Feyerabend's ‘The concept of intelligibility in modern physics’ (1948)

• Introduces Feyerabend's earliest extant essay (1948).
• Discusses intelligibility (Verständlichkeit) and visualizability (Anschaulichkeit) of physical theories in response to E. Schrödinger.
• Feyerabend's historical examples suggest that visualizability is a time-conditioned concept.
• Gives a rare insights into the discussions of the Third Vienna Circle.
• Documents Feyerabend’s early philosophical interest as a physicist-to-be in his “positivist” phase.

This essay introduces the transcription and translation of Paul Feyerabend's Der Begriff der Verständlichkeit in der modernen Physik [The concept of intelligibility in modern physics] (1948), which is an early essay written by Paul Feyerabend in 1948 on the topic of intelligibility (Verständlichkeit) and visualizability (Anschaulichkeit) of physical theories. The existence of such essay was likely. It is listed in his bibliography as his first publication. Yet the content of the essay was unknown, as no original or copy is extant in Feyerabend's Nachlass and no known published version was available to the community—until now. The essay has both historical and philosophical interest: it is, as far as our current knowledge goes, Feyerabend's earliest extant publication. It documents Feyerabend's philosophical interest as a physicist-to-be, in what he himself called his “positivist” phase; and it gives a rare if fragmentary insight into the early discussions of the ‘Third Vienna Circle’ and, more generally, the philosophical culture of discussion in Vienna.