Feyerabend Quotes

The attitude of the Church was not as dogmatic as is often assumed. Interpretations of Bible passages had been revised in the light of scientific research before. Everyone regarded the earth as spherical and as freely floating in space though the Bible tells a different story. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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

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. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

Taking experimental results and observations for granted and putting the burden of proof on the theory means taking the observational ideology for granted without having ever examined it. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

When Western civilization invaded the Near and Far East and what is now called the Third World it imposed its own ideas of a proper environment and a rewarding life. Doing this, it disrupted the delicate patterns of adaptation and created problems that had not existed before. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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

Yes, the academic world is screwed up, and there is nothing you can do about it. But don't worry about that. Just do what you want. If you know what you want to do and advocate for it, no one will put any energy into stopping you. ~ Paul Feyerabend

Traditions are neither good nor bad, they simply are ... Rationality is not an arbiter of traditions, it is itself a tradition or an aspect of a tradition. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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

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

What is surprising is that almost all the trends that developed within the sciences, Aristotelianism and an extreme Platonism included, produced results, not only in special domains, but everywhere; there exist highly theoretical branches of biology and highly empirical parts of astrophysics. The world is a complex an many-sided thing. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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 ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

First-world science is one science among many; by claiming to be more it ceases to be an instrument of research and turns into a (political) pressure group. ~ Paul Feyerabend

Without a constant misuse of language there cannot be any discovery, any progress ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

Science is not sacrosanct. The mere fact that it exists, is admired, has results is not sufficient for making it a measure of excellence. Modern science arose from global objections against earlier views and rationalism itself, the idea that there are general rules and standards for conducting our affairs, affairs of knowledge included, arose from global objections to common sense. ~ Paul Feyerabend

The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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 Feyerabend

All religion may be centered around a generally good idea, however, this has not stopped its adherents from acting like bastards ~ Paul Feyerabend

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) ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

Those who violate the rules of a language do not enter new territory; they leave the domain of meaningful discourse. Even facts in these circumstances dissolve, because they are shaped by the language and subjected to its limitations. ~ Paul Feyerabend

Early Chinese thinkers had taken variety at face value. They had favored diversification and collected anomalies instead of trying to explain them away. ~ Paul Feyerabend

Facts are constituted by older ideologies, and a clash between facts and theories may be proof of progress. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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 Feyerabend

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. ~ Paul Karl 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

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 Feyerabend

A free society is a society in which all traditions have equal rights and equal access to the centers of power . A tradition receives these rights not because the importance the cash value, as it were) it has for outsiders but because it gives meaning to the lives of those who participate in it. ~ Paul Feyerabend

Ultimate Reality, if such an entity can be postulated, is ineffable. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

Results from a given approach are " facts " as long as the approach fits the group or the tradition that is being addressed ~ Paul Feyerabend

Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge. ~ Feyerabend Paul K.

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

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 Feyerabend

Science is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy is prepared to admit. It is one of the many forms of thought that have been developed by man, and not necessarily the best. It is conspicuous, noisy, and impudent, but it is inherently superior only for those who have already decided in favour of a certain ideology, or who have accepted it without ever having examined its advantages and its limits. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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 Feyerabend

In a war a totalitarian state has a free hand. ~ Paul Feyerabend

Science is neither a single tradition, nor the best tradition there is, except for people who have become accustomed to its presence, its benefits and its disadvantages. In a democracy it should be separated from the state just as churches are now separated from the state. ~ Paul Feyerabend

If the world is an aggregate of relatively independent regions, then any assumption of universal laws is false and a demand for universal norms tyrannical : only brute force (or seductive deception) can then bend the different moralities so that they fit the prescriptions of a single ethical system. And indeed, the idea of universal laws of nature and society arose in connection with a life-and-death battle: the battle that gave Zeus the power over the Titans and all other gods and thus turned his laws into the laws of the universe. ~ Paul Feyerabend

One might get the impression that I recommend a new methodology which replaces induction by counterinduction and uses a multiplicity of theories, metaphysical views, fairy tales, instead of the customary pair theory/observation. This impression would certainly be mistaken. 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. ~ Paul Feyerabend

Humane science must be adapted to the requirements of a balanced and rewarding life. ~ Paul Feyerabend

Events and developments, such as ... the Copernican Revolution, ... occurred only because some thinkers either decided not to be bound by certain "obvious" methodological rules, or because they unwittingly broke them. ~ Paul Feyerabend

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 Feyerabend

Rationalism ... is a secularized form of the belief in the power of the word of God. ~ Paul Feyerabend

I had studied Dadaism after the Second World War. What attracted me to this movement was the style its inventors used when not engaged in Dadaistic activities. It was clear, luminous, simple without being banal, precise without being narrow; it was a style adapted to the expression of thought as well as of emotion. I connected this style with the Dadaistic exercises themselves ~ Paul Feyerabend

No single theory ever agrees with all the facts in its domain ~ Paul Feyerabend

The sciences of today are business enterprises run on business principles. Research in large institutes is not guided by Truth and Reason but by the most rewarding fashion, and the great minds of today increasingly turn to where the money is - which means military matters. ~ Paul Feyerabend