Imre Lakatos
Imre Lakatos
Imre Lakatoswas a Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science, known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its 'methodology of proofs and refutations' in its pre-axiomatic stages of development, and also for introducing the concept of the 'research programme' in his methodology of scientific research programmes...
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth9 November 1922
clash mere point technical
The clash between Popper and Kuhn is not about a mere technical point in epistemology.
character concept criterion empirical growth produce series theories
Our empirical criterion for a series of theories is that it should produce new facts. The idea of growth and the concept of empirical character are soldered into one.
commitment intellectual blind
Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime.
years two confusion
The proving power of the intellect or the senses was questioned by the skeptics more than two thousand years ago; but they were browbeaten into confusion by the glory of Newtonian physics.
confused ocean heuristics
The positive heuristic of the programme saves the scientist from becoming confused by the ocean of anomalies.
numbers criticism doe
Mathematics does not grow through a monotonous increase of the number of indubitably established theorems but through the incessant improvement of guesses by speculation and criticism, by the logic of proofs and refutations.
science achievement progress
The great scientific achievements are research programmes which can be evaluated in terms of progressive and degenerative problemshifts; and scientific revolutions consist of one research programme superceding (overtaking in progress) another. This methodology offers a new rational reconstruction of science.
philosophy blind empty
Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.
philosophy intriguing blind
The history of mathematics, lacking the guidance of philosophy, [is] blind, while the philosophy of mathematics, turning its back on the most intriguing phenomena in the history of mathematics, is empty.
successful example research
The classical example of a successful research programme is Newton's gravitational theory: possibly the most successful research programme ever.
mazes may theory
It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and Nature may shout INCONSISTENT.
heuristics research rivals
It would be wrong to assume that one must stay with a research programme until it has exhausted all its heuristic power, that one must not introduce a rival programme before everybody agrees that the point of degeneration has probably been reached.