This book provides new perspectives on the history of the philosophy of science in the twentieth century, through the exploration of the intellectual roots of the thought of Paul K. Feyerabend (1924-1994) in Austrian philosophy. In addition to new research papers on the connection between Feyerabend and thinkers such as Boltzmann, Mach, Wittgenstein, Frank, Neurath, and Popper, the volume offers rich and as yet unpublished manuscripts and correspondence of archival origins by Feyerabend, Naess, Shapere and Finocchiaro. This collection pays specific attention to Feyerabend’s problematic reception of Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language Philosophy; influences, convergences and resonances of Feyerabend’s evolving philosophical work with different trends within the Vienna Circle; and the controversial Feyerabend-Popper relationship. Following Feyerabend’s 2024 centennial, the volume provides historians of the philosophy of science and intellectual historians with a deeper, more articulated and stimulating view of the far-reaching ramifications and global impact of Austrian philosophy in the twentieth century.

Matteo Collodel is a historian of the philosophy of science specializing in twentieth-century thought, with a particular focus on Paul K. Feyerabend, Critical Rationalism, and Logical Empiricism. He leads the research project “Against Authority: Paul K. Feyerabend’s Life and Thought” at the Institute Vienna Circle, University of Vienna, and is a subject expert in logic and philosophy of science at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

His recent editorial work includes two volumes of Feyerabend’s Formative Years: Correspondence and Unpublished Papers (Springer, 2020; 2024), which draw on previously unpublished archival sources to illuminate the early development of Feyerabend’s thought. He is also the author of the entry “Critical Rationalism and the Debate over the Rationality of Science” in the Routledge Handbook of History of Philosophy of Science (F. Padovani and A. T. Tuboly, eds., Routledge, 2025).

Daniel Kuby is a visiting scholar at the Department of Philosophy, University of Konstanz. He holds a doctoral degree in history and philosophy of science from the University of Vienna, focusing on Paul Feyerabend and Logical Empiricism. In 2014 he was co-recipient of the Bader-Prize for the History of the Natural Sciences from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the project "Forcing: Conceptual change in the foundations of mathematics" investigating the history and philosophy of modern set theory.

Friedrich Stadler: Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Vienna, ret. Permanent Fellow, Institute Vienna Circle, University of Vienna, and Director of the Vienna Circle Society. Founder and (co-)editor of 3 Springer series “Vienna Circle Institute Yearbooks”, “Vienna Circle Institute Library”, “Veröffentlichungen des Institut Wiener Kreis.

He is a Member of the Turin Academy of Sciences, a former President of the European Philosophy of Science Association and the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. He edited the volume "Paul Feyerabend. Ein Philosoph aus Wien" together with Kurt Fischer (Springer 2006).