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Quote by Paul Feyerabend

“The validity of usefulness, adequacy of popular standards can be tested only by research that violates them.”

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Paul Feyerabend was a prominent philosopher known for his significant contributions to the philosophy of science. His ideas have had a profound impact on methodology and epistemology in science. more

“There is no coherent knowledge , i.e. no uniform comprehensive account of the world and the events in it. There is no comprehensive truth that goes beyond an enumeration of details, but there are many pieces of information , obtained in different ways from different sources and collected for the benefit of the curious. The best way of presenting such knowledge is the list - and the oldest scientific works were indeed lists of facts, parts, coincidences, problems in several specialized domains.”

World Way Different Facts Problem Pieces Events Information Source Benefits Accounts Details Lists Best Way Curious Different Ways Uniforms Coincidence Domain Comprehensive Presenting

Book:Farewell to Reason

Source: Farewell to Reason

“The sciences of today are business enterprises run on business principles. Research in large institutes is not guided by Truth and Reason but by the most rewarding fashion, and the great minds of today increasingly turn to where the money is - which means military matters.”

Mind Mean Matter Reason Running Today Turns Principles Military Fashion Research Enterprise Institute Great Minds Institutes

Book:Farewell to Reason

Source: Farewell to Reason

“All religion may be centered around a generally good idea, however, this has not stopped its adherents from acting like bastards.”

May Ideas Acting Good Ideas

Author:Paul Feyerabend

“If the world is an aggregate of relatively independent regions, then any assumption of universal laws is false and a demand for universal norms tyrannical: only brute force (or seductive deception) can then bend the different moralities so that they fit the prescriptions of a single ethical system. And indeed, the idea of universal laws of nature and society arose in connection with a life-and-death battle: the battle that gave Zeus the power over the Titans and all other gods and thus turned his laws into the laws of the universe.”

“Those who violate the rules of a language do not enter new territory; they leave the domain of meaningful discourse. Even facts in these circumstances dissolve, because they are shaped by the language and subjected to its limitations.”

Facts Language Circumstances Meaningful Limitation Territory Discourse Domain New Territory

Book:Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being

Source: Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being

“What is surprising is that almost all the trends that developed within the sciences, Aristotelianism and an extreme Platonism included, produced results, not only in special domains, but everywhere; there exist highly theoretical branches of biology and highly empirical parts of astrophysics. The world is a complex an many-sided thing.”

World Results Special Complexes Extremes Branches Biology Trends Surprising Domain Theoretical Astrophysics

Author:Paul Feyerabend

“When Western civilization invaded the Near and Far East and what is now called the Third World it imposed its own ideas of a proper environment and a rewarding life. Doing this, it disrupted the delicate patterns of adaptation and created problems that had not existed before.”

World Ideas Problem Environment Civilization Thirds Western Patterns East Delicate Adaptation Third World Western Civilization Near And Far

Book:Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being

Source: Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being

“There is no "scientific worldview" just as there is no uniform enterprise "science" - except in the minds of metaphysicians, school masters, and scientists blinded by the achievements of their own particular niche... There is no objective principle that could direct us away from the supermarket "religion" or the supermarket "art" toward the more modern, and much more expensive supermarket "science." Besides, the search for such guidance would be in conflict with the idea of individual responsibility which allegedly is an important ingredient of a "rational" or scientific age.”

“Early Chinese thinkers had taken variety at face value. They had favored diversification and collected anomalies instead of trying to explain them away.”

Trying Faces Values Taken Variety Chinese Thinker Anomalies Diversification Face Value

Author:Paul Feyerabend

Quote by Paul Feyerabend

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