5 Sentences By Paul Feyerabend

Paul Feyerabend experienced a constant evolution of his thinking throughout his life. He passed through Popperian, anti-rationalist, empiricist, anti-empiricist, anti-positivist and relativist thought. All this made his sentences have an unparalleled richness.

Furthermore, we talk about one of the authors of the Incommensurability Thesis. In this sense, all his critical theories are summarized in one of the phrases with which he is most identified “Everything is valid”.

1. Shaping the brains of young people

This first sentence by Paul Feyerabend refers to the educational system of his time, which is still in place at least in part. A qualification system that labels a student as more or less intelligent or more or less hardworking.

In reality, intelligence and effort are just two of the many variables that influence this assessment.

Also, there is no room for creativity, just for memorization. The rush to transmit the entire curriculum makes teachers forget the most important thing: the construction of knowledge by students.

2. We need a dream world

This is one of the criticisms in which Paul Feyerabend alludes to the way in which our thinking or our way of interpreting the world ends up generating our own world.

In other words, it is a conception of the environment we really work with. So, for example, everyone can give a different account of the same facts.

What he invites us to create is “a world of dreams” or, what is the same thing, a world full of possibilities in which we are aware that we can question our own reality. Vision through other eyes changes it radically.

3. Keep calm and smile

This third sentence by Paul Feyerabend talks about something as important as keeping in touch with the environment. With what our senses can capture, starting with the internal signals our own body sends us.

With this, we will gain a position that will make us much stronger in the face of difficulties.

So, for example, we will be able to understand how many people do not get lost when they are victims of fierce persecution from others.

In this way, the value of the comments is infinite, because if we let ourselves be carried away by these criticisms, we can stop doing what we like so much.

4. For Paul Feyerabend, everything is worth it

This is one of Paul Feyerabend’s phrases that summarizes all his critical theories, so much so that he considered it a basic principle. This means that, in principle, all options are valuable, not that any option is potentially acceptable.

This makes a lot of sense, because if it’s all worth it, there are plenty of options. That doesn’t limit it, it’s just the opposite. It leads us to consider a series of possibilities that, later on, may or may not be suitable.

5. All methodologies have their limits

This last sentence by Paul Feyerabend refers to the limits that exist in all methodologies. As obvious or true as they may seem, in the end, when talking about a human product, they can always be improved.

Let’s think that, currently, theories and methodologies continue to emerge that improve or raise doubts against others that we consider solid.

All these sentences by Paul Feyerabend allowed us to discover his most critical part, because the evolution of thought that he experienced led him to an almost total questioning. This is very positive.

Discussing, objecting, and thinking about other possibilities enriches us much more than if we believe something is right and don’t think about other options.