyerabend and Quine must be his grandchildren.

Love of Truth is one of the strongest motives for replacing what really happens by a streamlined account or, to express it in a less polite manner -- love of truth is one of the strongest motives for deceiving oneself and others.

Somewhere among the commotion I grew rather depressed. The depression stayed with me for over a year; it was like an animal, a well-defined, spatially localizable thing. I would wake up, open my eyes, listen-is it here or isn’t it? No sign of it. Perhaps it’s asleep. Perhaps it will leave me alone today. Carefully, very carefully, I get out of bed. All is quiet. I go to the kitchen, start breakfast. Not a sound. TV-Good Morning America, David what’s-his-name, a guy I can’t stand. I eat and watch the guests. Slowly the food fills my stomach and gives me strength. Now a quick excursion to the bathroom, and out for my morning walk-and here she is, my faithful depression: “Did you think you could leave without me?" I had often warned my students not to identify with their work. I told them, “if you want to achieve something, if you want to write a book, paint a picture, be sure that the center of your existence if somewhere else and that it’s solidly grounded; only then will you be able to keep your cool and laugh at the attacks that are bound to come." I myself had followed this advice in the past, but now I was alone, sick with some unknown affliction; my private life was in a mess, and I was without a defense. I often wished I had never written that fucking book.

The withdrawal of philosophy into a "professional" shell of its own has had disastrous consequences. The younger generation of physicists, the Feynmans, the Schwingers, etc., may be very bright; they may be more intelligent than their predecessors, than Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Boltzmann, Mach and so on. But they are uncivilized savages, they lack in philosophical depth – and this is the fault of the very same idea of professionalism which you are now defending.

Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge.

A superconscious organism would not be superwise, it would be paralyzed.

The idea of a method that contains firm, unchanging, and absolutely binding principles for conducting the business of science meets considerable difficulty when confronted with the results of historical research. We find, then, that there is not a single rule, however plausible, and however firmly grounded in epistemology, that is not violated at some time or other. It becomes evident that such violations are not accidental events, they are not results of insufficient knowledge or of inattention which might have been avoided. On the contrary, we see that they are necessary for progress. Indeed, one of the most striking features of recent discussions in the history and philosophy of science is the realization that events and developments, such as the invention of atomism in antiquity, the Copernican Revolution, the rise of modern atomism (kinetic theory; dispersion theory; stereochemistry; quantum theory), the gradual emergence of the wave theory of light, occurred only because some thinkers either decided not to be bound be certain 'obvious' methodological rules, or because they unwittingly broke them.

Scientific "facts" are taught at a very early age and in the very same manner in which religious "facts" were taught only a century ago. There is no attempt to waken the critical abilities of the pupil so that he may be able to see things in perspective. At the universities the situation is even worse, for indoctrination is here carried out in a much more systematic manner. Criticism is not entirely absent. Society, for example, and its institutions, are criticised most severely and often most unfairly... But science is excepted from the criticism. In society at large the judgment of the scientist is received with the same reverence as the judgement of bishops and cardinals was accepted not too long ago. The move towards "demythologization," for example, is largely motivated by the wish to avoid any clash between Christianity and scientific ideas. If such a clash occurs, then science is certainly right and Christianity wrong. Pursue this investigation further and you will see that science has now become as oppressive as the ideologies it had once to fight. Do not be misled by the fact that today hardly anyone gets killed for joining a scientific heresy. This has nothing to do with science. It has something to do with the general quality of our civilization. Heretics in science are still made to suffer from the most severe sanctions this relatively tolerant civilization has to offer

