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Birth
Imre Lakatos was born as Imre Lipsitz in Debrecen, Hungary on November 9, 1922 to a Jewish family. -
University of Debrecen
Lakatos received degrees in mathematics, physics, and philosophy from the University of Debrecen. It was during this time the German Nazis occupied Hungary following Hungary’s entry into the war on the side of the axis. Lakatos’s mother and grandmother were captured and later died in the Auschwitz death camps. Lakatos avoided being captured by changing his name to Imre Monar while working for a Marxist resistance group. He did not adopt the name of Lakatos (meaning “Locksmith”) until 1945. -
Eötvös College and Politics
After the war, he attended Eötvös College in Budapest where he was politically active as a "Stalinist Revolutionary" while studying under Hegelian-Marxist philosopher György Lukács. He rallied against the college, calling it “elitist and bourgeois institution”. The college later closed in 1950 after the communist takeover. By 1947, he held a post as the Ministry of Education putting him in charge of the reform of higher education in Hungary (Plato Standford, New World). -
Arrest
In 1949, Lakatos traveled to Moscow University. Upon his return, he was arrested in April 1950 and was held for three years. He was arrested on charges of revisionism and, after a period in the cellars of the secret police (including, of course, torture) and a year in solitary confinement, he was condemned to the prison camp at Recsk. (Larvor, Plato Stanford) -
Period: to
Probability and Measure Theory
Between 1954 and 1956 Lakatos worked on probability and measure-theory under the mathematician Alfred Rényi. He worked to translate György Pólya’s 'How to Solve It' into Hungarian. During this time, Lakatos began to question Marxism (Larvor). -
Escape from Hungary
He escaped Hungary to Vienna on November 26, 1956 after the Hungarian uprising of 1956 when the uprising was suppressed by Soviet tanks. With the help of a Rockefeller Fellowship went to England to study at King's College, Cambridge University. Here, he wrote his PhD thesis, which would later be published as 'Proofs and Refutations'. (Larvor, New York Times). -
London School of Economics
While taking on his doctorate, Lakatos joined Karl Popper in 1960 at the London School of economics where he remained until his untimely death. In 1962, he joined the faculty of the London School of Economics (Larvor, New York Times). -
Professor of Logic
He became a professor of logic in 1969 a the London School of Economics with a worldwide reputation as a philosopher of science. During this time, his philosophical interests broadened to include physical science, and he developed the 'Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes'. (Plato Standford, Larvor) -
1973 Speech on Science and Pseudoscience
Imre Lakatos gives a BBC Radio talk in 1973 on "Science and Pseudoscience". He discusses the demarcation problem, the history and philosophy of science as well providing examples. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FzaQS4noAA&t=796s -
Death
Imre Lakatos died an untimely death at the age of 51. While living the last part of his life in Britain, he never gained official citizenship and died a stateless person. -
Proofs and Refutations
Lakatos's untimely death meant that he was unable to finish his book on the philosophy of mathematics, John Worrall and Elie Zahar gathered his materials and published the original British Journal essay in 1976 as 'Proof and Refutations: the Logic of Mathematical Discovery'. The essay was padded with supplemental editorial commentary by Worrall and Zahar to fill in for clarifications but within the footnotes, they filled in what they thought Lakatos "ought to have said". (Lavor) -
The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes
Not satisfied with Popper’s demarcation theory, Lakatos to address the distinction between science and pseudo-science. Like Kuhn, he believed that sequences of historically related theories should be examined. However, he sought a “methodology that could provide a rational account of scientific progress, consistent with historical record, and thus preserve the rationality of science in the face of failure or Popperian falsification and Kuhn’s irrationalism.” (New World, Lavor)
