220px professor imre lakatos, c1960s

Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 - February 2, 1974)

  • Philosophy of Mathematics

    During Lakatos book “Proofs and Refutations”, a dialogue is set up between a teacher and students to discuss many issues of methods and practices of mathematics. Heavily influenced by Popper, Lakatos attempts to contest the classical belief that mathematics and its development as a gradual increase and growth of knowledge. Instead, he argues a new philosophical idea that mathematical development happens in a more dynamic and complex process.
  • Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge

    Contained in the Criticism and Growth of Knowledge is Lakatos’s “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programs”. During these proceedings, Lakatos went on to discuss Research Programs further, giving an alternative, but related to Kuhn’s ideas. These proceedings and volumes created from them are a great historical example of philosophical debate in science.
  • Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science

    Lakatos, I. (1970) Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge: Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, London, 1965. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press
  • The Problem of Inductive Logic

    Lakatos, I. (1968) The Problem of Inductive Logic. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co.
  • Methodology of Scientific Research Programs

    Lakatos aim with the “Methodology of Scientific Research Programs” was to improve Popper’s Demarcation Criterion. Lakatos argued that Popper’s theory placed too many restraints on science and did not take into consideration everyday science, that it would rule it out as unscientific. He proposed Research Programs, which are a sequence of theoretical ideas that have been falsified that share a hard core of central theses that are deemed irrefutable. He also referred to this as “problem-shifts”.
  • Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.

    Lakatos, I. (1970) Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.
  • Science and Pseudoscience

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FzaQS4noAA Lakatos gives talk on radio about Science and Pseudoscience
  • Popper on Demarcation and Induction

    Lakatos, I. (1974) Popper on Demarcation and Induction. La Salle IL: Open Court.
  • Mathematics, Science and Epistemology: Philosophical Papers

    Lakatos, I. (1978) Mathematics, Science and Epistemology: Philosophical Papers Volume 2 ed. by John Worrall and Gregory Currie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Lakatos and Feyerabend

    Matteo Motterlini published a book called “For and Against Method”, which essentially is a dialogue(imaginary) between Lakatos and Feyerabend discussing philosophy of science as a whole based on their positions and beliefs. Lakatos and Feyerabend were leading philosophers of science during their time. Although they did not always share the same beliefs, they respected each other and each other’s works.
  • For and Against Method

    Lakatos, I. and Feyerabend, P. (1999) For and Against Method: Including Lakatos’s Lectures on Scientific Method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend Correspondence. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.