In the first case it emerges that the evidence that might refute a theory can often be unearthed only with the help of an incompatible alternative: the advice (which goes back to Newton and which is still popular today) to use alternatives only when refutations have already discredited the orthodox theory puts the cart before the horse. Also, some of the most important formal properties of a theory are found by contrast, and not by analysis. A scientist who wishes to maximize the empirical content of the views he holds and who wants to understand them as clearly as he possibly can must therefore introduce other views; that is, he must adopt a pluralistic methodology. He must compare ideas with other ideas rather than with 'experience' and he must try to improve rather than discard the views that have failed in the competition. Proceeding in this way he will retain the theories of man and cosmos that are found in Genesis, or in the Pimander, he will elaborate them and use them to measure the success of evolution and other 'modern' views. He may then discover that the theory of evolution is not as good as is generally assumed and that it must be supplemented, or entirely replaced, by an improved version of Genesis. Knowledge so conceived is not a series of self-consistent theories that converges towards an ideal view; it is not a gradual approach to truth. It is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible alternatives, each single theory, each fairy-tale, each myth that is part of the collection forcing the others in greater articulation and all of them contributing, via this process of competition, to the development of our consciousness. Nothing is ever settled, no view can ever be omitted from a comprehensive account. Plutarch or Diogenes Laertius, and not Dirac or von Neumann, are the models for presenting a knowledge of this kind in which the history of a science becomes an inseparable part of the science itself - it is essential for its further development as well as for giving content to the theories it contains at any particular moment. Experts and laymen, professionals and dilettani, truth-freaks and liars - they all are invited to participate in the contest and to make their contribution to the enrichment of our culture. The task of the scientist, however, is no longer 'to search for the truth', or 'to praise god', or 'to synthesize observations', or 'to improve predictions'. These are but side effects of an activity to which his attention is now mainly directed and which is 'to make the weaker case the stronger' as the sophists said, and thereby to sustain the motion of the whole.

The way towards this aim is clear. A science that insists on possessing the only correct method and the only acceptable results is ideology and must be separated from the state, and especially from the process of education. One may teach it, but only to those who have decided to make this particular superstition their own. On the other hand, a science that has dropped such totalitarian pretensions is no longer independent and self-contained, and it can be taught in many different combinations (myth and modern cosmology might be one such combination). Of course, every business has the right to demand that its practitioners be prepared in a special way, and it may even demand acceptance of a certain ideology (I for one am against the thinning out of subjects so that they become more and more similar to each other; whoever does not like present-day Catholicism should leave it and become a Protestant, or an Atheist, instead of ruining it by such inane changes as mass in the vernacular). That is true of physics, just as it is true of religion, or of prostitution.

The objection that science is self-correcting and thus needs no outside interference overlooks, first, that every enterprise is self-correcting (look at what happened to the Catholic Church after Vatican II) and, secondly, that in a democracy the self-correction of the whole which tries to achieve more humane ways of living overrules the self-correction of the parts which has a more narrow aim -- unless the parts are given temporary independence. Hence in a democracy local populations not only will, but also should, use the sciences in ways most suitable to them. The objection that citizens do not have the expertise to judge scientific matters overlooks that important problems often lie across the boundaries of various sciences so that scientists within these sciences don't have the needed expertise either. Moreover, doubtful cases always produce experts for the one side, experts for the other side, and experts in between. But the competence of the general public could be vastly improved by an education that exposes expert fallibility instead of acting as if it did not exist. (Chapter 19)

The only way to argue this in a comprehensive way would be to adopt a universal skepticism about method. The most famous case for such skepticism is the 1975 book Against Method by maverick philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. Feyerabend appeals to the history of science to argue that no methodological prescription has ever been consistently followed in science

Não sou daqueles que planejam acuradamente cada vírgula que escrevem e cada sopro de ar que exalam, de modo que a "história", isto é, os idiotas de amanhã possam admirar sua perfeição.

Prejudices are found by contrast, not by analysis.

At any rate - science and the schools will be just as carefully separated as religion and the schools are separated today. Scientists will of course participate in governmental decisions, for everyone participates in such decisions. But they will not be given overriding authority. It is the vote of everyone concerned that decides fundamental issues such as the teaching methods used, or the truth of basic beliefs such as the theory of evolution, or the quantum theory, and not the authority of big-shots hiding behind a non-existing methodology. There is no need to fear that such a way of arranging society will lead to undesirable results. Science itself uses the method of ballot, discussion, vote, though without a clear grasp of its mechanism, and in a heavily biased way. But the rationality of our beliefs will certainly be considerably increased.

