[jfengel]

That is indeed a problem. He's responding to a century's worth of epistemological thought, and that reply makes only limited sense without knowing what he's replying to.

I see it as a kind of conversation: Popper: Scientists invent hypotheses, then try to falsify them.

Kuhn: Turns out that's not really what scientists do most of the time, especially the most important ones. The inspiration comes out of nowhere.

Feyerabend: And that's a good thing, because they'd miss out on pretty much everything. You can never know for sure what's going to be a revolution and what's just crankery.

I find that Feyerabend is a little too broad in that last assertion. But it's a really important observation nonetheless, especially when a lot of scientists (and more importantly, science-adjacent types like most HN readers) are stuck back on Popper.