A comparative timeline for Grice and Feyerabend

J said that there's good stuff in Preston's entry for Feyerabend in the $tanford Encyclopedia. I agree. This is my commentary on the timeline:

"1924 Born in Vienna. Son of a civil servant and a seamstress."

O. T. O. H., Grice born, son of a musician (cello player) and a woman (Mabel Fenton).

"1940 Was inducted into the Arbeitsdienst (the work service introduced by the Nazis)."

1940. Grice was inducted into the Royal Navy (the work service introduced by Mountbatten).

"1942 Drafted into the Pioneer Corps of the German army. After basic training, volunteered for Officers' School."

1940. Grice gets tired of 'sailing'. He is moved to the Admiralty office in London ("A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square").

"1943 Learned of his mother's suicide."

Grice never learned of his mother's suicide.

"1944 Decorated, Iron Cross. Advanced to Lieutenant. Lectured to Officers' School."

Grice decorated his Christmas tree. "Not something I would do -- but for the sake of Karen" (his daughter).

"1945 Shot in the hand and in the belly during the retreat from the Russian Army. The bullet damaged his spinal nerves."

Grice was hit by a cricket ball in the North Oxford Club he belonged to. No visual damage.

"1946 Received a fellowship to study singing and stage-management in Weimar. Joined the “Cultural Association for the Democratic Reform of Germany”."

"No singing for me!," Grice would say. He did play the piano for Clifton. He found singing boring.

"1947 Returned to Vienna to study history and sociology at the University. Soon transferred to physics. First article, on the concept of illustration in modern physics, published. Feyerabend “a raving positivist” at the time."

Grice's first essay was "Privation and Negation". "This must be a very early paper," Chapman surmises. "Instead of his Oxford address, it gives the address of his parents in Harborne".

"1948 First visit to the Alpbach seminar of the Austrian College Society. Became secretary of the seminars. Met Karl Popper and Walter Hollitscher. Married first wife, Edeltrud."

Grice married his first wife in 1940. Oddly Urmson has this date wrong in his obituary for Grice in "The Independent" -- as 1944. Surely Grice would not have survived the war without "the wife".

(Don't retrieve the wrong implicature, 'his first wife', that he had a second).

"1949 Became student leader of the “Kraft Circle”, a student philosophy club centred around Viktor Kraft, Feyerabend's dissertation supervisor and a former member of the Vienna Circle."

So this is the Vienna Circle Circle.

---

Grice became a member of the playgroup.

--- As J. Huggins commented, "While global warming was taking place, the Play-group played (games)."

"Ludwig Wittgenstein visited the Kraft Circle to give a talk. Feyerabend also met Bertolt Brecht."

In that order.

Quine gave a talk for the playgroup. It bored them. Or 'it', if you must.

"1951 Received doctorate in philosophy for his thesis on “basic statements”."

Rather than 'observational' statements. In Oxford, it is a no-no (an unclassy thing to do) to pursue a doctorate ('surely we don't need doctors to doctor us around here').

"Applied for a British Council scholarship to study under Wittgenstein at Cambridge. But Wittgenstein died before Feyerabend arrived in England, so Feyerabend chose Popper as his supervisor instead."

And lied in the form: "I said that Popper was in Cambridge". "With that money I bought my first car".

"1952 Came to England, to study under Popper at the London School of Economics. Concentrated on the quantum theory and Wittgenstein."

NOT in that order. "I tried to combine Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with Heisenberg -- and failed (miserably) but the British Council would not know, would it?"

"Studied the typescript of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, and prepared a summary of the book."

Got as far as section IV.

"Befriended another of Popper's students, Joseph Agassi."

An Italian.

"1953 Feyerabend returned to Vienna. Popper applied for an extension to his scholarship, but Feyerabend decided to remain in Vienna instead."

And attend the opera, which he missed.

Vienna is very rich musically. It is not "The Merry Widow", you know.

"Translated Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies into German."

As he would say, "I untranslated, rather." implicating that Popper's English leaves a lot to be desired (by Feyerabend, no less).

