For starters, let me try to sketch a somewhat unorthodox "rational reconstruction" of the Vienna Circle. 1. It started with anti-metaphysical propositions (Carnap, Schlick, Neurath), and with a strong demarcation line between science and non-science. What separates science from non-science is verifiability of sentences by inductive methods, and generation of empirical knowledge derived from basic, atomic or observational sentences. The meaning of these sentences translates progressively into higher order sentences. Logical analysis of language is therefore a proper task of philosophy (Carnap, Wittgenstein, etc.); 2. It turns out that sense data and empirical sentences can never fully account for inductively generated generalizations. They pertain, and can account for only already observed data, but is it legitimate to extrapolate truth from these, to higher order sentences? Are these generalizations ever empirically justified and true? Perhaps, a more justifiable method might be to start from "above": from generalizations and hypothesis, and from giving a fortiori falsifying instances which would disprove them, when observed. This hypothetic-deductive method (Popper) would never reach a final verdict on what is true, but would nevertheless provide a condition for growth of knowledge by abandoning false hypothesis which should never be tried again. 3. Do scientists work according to the newly proposed method? Do they abandon fruitful hypothesis whenever they encounter a falsifying instance? And should they? Isn't such a method costly and risky, if we take into account that all generalizations are born refuted? Isn't a proliferation of methods a better way to account for what scientists are working with? This is Feyerabend's proposition about methodological anarchism or Dadaism.

Friedrich Stadler and Kurt Fischer edited a collection of eight articles on Paul Feyerabend, which do not conform with the "rational reconstruction" of Vienna Circle sketched above, either because a. their authors have no interest in rational (re)constructions; b. because their authors think it is empirically false and useless; or c. because they implicitly disprove of the "rational-reconstruction-methods". If my unorthodox sketch of Vienna Circle was right, there would be no problem whatsoever to fit Feyerabend's Dadaism and anarchism into the Viennese picture. He would be a hero of the last days of the Kreis. If the sketch is false, however, Feyerabend becomes a Viennese philosopher just contingently, so to speak, just by being born in Vienna, or by knowing philosophers from the Kreis.

Be that as it may, the articles in the collection do present us with new materials which connect this famous and popular philosopher with Vienna. First, by building a rich picture of connections between prewar and postwar philosophers belonging to the first, second or the third "Wiener Kreis" (as in Stadler's article: "P.F. - Ein Philosoph aus Wien"). It turns out that some connections (for instance between Feyerabend and Viktor Kraft) had quite an important role in the "Third Kreis", or with Popper, Feigl, and other Viennese emigrants from the "Second". Erhard Oeser ("P.F. zwischen Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Wissenschaftstheorie") also plays with the "rational reconstructions", and claims that "die Kritik Feyerabends an der formalistisch-normativen Wissenschaftstheorie [war] die schon längst notwendige Rückkehr zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte" (p. 36). And thirdly, by relying on Feyerabend's last interviews, i.e. his own words, some contributors to the volume (Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Eric Oberheim, Juliet Floyd) try to downplay the influence of Popper ("Second Kreis"), and stress the connection between the "Third" and the "First Kreis", by emphasizing, for instance, Wittgenstein's, Duhem's and Koehler's (as well as Austin's and Quine's) importance in Feyerabend's thinking. But should we exaggerate in the search for the influences, or even trust Feyerabend's words? Juliet Floyd cites the interview with Feyerabend (1991): "I did not know Popper had a philosophy [...] Popper is not a philosopher, he is a pedant - that is why the Germans love him so" (p. 105).

Others, most notably Kurt Fischer ("Feyerabends Weltanschauung"), Hans Sluga ("Der erkenntnistheoretische Anarchismus. Paul Feyerabend in Berkeley"), and Karl Svozil ("Feyerabend and Physics") give a standard anarchical and Dadaistic biographical picture with a lot of so far unknown jokes and anecdotes from Feyerabend's life. From Fischer we hear that Feyerabend "betrachtete die Logik als eine Art Zeitvertreib", and Ordinary Language Philosophy as "nicht so wichtig". He thought of himself as "zu dumm, um ein Physiker zu sein" in spite of the fact that there was no difference between a good philosopher and a physicist (p. 6). Feyerabend was allegedly not interested in influencing anyone, but Fischer "empfand ihn als besonders unangenehm, ja unerträglich, wenn er mich, was oft der Fall war, von etwas überzeugen wollte"(p. 7). In personal relationships, we hear, Feyerabend was also unerträglich. "In diesem Telegram teilte er mir mit, dass seine Freundin ihn aufgefordert hatte, sich innerhalb von 24 Stunden zwischen ihr und mir zu entscheiden, und dass er sich für sie entschieden hatte. Diese Entscheidung unterstützte er noch mit einem Zitat von Hegel ..."

Sluga tells a number of funny stories from Berkeley. At the first seminar, Feyerabend promised his students that they would get an A, and that, "es natürlich keinerlei Prüfungen oder Hausarbeiten gäbe [...] Die Einschreibung im Kursus allein genügte." When University officials heard about it, they forced Feyerabend to make at least a final exam, but at the beginning of the next semester, he gave his students "ein Blatt aus, auf dem in großen Buchstaben feierlich das Wort ,Abschlussprüfung' stand und darunter hieß es einfach: ,Erzähle mir deinen Lieblingswitz'".(p. 61) He also complained that in Zürich, where unlike at Berkeley, students regularly attended his classes, "da müsse er sich anstrengen, neues zu bieten" (p. 67). And from Karl Svozil ("Feyerabend and Physics") we find out that Feyerabend's "understanding of physics remained superficial" (p. 75), that physicists in Berkeley "generously evaluated Feyerabend to be ,merely' two decades behind current research", or that "For whatever reasons, his contributions to physics were minor" (p. 77). Svozil enlists a number of Feyerabend's errors and omissions in physics.

So, what is new with Feyerabend (the question explicitly posed by Hoyningen-Huene and Oberheim)? Well, historically speaking, as we have seen, every new joke and anecdote, every new source counts. That Kraft and quite a number of Alpbach emigrees after the war played a bigger role than usually accounted for, this may be true. Duhem and Köhler – maybe, Austin and Quine – hmm. But otherwise, I would not take Feyerabend's proclamations against Popper too seriously. So we are back on the square one, with the question - which context better explains Feyerabend's importance in the Viennese philosophy and philosophy of science: context of justification or context of discovery? And again, in spite of the spirit of Berkeley and the year '68, I would bet on the context of justification. If he were invited to teach at the Vienna University (really, why wasn't he?), and if he gave Abschlussexamen by asking students for bad jokes, Feyerabend's role would be almost negligent. It was Berkeley, and the spirit of 68, as a historical context, and the justification context: dissolution of Popperian naïve falsificationism that gave Feyerabend such a prominent role. And precisely this makes Feyerabend a Viennese philosopher, and gives him such an important role in the philosophy of science. However it may be, or however broader picture we paint, the standard view on Feyerabend, as a last hero in the philosophy of science, will still hold in the times to come.