CB: Sounds like you may have attended his lectures in the 60's ?
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As I wrote offlist, I did. I sent a better description of Feyerabend to lbo but I can't remember if it was offlist or not. It might be in the archives somewhere.
Part of what made Feyerabend so impressive, was that I was ready to hear somebody like F take academia, the university administration, and establishment science to the cleaners. He was a great speaker and he loved it. His Austrian accent, classical training and his complete comfort around various schools of philosophy gave the whole show a remarkable weight, despite his comedy. The way he used his canadian crutches to push the chalk boards up or down, write with one hand sideways, or occasionally when he slammed one of his crutches on the boards made him something like Doctor Strangelove. He was ham.
The class was held in the old northwest lecture hall in Wheeler, which had tiered seating, old wooden chairs bolted to the floor, tall north facing windows and a stage with giant blackboards that pulled up and down. It had a movable lectern, that he had moved out of the way so he could pace back and forth and could reach the boards when he wanted to write something down.
He would talk about whatever was on his mind and it was up to you to follow the theme. There were never any notes. He didn't like students taking notes. I tried a few times and gave up and just listened to him. He would talk to the class as if they were contemporaries, already versed in the background of what he was discussing, so much of the time a lot of what he said went straight over my head---I would write down a name here or there to look up later. He spent a fair amount of time with the pre-socratics, mulling over the origin of philosophy. One interesting track he went on was a defense of the Ptolemaic system from a strictly empirical view. Of course it was also a set up to launch into Galileo---one of his favorites.
The class was late afternoon in the fall and it rained a lot, so the whole ambience of the hall and the light was a little like reading Rilke. I could dream I was actually learning something and being introduced to the world of philosophy. Of course he would have poo-pooed that sort of thing, but I fully enjoyed it anyway.
He hated grading, so he refused to take it seriously. This had the great effect of erasing all the pressure, and consequently, I could relax and just listen, figure it out on my own, take a few notes for later reading or interesting ideas to think about...
CG