Paul K. Feyerabend An Obituary

Abstract Paul Feyerabend was born on January 13, 1924, in Vienna. He died of an inoperable brain tumor almost a month after his seventieth birthday, on February 11, 1994, in Genolier in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Feyerabend was raised in Vienna in less than affluent conditions. He was a very good and inquisitive pupil with many diverse interests. From his early school years, he studied textbooks on university-level mathematics, physics, and astronomy. His lifelong love for music also began in his youth. He played the accordion, took violin lessons, fell in love with opera, sang in a mixed choir, and even took singing lessons in a conservatory. After his high school final exams in the spring of 1942 he was drafted into labor service (Austria was ‘unified’ with the Third Reich in 1938) and by the end of 1942 he was drafted into the army. After several tours at the front, in January 1945 Feyerabend was hit in the spine by a machine gun bullet. Thereafter, he was paralyzed from the waist down. After a long time in a wheelchair, he was finally able to walk on crutches. Throughout his life he suffered periodically from intense pain, and he could endure many of his public appearances only under large doses of painkillers, although he never made a big fuss about it. Even in his autobiography, there is almost no mention of the great pains he had to endure.