Philosopher, physicist, and anarchist Paul Feyerabend was one of the most unconventional scholars of his time. His book Against Method has become a modern classic. Yet it is not well known that Feyerabend spent many years working on a philosophy of nature that was intended to comprise three volumes covering the period from the earliest traces of stone age cave paintings to the atomic physics of the 20th century a project that, as he conveyed in a letter to Imre Lakatos, almost drove him nuts: Damn the ,Naturphilosophie. The book s manuscript was long believed to have been lost. Recently, however, a typescript constituting the first volume of the project was unexpectedly discovered at the University of Konstanz. In this volume Feyerabend explores the significance of myths for the early period of natural philosophy, as well as the transition from Homer s aggregate universe to Parmenides uniform ontology. He focuses on the rise of rationalism in Greek antiquity, which he considers a disastrous development, and the associated separation of man from nature. Thus Feyerabend explores the prehistory of science in his familiar polemical and extraordinarily learned manner. The volume contains numerous pictures and drawings by Feyerabend himself. It also contains hitherto unpublished biographical material that will help to round up our overall image of one of the most influential radical philosophers of the twentieth century.

Philosopher, physicist, and anarchist Paul Feyerabend was one of the most unconventional scholars of his time. His book Against Method has become a modern classic. Yet it is not well known that Feyerabend spent many years working on a philosophy of nature that was intended to comprise three volumes covering the period from the earliest traces of stone age cave paintings to the atomic physics of the 20th century - a project that, as he conveyed in a letter to Imre Lakatos, almost drove him nuts: "Damn the ,Naturphilosophie."The book's manuscript was long believed to have been lost. Recently, however, a typescript constituting the first volume of the project was unexpectedly discovered at the University of Konstanz. In this volume Feyerabend explores the significance of myths for the early period of natural philosophy, as well as the transition from Homer's "aggregate universe" to Parmenides' uniform ontology. He focuses on the rise of rationalism in Greek antiquity, which he considers a disastrous development, and the associated separation of man from nature. Thus Feyerabend explores the prehistory of science in his familiar polemical and extraordinarily learned manner.The volume contains numerous pictures and drawings by Feyerabend himself. It also contains hitherto unpublished biographical material that will help to round up our overall image of one of the most influential radical philosophers of the twentieth century.

Paul Feyerabend, an Historical Philosopher of Nature viiEditorial Notes xxviiiPaul Feyerabend: Philosophy of Nature 1Preliminary Note 31. Presuppositions of Myths, and the Knowledge of their Inventors 51.1. Stone Age Art and Knowledge of Nature 91.2. Megalithic Astronomy (Stonehenge) 151.3. Critique of Primitivist Interpretations of the Prehistoric Era 221.4. The Dynamic Worldview of Stone Age Humans 262. The Structure and Function of Myths 342.1. Theories of Myth 362.2. The Theory of Nature Myths and Structuralism 463. Homer's Aggregate Universe 503.1. The Paratactic World of Archaic Art 513.2. Worldview and Knowledge in Homer's Epics 653.3. Views of Reality and the Language of Science: Some Basic Considerations 774. Transition to an Explicitly Conceptual Approach to Nature 874.1. The New World of the Philosophers: Advantages and Disadvantages 914.2. Historical Factors for the Emergence of Philosophy 964.3. Predecessors in Hesiod's and Oriental Cosmogonies 1045. Philosophy of Nature through Parmenides 1135.1. Hesiod and Anaximander: Changing Worldviews 1145.2. Xenophanes: Critic of Religion and Epistemologist 1345.3. Parmenides: The Origins of Western Philosophy of Nature 1476. Western Philosophy of Nature from Aristotle to Bohr 1586.1. Aristotle's Research Program 1596.2. Descartes: The Mathematical Approach to Nature 1696.3. Galileo, Bacon, Agrippa: Empiricism without Foundations 1736.4. Hegel: The Dynamics of Concepts 1856.5. Newton, Leibniz, Mach: Problems of Mechanism 1926.6. Einstein, Bohr, Bohm: Signs of a New Era 1977. Conclusion 205Paul Feyerabend: Previously Unpublished Documents 209Letter to Jack J. C. Smart, December 1963 211Preparation (Request for a Sabbatical, 1977) 220Report on 1980 Sabbatical 232Bibliography 235Index 250