Paul Feyerabend
1924-1994 · Philosophy of Science · Prominent
Feyerabend was an Austrian-American philosopher of science who argued in Against Method that no single method runs through all good science, and that the great breakthroughs tended to break the rules of their day. His slogan was anything goes. He defended a plurality of ways of knowing: science is one tradition among many, with no standing to rule out non-Western knowledge before examining it.
Signature
The position Feyerabend is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Truth
- leans Subjective
- Knowledge
- Other
Positions on the 9 axes the sources answer
- Society
- mildly leans Individualism (62 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Beauty
- mildly leans Subjective (33 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Identity
- mildly leans Changing (67 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Truth
- leans Subjective (25 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Sublation (29 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Polity
- leans Liberalism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (25 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
11 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Feyerabend refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Atheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Anarchy / Representative Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Freedom
What is the highest good? - Perception
- Conceptual Mediation
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Other
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Relational
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Radical Freedom
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Human Nature
- Other
What is human nature?