Paul Karl Feyerabend quotes

Paul Karl Feyerabend was an Austrian philosopher of science, renowned for his criticism of scientific rationalism and methodological uniformity. His work challenged the idea that science follows a universal, fixed method. He became famous for arguing that “anything goes” in the practice of science and for promoting epistemological pluralism. Here are 80 of his quotes:

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

One knows quite well that harmony can be a harmony of appearances.

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 Karl Feyerabend

Today science prevails not because of its comparative merits, but because the show has been rigged in its favour... It reigns supreme because some past successes have led to institutional measures (education; role of experts; role of power groups such as the AMA) that prevent a comeback of the rivals.

Paul Karl 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 Karl Feyerabend

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

Paul Karl Feyerabend

Unanimity of opinion may be fitting for a church, for the frightened or greedy victims of some (ancient, or modern) myth, or for the weak and willing followers of some tyrant. Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge. And a method that encourages variety is also the only method that is comparable with a humanitarian outlook.

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 Karl 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 Karl Feyerabend

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

Paul Karl Feyerabend

Not only are facts and theories in constant disharmony, they are never as neatly separated as everyone makes them out to be.

Paul Karl Feyerabend

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

Paul Karl Feyerabend

Mathematical Reasoning is not only exact; it has its own criteria of reality.

Paul Karl Feyerabend

I do not see why I should be polite to tyrants, who slobber of humanitarianism and think only of their own petty interests.

Paul Karl 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 Karl Feyerabend

The validity of usefulness, adequacy of popular standards can be tested only by research that violates them.

Paul Karl 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 Karl Feyerabend

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

Paul Karl Feyerabend

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

In a war a totalitarian state has a free hand.

Paul Karl 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 Karl 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