Feyerabend and the Philosophy of Physics

Abstract

In a reference letter for Feyerabend’s application to UC Berkeley, Carl Hempel writes that ‘Mr. Feyerabend combines a forceful and penetrating analytic mind with a remarkably thorough training and high competence in theoretical physics and mathematics’ (Collodel and Oberheim, unpublished, 80). Similarly, Rudolf Carnap says of Feyerabend that he ‘knows both the physics and the philosophy thoroughly, and he is particularly well versed in the fundamental logical and epistemological problems of physics’ (83). These remarks echo a sentiment widely accepted amongst Feyerabend’s colleagues that his knowledge of physics was at an extremely high level. Feyerabend’s acumen in physics goes back to his youth, when, at the age of 13, he was offered a position as an observer at the Swiss Institute for Solar Research after building his own telescope (Feyerabend 1995, 27). It is unsurprising, therefore, that physics played an important and long-lasting role in Feyerabend’s work. More specifically, Feyerabend’s early work contains several papers engaging with technical and general issues in physics, mostly quantum mechanics. Here, he provided analyses of Bohr’s complementarity and its relationship to positivism, von Neumann’s no-go proof, Bohm’s philosophy of physics, the measurement problem, the relationship between physics and philosophy, hidden-variable theories and theoretical pluralism, and the use of threevalued logic in quantum mechanics (to name just a few topics). These continued to play important roles in his work of the 1970s, although now they appeared alongside more historical examples, such as Galileo’s work on the rotation of the earth in Against Method. While scholarship on Feyerabend’s philosophy has been burgeoning, especially over the past 10 years or so, comparatively little research has delved into his work in the philosophy of physics. This special issue seeks to ameliorate that gap. The hope is to better understand Feyerabend’s philosophy of physics, its historical impact and reception, and discern what fruits Feyerabend’s philosophy of physics may still bear. This special issue comes in two parts. Here, we introduce only the first half, which contains four contributions, touching upon different aspects of Feyerabend’s philosophy of physics. It begins with Flavio Del Santo’s paper, ‘Beyond method: the diatribe between Feyerabend and Popper over the foundations of quantum mechanics.’ Here, Del Santo looks at the relationship between Feyerabend and his mentor and eventual philosophical enemy, Karl Popper with fresh eyes. Specifically, Del Santo provides a new explanation for the fracture between Feyerabend and Popper by looking at their recently published correspondence (Collodel and Oberheim 2020) and focusing on the personal nature of their relationship. Del Santo shows how Feyerabend’s growing ‘resentment’ toward his authoritarian father-figure and Popper’s growing frustration with Feyerabend centred on disagreements concerning quantum mechanics: how to interpret it, how to criticize it, and how to teach it. The juicy details in Del Santo’s paper range from funny to heart-breaking, and we are left to wonder whether ‘philosophy of science would have lost something without such a conflict.’ Matteo Collodel’s paper, ‘Ehrenhaft’s Experiments on Magnetic Monopoles: Reconsidering the Feyerabend-Ehrenhaft Connection,’ presents a newly discovered document from