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Who he was?
Imre Lakatos was a famous philosopher from Hungary. He was born November 9, 1922 and died of a heart attack on February 2, 1974. -
Childhood & Early Life
His mother and grandmother were both murdered by Nazis in Auschwitz. Imre Lakatos was Jewish and feared the Nazis invading and brutalizing him so he decided to change his name to Lakatos in order to go undetected. By changing his last name he was able to put himself through school. -
Education
In 1944, Lakatos graduated from the University of Debrecen with a degree in mathematics, philosophy, and physics. He continued to study at this University and earned his PhD in 1948. -
Tribulations
In 1950, Lakatos was arrested and imprisoned for 3 years for not following Russian orders. -
Moving
In 1956 he moved to Great Britain to avoid the Hungarian Revolution. -
Proofs and Refutations
Lakatos was studying at Cambridge in Britain. He compiled a doctoral thesis ‘Essays in the Logic of Mathematical Discovery’, which was published in four parts as ‘Proofs and Refutations’ in ‘The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science’ in 1963-64. He refused to publish it as a book and unfortunately died before he had a chance to. Lakatos, Imre, John Worrall, and Elie Zahar, eds. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1976. Print. -
Contributions to Philosophy
Imre Lakatos made a few major contributions during his lifetime. He formed an idea of a scientific ‘research programme’, where he attempted to create a synthesis of Thomas Kuhn’s model of scientific theory change and Karl Popper’s falsifications. Working off of his previous contribution he also developed a research programme consisting of ‘hard core’, emphasizing on evaluating a research program as ‘progressive’ or ‘degenerative’, instead of analyzing whether the hypothesis is true or false. -
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VExVaR8S_wQ This video talks about the research program Lakatos is known for.