Paul Feyerabend, The Best Quotes

Paul Feyerabend’s thinking has been the subject of constant evolution throughout his life. He passed from Popperian thought to anti-rationalist, empiricist, anti-pyrist, anti-positivist and relativist thought. This makes his sentences of incomparable richness.

We are talking about one of the authors of the Thesis of Incommensurability. In this sense, Paul Feyerabend summarized his critical theories in a sentence, with which he is most identified: “anything can be fine”.

1. Paul Feyerabend phrases: shaping the brains of young people

Paul Feyerabend was referring to the education system of his time, but the current one is still similar, at least in part. A system that allows a grade to label a student as more or less intelligent or more or less industrious, although intelligence and effort are just two of the many variables that influence that grade.

Beyond that, no room is left for creativity, only for memorization. The rush to carry out the program leads teachers to neglect the most important element: the construction of knowledge by the pupils.

2. We need a dream world

This is one of Paul Feyerabend’s criticisms of the way our thinking or understanding the world ends up generating our own world: a conception of the context within which we actually operate. This is why, for example, everyone gives a different account of the same event.

It invites us to create it is “a dream world”, in other words a world full of possibilities, in which to be aware of being able to question our own reality, as if seen through other eyes it can change radically.

3. Paul Feyerabend phrases: keep calm and laugh

This sentence tells us about a very important habit, which is to maintain contact with the surrounding environment. With what the senses can capture, starting from the internal signals sent to us by our body. By doing so, we will gain a foothold that will make us much stronger in the face of difficulties.

Thus, for example, we will be able to understand why many people do not collapse when they become victims of fierce persecution by others. In this sense, the value of what is written is immense, as if we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by criticism, we risk abandoning what we like most … starting that process of conversion into people we are not and whom we hate.

4. Everything is fine

This phrase from Feyerabend sums up all of his critical theories and also his thinking that believing that “all is well” allows progress. To the point of considering it a basic principle. “All is well” refers to the idea that every option is welcome at first, not that every option as such is potentially acceptable.

This actually makes sense, as hopefully there are multiple options. This is not a limitation, but the opposite. It makes us consider a whole series of possibilities which may later turn out to be more or less suitable.

5. Paul Feyerabend phrases: all methodologies have their limits

This last sentence of Feyerabend refers to the limitations present in all methodologies. However obvious or truthful they may seem, in the end, as human products, they can always be improved upon. We think of the fact that currently more and more theories and methodologies are emerging that update or question other theories that we consider solid.

Feyerabend’s quotes allowed us to discover his most critical part, given that the evolution of his thinking led him to question practically everything. This is very positive. Arguing, objecting and thinking about other possibilities enriches more than believing in something given for sure, not taking into consideration all other options.