---
title: "Paul Feyerabend"
chunk: 11/12
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== In philosophy ===
While the immediate academic reception of Feyerabend's most read text, Against Method, was largely negative, Feyerabend is recognized today as one of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th Century. Feyerabend's arguments against a universal method have become largely accepted, and are often taken for granted by many philosophers of science in the 21st century. His arguments for pluralism moved the topic into the mainstream and his use of historical case studies were influential in the development of the History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) as an independent discipline. His arguments against reductionism were also influential on John Dupré, Cliff Hooker, and Alan Chalmers. He was also one of the intellectual precursors of social constructivism and science and technology studies, although he participated little in either field during his lifetime.

=== Outside philosophy ===
Feyerabend's analysis of the Galileo affair, where he claims the Church was "on the right track" for censuring Galileo on moral grounds and were empirically correct, was quoted with approval by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) in a speech in 1990. In his autobiography, Feyerabend recalls a conversation with Stephen Jay Gould, in 1991, when Gould stated that Against Method's arguments for pluralism motivated him to pursue research on punctuated equilibrium. Feyerabend's work was also influential for several physicists who felt empowered to experiment with approaches different from those of their supervisors as well on many social scientists who were under great pressure to conform to the 'standards' of the natural sciences.
Feyerabend's lectures were extremely popular and well-attended. They were often received positively as entertaining, provocative, and funny. The writer Daniele Bolelli, in his book On the Warrior's Path quotes Feyerabend, highlighting the similarities between his epistemology and Bruce Lee's worldview. Feyerabend's concept of incommensurability was influential in the radical critical approach of Donald Ault in his extensive critical assessment of William Blake's work, especially in Narrative Unbound: Re-Visioning William Blake's The Four Zoas.
For the centennial of Feyerabend's birth, in 2024, there was a series of conferences, workshops, publications, experimental art, song recitals, and theatre pieces planned in honor of his life and works.

== Selected bibliography ==
Feyerabend's full bibliography: "The Works of P. K. Feyerabend".

=== Books ===
Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (1975). London: Verso Books.ISBN 1-84467-442-8.
The first, 1970 edition, is available for download in pdf form from the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science. Follow this link path: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science > 4. Analyses of Theories & Methods of Physics and Psychology. 1970. Editors: M. Radner and S. Winokur > Open Access > Under the "Whoops!" message click 'Download'
The third edition, released in 1993, is the most widely available copy.
Science in a Free Society (1978). London: Verso Books. ISBN 0-8052-7043-4
Science as Art (1984). Bari: Laterza. ISBN 2-226-13562-6
Farewell to Reason (1987). London: Verso Books. ISBN 0-86091-184-5, 0860918963
Three Dialogues on Knowledge (1991). Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell Press.ISBN 0-631-17917-8, 0631179186
Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend (1995). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-24531-4, 0226245322
Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction versus the Richness of Being (1999). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-24533-0, 0226245349
Philosophy of Nature, Posthumously published (2016). Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 978-0-7456-5159-0
* Naturphilosophie, Posthumously published (2009). Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag. Helmut Heit and Eric Oberheim (Eds.). ISBN 3-518-58514-2.

=== Collected volumes ===
Realism, Rationalism and Scientific Method: Philosophical papers, Volume 1 (1981). P.K. Feyerabend (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22897-2, 0521316421
Problems of Empiricism: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2 (1981). P.K. Feyerabend (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23964-8, 0521316413
Knowledge, Science and Relativism: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (1999). J. Preston (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64129-2
Physics and Philosophy: Philosophical Papers, Volume 4 (2015). S. Gattei and J. Agassi (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-88130-7

=== Correspondences and lectures ===
For and Against Method: Including Lakatos's Lectures on Scientific Method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend Correspondence with Imre Lakatos (1999). M. Motterlini (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-46774-0, 0226467759
The Tyranny of Science (2011). Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 0-7456-5189-5, 0745651909.
Feyerabend's Formative Years. Volume 1. Feyerabend and Popper: Correspondence and Unpublished Papers (2020). New York: Springer Press. ISBN 978-3-030-00960-1, 978-3030009601

=== Articles ===
"Linguistic Arguments and Scientific Method". Telos 03 (Spring 1969). New York: Telos Press, Realism, Rationalism and Scientific Method: Philosophical papers, Volume 1 (1981), ISBN 0-521-22897-2, 0521316421
"How To Defend Society Against Science". Radical Philosophy, no. 11, Summer 03 1975. The Galilean Library, Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science edited by E. D. Klemke (1998), ISBN 1-57392-240-4

== See also ==

== References ==

== Sources ==
Feyerabend, Paul (1995). Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend. University of Chicago Press.
Feyerabend, Paul (1987). Farewell to Reason. Verso Books.
Feyerabend, Paul (1965). "Reply to Criticism: Comments on Smart, Sellars and Putnam". Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science.

== Further reading ==

=== Books ===
George Couvalis, Feyerabend's Critique of Foundationalism (1989). London: Avebury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-108-47199-2
John Preston, Feyerabend: Philosophy, Science and Society (1997). Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 0-7456-1675-5, 0745616763
Robert Farrell, Feyerabend and Scientific Values: Tightrope-Walking Rationality (2003). Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4020-1350-8
Eric Oberheim,  Feyerabend's Philosophy (2006). Berlin: De Gruyter Press. ISBN 3-11-018907-0

=== Dissertations ===
Jamie Shaw, A Pluralism worth Having: Feyerabend's Well-Ordered Science (2018).

=== Collected volumes ===
Gonzalo Munévar (ed.), Beyond Reason: Essays on the Philosophy of Paul Feyerabend, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science (1991), ISBN 0-7923-1272-4
John Preston, Gonzalo Munévar and David Lamb (eds.), The Worst Enemy of Science? Essays in Memory of Paul Feyerabend (2000), Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512874-5
Karim Bschir and Jamie Shaw (eds.), Interpreting Feyerabend: Critical Essays (2021), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-47199-2

=== Special issues ===
Matthew J. Brown and Ian James Kidd (eds.), Reappraising Paul Feyerabend. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Part A. (2016)