Abstract

My dissertation project investigates Paul Feyerabend's later work, focusing on his epistemological and ontological positions. This thesis analyzes Feyerabend's later pluralistic philosophy and his view of historicity of knowledge from examples of the interpretation of the transition from archaic pre-rational epistemological framework to Greek and Western rationalism. The first part outlines Feyerabend's philosophical development along with his continuously changing philosophical views and offers an account of Feyerabend's critical reception among the philosophical community. The second part focuses on Feyerabend's interpretation of archaic Greek thought. Feyerabend presents a pre-rational epistemological framework in his concept of "paratactic aggregate." Feyerabend's idea is based on an analysis of late geometric figurative art and on development of Snell's linguistic research in the scope of Homeric psychology. Feyerabend highlights this original archaic worldview and explains the rise of rationality in classical Greek philosophy and culture primarily as the result of a complex idiosyncratic socio-historical process and not as progress in the development of man's reasoning. The purpose of this part of my thesis is to demonstrate how Snell's and Feyerabend's interpretation of this archaic...