"Declined the offer to become Popper's research assistant. Agassi took the post. Feyerabend became research assistant to Arthur Pap in Vienna."

This Pap is important because he translated stuff.

"1954 First articles on quantum mechanics and on Wittgenstein published. Pap introduced Feyerabend to Herbert Feigl."

'Feigl' is pronounced /feigl/. Oddly, Grice's first name was also "Herbert". It was a common Germanic name in fashion at the time (Nowadays, most Grices are called "Scott").

"1955 Took up his first full-time academic appointment as lecturer in philosophy at the University of Bristol, England."

Which Grice would NEVER have done. "Bristol bored me to tears," Grice would reminisce. It was his mother's silly idea to send him to Clifton. "I would have preferred Athens", he will memorise.

"His summary of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations appeared as a review of the book in The Philosophical Review."

which Grice did not read. He hardly read Strawson's review of "Philosophical Investigations" (repr. in Pitcher). "I don't think I NEED a review of such a clear book," he'd say.

"1956 Married second wife, Mary O'Neill."

In this, he diverged from Grice, who NEVER married Mary O'Neill.

"Published an article on the “paradox of analysis”. Feyerabend got to know the quantum physicist David Bohm, whose ideas were to influence him substantially."

"They literally bombed me" -- he said (of the ideas).

"1957 Gave a paper on the quantum theory of measurement to the Colston Research Symposium at the University of Bristol."

Bristol is not far from Clifton. In fact, some people wrongly say that Clifton IS in Bristol.

The earliest document on Grice is in the "Clifton Review": "Paul Grice marvelled us with a version of Ravel".

"1958 Took up visiting lectureship at the University of California, Berkeley. Two of his most important early papers, “An Attempt at a Realistic Interpretation of Experience”, and “Complementarity” appeared in the proceedings of the Aristotelian Society."

Grice's paper, while Grice was older than Feyerabend, appeared in the Aristotelian Society's proceedings for 1961. Is that fair?

"In them, Feyerabend argued against positivism and in favour of a scientific realist account of the relation between theory and experience, largely on grounds familiar from Karl Popper's falsificationist views."

Grice failed to read this.

"1959 Accepted a permanent position at Berkeley, and applied for a Green Card to work in the US."

"I had to pretend that 'to philosophise' was to work -- But I managed to pour all my anarchism in my books!"

"1960 As a result of earlier discussions with Herbert Feigl, Feyerabend published “Das Problem der Existenz theoretischer Entitäten”, in which he argued that there is no special “problem” of theoretical entities, and that all entities are hypothetical."

There are echoes of this in Grice, "Method in philosophical psychology". Grice certainly argued that quarks, but also 'souls' are theoretical entities. So what. Grice would prefer 'theoretical concept'. "Theoretical entity" has a moronic (oxymoronic) ring to it.

"Gave two lectures to Oberlin College, Ohio, in which he embroidered on Popper's views about the pre-Socratic thinkers."

Grice would often visit this college.

"1962 “Explanation, Reduction, and Empiricism” appeared. Criticised existing empiricist accounts of explanation and theoretical reduction (Hempel, Nagel), and introduced the concept of incommensurability, based on the “contextual theory of meaning” which Feyerabend claimed to find in Wittgenstein's Investigations."

But nodoby else did!

"1963 “How to be a Good Empiricist”, a position paper summing up his point of view, was published, along with his two main articles on the Mind/Body Problem in which he introduced the position now known as “eliminative materialism”".

"Good" in 'good empiricist' is a good one.

"1965 Publication of the first part of the essay “Problems of Empiricism”, and his “Reply to Criticism”, in which Feyerabend made his last serious attempt to construct a “tolerant”, “disinfected” empiricism."

Meanwhile Grice was progressing towards his irreverent, conservative, reactionary rationalism."

---- Feyerabend would later recollect in letter dated May 1971 to Lakatos: "Being with Grice today made me a rationalist -- but only almost"".

