I suggest following Paul Feyerabend's own advice, and interpreting Feyerabend's work in light of the principles laid out by John Stuart Mill. A review of Mill's essay, On Liberty, emphasizes the importance Mill placed on open and critical discussion for the vitality and progress of various aspects of human life, including the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Many of Feyerabend's more unusual stances, I suggest, are best interpreted as attempts to play certain roles--especially the role of "defender of unpopular minority opinion"--that (...) are necessary to fulfilling Mill's conditions for rational exchange and optimal human development. (shrink)

This essay offers a discussion and contextualisation of a series of letters exchanged between Jordi Cat and Paul Feyerabend from 1989 to 1994. These letters provide insights into Feyerabend’s later thought on a variety of themes including quantum holism, the disunity of science, the development of logical empiricism, and science activism. In doing so, we provide some original analysis and exegesis of Feyerabend’s evolving views on scientific methodology and quantum mechanics by focusing on Feyerabend’s changing attitudes towards Bohm, Bohr, and (...) his eventual colleague Hans Primas and his later sympathies with the algebraic approach. We also highlight Feyerabend’s role in the growth of the Disunity of Science movement and how he connected disunity to practical considerations in the philosophy of action. (shrink)