Introduction

Abstract

In the late summer of 1948, a small alpine village in French-occupied Tyrol staged an encounter between two Viennese that significantly affected the history of philosophy as well as the public understanding of science since the second half of the twentieth century. A peculiar series of circumstances contributed to bring together a mature university student and a relatively young academician; who a few decades later and partly due to this event, were to become (in)famous respectively as “the worst enemy of science” and allegedly one of the greatest philosophers of science of his time, if not of all times. This section sets out the context so as to introduce readers to the documents collected in this volume, which focuses on the relationship between two of the most controversial philosophers of the last century: Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) and Karl Raimund Popper (1902–1994).