"Although beginning to put some distance between himself and Popper, Feyerabend was still able to write a glowing review of Popper's Conjectures and Refutations."

in German, not.

"1967–8 Focus of his published papers had by now moved to “theoretical pluralism”, the view that in order to maximise the chances of falsifying existing theories, scientists should construct and defend as many alternative theories as possible."

Pluralism relates to Carnap's toleranz, but I'll be damned if Feyerabend credited Carnap.

"Feyerabend's articles “On a Recent Critique of Complementarity” defended Niels Bohr's views against Popper's critique. Popper not amused."

Popper WAS not amused. Preston should not be eliding. It does not help one to retrieve the implicatures.

"1969 In a tiny article, “Science Without Experience”, Feyerabend finally gave up the attempt to be an empiricist, arguing that in principle experience is necessary at no point in the construction, comprehension or testing of empirical scientific theories."

How to be a BAD empiricist, then?

"1970 Publication of “Consolations for the Specialist”, in which Feyerabend attacked Popper from a Kuhnian point of view, and the essay version of “Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge”, in which “epistemological anarchism” was revealed for the first time."

While he was lecturing, of all places, at Yale!

"Feyerabend claimed to be applying the liberalism of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty to scientific methodology. Published little during the next few years."

but visited Italy.

"1974 Death of Feyerabend's friend Imre Lakatos, putting paid to their plans to produce a dialogue volume, For and Against Method."

Why? What has putting paid to do with a contingency like that?

"Feyerabend, lecturing at the University of Sussex, was ill too. Published a scathing review of Popper's Objective Knowledge."

which Popper ignored, dutifully.

"1975 Appearance of Feyerabend's first book, Against Method, setting out “epistemological anarchism”, whose main thesis was that there is no such thing as the scientific method."

He quotes from Cole Porter whose "Anything goes" he saw in a student revue at the Yale cabaret.

"Great scientists are methodological opportunists who use any moves that come to hand, even if they thereby violate canons of empiricist methodology."

Etc.

"1976–7 Feyerabend replies to most of the major reviewers of Against Method. Got depressed."

Oddly, Chapman notes that Grice would often get depressed too. "Into one of his broods", as they said.

"Published his first major article on relativism: the first time he explicitly endorsed the view."

Protagoras had done that without so much fuss".

"1978 Science in a Free Society appears, including replies to reviewers of Against Method. Some clarification of epistemological anarchism, and very little retreat from the position set out in AM. Explored further the political implications of epistemological anarchism."

While he became an American citizen -- "I am an American anarchist in the tradition of Warren Beaty in "Reds"", he would say.

"The book also included one of Feyerabend's major endorsements of relativism, one of the views for which he was becoming known. First volume of the German edition of Feyerabend's philosophical papers appears. (Feyerabend published increasingly in German from this point onwards)."

Austrian, rather. "I wouldn't call Austrian German, or vice versa."

"1981 English publication of the first two volumes of Feyerabend's Philosophical Papers, with new material in introductory chapters."

"1983 Met Grazia Borrini at his Berkeley lectures."

of Italian descent. They will later marry in 1989, but this time line gets to 1988, since Grice died then. Count: Feyerabend had three wives; Grice just one.

"1984 Publishes “Science as an Art”, in which he defends an explicitly relativistic account of the history of science according to which there is change, but no “progress”. Also continues his campaign to rehabilitate Ernst Mach."

who was dead.

"1987 Publication of Farewell to Reason, a volume collecting some of the papers Feyerabend had published between 1981 and 1987. Relativism again at the forefront, especially in its “Protagorean” version."

Feyerabend's Greek left a lot to be desired, so Protagorean is loose here.

"1988 Second, revised edition of Against Method, omitting the long chapter on the history of the visual arts, but now incorporating parts of Science in a Free Society, appeared."

The illustrations on the visual arts section were omitted in the paperback edition in Hungarian, alas. ("To print the book with the illustrations, as Feyerabend intended, would have triplicated the price of the volume. Plus they are unnecessary.")