Memoirs

I audited Paul Feyerabend’s course on philosophy of science at UCB free of charge along with Bruce Mangam (an intellectual antiSemite in words only) and Alex Georgiadis a Greek Classicist.

I had read Paul’s Problems of Microphysics and many of his philosophical realist works including Dialectical Materialism and QM

He called me the Taxicab driver that knew everything perhaps a slight exaggeration.

I tried reading his Against Method which I considered nonsense and politely indicated how it contradicted his own seminal works 

Paul specifically replied that he wrote Against Method to make a living.

Yes Paul opposed paradigmatic Mafia-type control in the sciences like BBT in cosmetology were alternate rival hypotheses can’t be peer reviewed and published.

By no means did he not have a crystal clear realist scientific view au fond.

Paul was very alert to “Theory  Dependent Observations “ and how the confirmation biases can shape one’s thinking.

Articles say that his Eastern Front wounds made him impotent but he snagged a beautiful young Italian student I believe Grazia and she had solicited his attention.

I believe they formed a significant relationship if memory serves.

I was under the misapprehension that Feyerabend had been in the Waffen SS and yet I didn’t see the slightest indication of AntiSemitism 

Of course I had studied some of the correspondence between Paul and Imre Lakatos which may have tempered my judgment.

Paul was open to all comers was not judgmental or moralistic but was moral and had a sense of joie de vivre and an understated sophisticated risible humor.