Paul Feyerabend

Paul Feyerabend (b. 1924–d. 1994), whose productive career lasted forty-five years, wrote on a plethora of philosophical issues, although much of his work concerned the nature and role of science. He was no narrowly trained or narrowly focused academic, though. His time as a student was divided among the studies of singing, stage management, theater, Italian, harmony, piano, physics, mathematics, astronomy, history, and sociology. He became a student of philosophy only after having earned his doctorate in the subject. His career as a philosopher was an accident, and he did not always see himself as a philosopher. Indeed, Feyerabend seemed to hold the interest and opinion of those who were not professional philosophers in higher regard than those of his academic peers. Nevertheless, he forged for himself a reputation as an important philosopher of science, being very knowledgeable about a range of sciences and very keen to deflate what he saw as pompous, overinflated, or ill-informed estimations of the epistemic and social virtues of the sciences, whether expressed by professional philosophers or by others.