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Early Life
Imre Lakatos was born in Hungary to a Jewish family and spent the majority of his young life under the shadow of the rise of Naziism that eventually led to him having to escape to London when Germany forced Hungary to side with them and formed a Nazi supporting Regime (Mac Tutor, 2022). Mac Tutor, (2022). https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Lakatos/ -
Communist revolutionary
Lakatos began his collage life at Debrecen in 1940 and graduated in 1944 with degrees in Math, Physics, and philosophy. During his time in school Lakatos became a committed communist and became the leader of a communist cell where is coerced a young female student to kill herself so that she would not be captured by the Nazi's and forced to betray her comrades (Stanford, 2021). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2021). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lakatos/#StalRevoMethScie -
Arrest
Lakatos was given a scholarship to attend further education in Moscow where he was later sent back to Debrecen for displaying "un-party-like" behavior (Stanford 2021). He was later arrested, tried and convicted where he was tortured then condemned to a prison camp in Recsk. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2021). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lakatos/#StalRevoMethScie -
Move to Britain
In 1956 Lakatos left Hungary with his wife and children walking across the border into Austria, where only a couple months later he found himself in Great Britain where his work began. There he became friends with Feyerabend and Popper, and even taught as an assistant lecture in Karl Poppers department. -
Proofs and Refutations
After moving to Britain Lakatos started to produce his most popular work starting with his papers on Proofs and Refutations. These works were focused on the Philosophy of Mathematics and how to support the growth of knowledge in math. -
Philosophy Shift
During the mid 60's Lakatos shifted his focus from Mathematics to Empirical Science. He organized an International Colloquium where one of his main points was analyzing the debate between Carnap and Popper where he sided with Carnap arguing that he won the debate against popular opinion. calling his argument "Degenerating Problem shift". This later led to a falling out with Popper. -
Death
Lakatos was hailed by his peers to be one of the greatest Philosophers in Mathematics in history. However, given all of the transcreations in his early life, Britain refused to grant him citizenship even though some of the most well know thinkers and knights vouched for him. Lakatos would die in 1974 as a man without a country.