NOT A PHILOSOPHER

PAUL FEYERABEND
University of California,Berkeley

I am not a philosopher. I am a professor of philosophy, which here in Berkeley

means a civil servant. Why did I become a professor? Because I was broke. A British
friend suggested that I apply for a job in Oxford that had just become available.
To raise my chances i applied for three jobs; one in Oxford, one in Bristol, one in
Australia. I got Bristol, mainly on the basis of a recommendation by Erwin
Schroedinger, who seemed to like the way in which I, a mere student, dealt with
bigshots in public debates. "Three years, not a day more," I said when I started.
Now, after thirty-five years, I am still in the business.
Why? Because being a professor sure beats being a nine-to-five working stiff. And
why philosophy? Because there are no restrictions on what you can do. A professor
of mathematics who uses "Topology III" to talk about Liliana Cavaini will soon get
into trouble. I had no problems when I turned Epistemology I" into a discussion of
Ian Kott. Why did I write so much? That, too, was an accident. I liked to talk and
to travel and I accepted many invitations. My talks were mostly unprepared - made a
few notes, memorized them, and then performed without a script. Most of the talks
belonged to series that issued in publications, so I was eventually forced to write
them down.
Do I believe in what I write, or say? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. An actor (and
for me a professor is in many ways an actor - I would fall asleep on my job if I
felt otherwise) should present his lines in an interesting way; he does not need to
believe them. It is up to the audience to decide about truth, plausibility or
whatever else they think is important. What am I apart from being a professor? To
that my answer is: "I am not a what, I am a who." If somebody put a pistol to my
head, however, and said "confess, or die!," then I would exclaim: "I am a
journalist' I have opini0ns like everybody else, but I write about them and I try
to make them colorful and attractive. I did not invent the opinions i have. I
accidentally picked them up, from newspapers, plays, novels, political debates, and
even from a philosophy book now and then. Some of these opinions, I thought, were
excellent; since they were being maligned by ignoramuses (people who call
themselves philosophers among them), they deserved a good defense, and I decided to
defend them. I defended not only their content, but also the style of life they
represented. The best content, the most liberating message, changes into its
opposite when spread by people with "truth" or "a conscience" in their soul and a
mean look on their faces.
Aristophanes, not Socrates; Nestroy, not Kant; Voltaire, not Rousseau; the Marx
brothers, not Wittgenstein. These are my heroes. These people are not philosophers,
and philosophers, though flirting with them in their pastime, would not accept them
in their midst. This is why I, though of much smaller talent, have no interest in
being found there either.

(Karnos, David D. & Shoemaker, Robert G. (eds.) (1994). Falling in Love with
Wisdom: American Philosophers Talk About Their Calling. OUP USA: p.16-7)