Feyerabend, Bohr and Quantum Physics

Between 1952 and 1975, between his arrival in England and the publication of Against method, Feyerabend transformed himself from a critic of quantum mechanics into an anti-philosopher of science. When he moved to Berkeley, in 1958, he distanced himself from Karl Popper, argued with Thomas Kuhn, and came to grips with the issues raised by the “free speech” movement. The exigencies of his journey drove him to intellectual history, particularly to the Greeks and Galileo, in a search for plausible arguments for his anti-philosophy. In the first part of this paper, Heilbron presents Feyerabend the critic of quantum mechanics: starting from Popper’s arguments against Bohr’s complementarity and the diffuse “Copenhagen interpretation,” Feyerabend supported David Bohm’s challenge to Copenhagen in the early 1950s; after moving to Berkeley, Feyerabend defended Bohr’s views against Popper’s criticism. In the second part, Heilbron approaches Feyerabend the historian through his apt objections to Kuhn and his unpersuasive account of Galileo’s science and sufferings.