Paul Karl Feyerabend Quotes & Sayings

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

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. The best way to show this is to demonstrate the limits and even the irrationality of some rules which she, or he, is likely to regard as basic. In the case that induction (including induction by falsification) this means demonstrating how well the counterinductive procedure can be supported by argument. — Paul Karl Feyerabend

Without a constant misuse of language there cannot be any discovery, any progress — 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 of entire world views, he is the inventor of entire forms of life. — 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

Progress has always been achieved by probing well-entrenched and well-founded forms of life with unpopular and unfounded values. This is how man gradually freed himself from fear and from the tyranny of unexamined systems. — Paul Karl Feyerabend

The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes. — 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

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

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

Love of Truth is one of the strongest motives for replacing what really happens by a streamlined account or, to express it in a less polite manner
love of truth is one of the strongest motives for deceiving oneself and others. — Paul Karl Feyerabend

The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. — Paul Karl Feyerabend

An anarchist is like an undercover agent who plays the game of Reason in order to undercut the authority of Reason (Truth, Honesty, Justice and so on). — Paul Karl Feyerabend