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Birth
Born November 9, 1922 in Debrecen, Hungary. Imre Lakatos' parents split when he was young so he was largely raised by his grandmother and mother. -
Graduation
Lakatos graduated from the university of Debrecen with a degree in Physics, Mathematics, and Philosophy. -
London School of Economics
Following many years of communist activities. Lakatos' career really started when he was appointed Assistant Lecturer in Karl Popper’s department at the London School of Economics -
PhD
Received a PhD in philosophy from the University of Cambridge; his doctoral thesis was entitled Essays in the Logic of Mathematical Discovery -
Proofs and Refutations
Imre Lakatos' first major work Proofs and Refutations is a critique of “formalist” philosophies of mathematics. This work counters Euclidian deductions, stating that proofs are deductions from well-defined premises are the end-points of an evolutionary process. This is a direct comparison to Poppers theories on science. That theories are evolutionary. And that refutations or counter-arguments are an important aspect of the evolution. -
Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes
In this writing Lakatos' labels scientific theories not as "true" or "false", but as progressive and degenerative. More akin to Thomas Kuhns Paradigm shifts. If a programme is deemed degenerative then it means that its successive theories are not theoretically progressive or empirically progressive. This half of this video explains Lakatos' hardcore data: youtube -
Death
At the age of 51 Lakatos' suffered a heart attack and passed away. -
Why Did Copernicus’s Research Programme Supersede Ptolemy’s?
Even after his untimely death one more work was published. Co-authored with Elie Zahar, this work explains why the methodology of scientific research programmes is used as justification to the Copernican Revolution as a rational process to dethrone the Ptolemy geocentric theory.