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus: “outside the Church there is no salvation.” – the traditional position of the Catholic Church. Extra Scientiam nulla salus: outside the Church of Science there is no salvation. Paul Feyerabend used this phrase to express the quasi-religious faith held by worshipers of scientism that outside science there is no knowledge; outside the material and empirical there is no knowledge; outside the observable is nothing; absence of scientific evidence is proof of non-existence.

س: رويدك _أنت تزعم أنك قد تستخدم افكارًا معينة دون الحاجة إلى قبولها! ص: نعم. س:هل أنت فوضوي ! ص: لا أدري لم أفكر في هذا الأمر ...

Tutto questo si basa però su un presupposto fondamentale: che esista una sorta di matrice comune che renda possibile tradurre una cultura nei termini di un’altra. Ogni sistema culturale si fonda su premesse particolari, assolutamente diverse le une dalle altre. Lo stesso si può dire delle relazioni logiche che legano i diversi aspetti di ogni cultura, però questa incommensurabilità non impedisce la traduzione. Il filoso austriaco Paul Karl Feyerabend sostiene che esiste in ogni cultura un “dispositivo di transitività”, dovuto alla capacità che ogni linguaggio possiede di elaborare concetti nuovi, inventandosi termini e nuove modalità comunicative.

Love of truth is one of the strongest motives for replacing what really happens by a streamlined account, or, to express it in a less polite manner, love of truth is one of the strongest motives for lying to oneself and to others.

كم كنا نبالغ فى موضعية العلم ،وفى إمكانية الوصول إلى حقائق مجردة لا تؤثر فيها تحيزات العالم وتفضيلاته، أو مصالحه الشخصية أو مصالح الطبقة أو الدولة التى ينتمى إليها..أخذ هذا يظهر لى بوضوح فيما يتعلق بالعلوم الاجتماعية ، ولكن حتى فى العلوم الطبيعية بدأت اكتشف شيئا مماثلا وإن لم يكن بنفس القوة بالطبع، وكان مقال أستاذ الفلسفة النمسوى الأصل فاير أبند( Feyerabend) عن ضرورة تحرير الدولة من العلم ، مثلما تحررت من الكنيسة

La connaissance n’est pas une série de théories cohérentes qui convergent vers une conception idéale ; ce n’est pas une marche progressive vers la vérité. C’est plutôt un océan toujours plus vaste d’alternatives mutuellement incompatibles (et peut-être même incommensurables)… 

L’anarchisme théorique est davantage humanitaire et plus propre à encourager le progrès que les doctrines fondées sur la loi et l’ordre.

He left home, roamed the streets, hid in garbage containers (which at the time were large enough to hold ten people), played his instrument, and raped the women who came to listen.

...I often took the critics at their word. So when a reviewer wrote 'Feyerabend says X' and then attacked X, I assumed that I had indeed said X and tried to defend it. Yet in many cases I had not said X but its opposite. Didn't I care about what I had written?

There was a large hole in my glove. I didn't like that at all. The gloves were made of excellent leather and lined with fur; I would have liked them to remain intact.

Knowledge so conceived is not a series of selfconsistent theories that converges towards an ideal view; it is not a gradual approach to the truth.

It is surprising to see how rarely the stultifYing effect of 'the Laws of Reason' or of scientific practice is examined by professional anarchists...they swallow without protest all the severe stanards which scientists and logicians impose upon research and upon any kind of knowledge-creating and knowledge-changing activity.

Most popular accounts of science and many philosophical analyses are therefor chimeras, pure and simple. They are distorted and misleading as a history of art which regards paintings as natural phenomena of a special kind without ever mentioning the individuals lingering in their neighborhood when they first appear.

Aha! Ora dimmi: pensi di avere una mentalità aperta? A. Si, ragionevolmente aperta. B. E avere una mentalità aperta significa essere pronti ad esaminare i meriti e i demeriti di ogni idea, indipendentemente da quanto possa apparire strana a prima vista, vero?

Feyerabend’s work is critically important for non-Western and post-Western peoples because he stands within the Western tradition yet has mastered many of its social and political barriers so that he can speak meaningfully and critically to its less intelligent proponents.