Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend

Trained in physics and astronomy, Feyerabend was known as a philosopher of science. Feyerabend gave voice to a radically democratic "epistemological anarchism": he argued that there is not one way to knowledge, but many principled paths. Here, Feyerabend traces the trajectory that led him from an isolated, lower-middle-class childhood in Vienna to international academic success. He writes of his experience in the German army on the Russian front and he recalls his promising talent as an operatic tenor, his encounters with people from Martin Buber to Bertolt Brecht, love affairs, four marriages, and a career. The text sketches the people, ideas and conflicts of 60 years. Feyerabend writes of his complicated relationships with Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos, and his reactions to a growing reputation as the "worst enemy of science."