-
Birth of Imre Lakatos
Imre Lakatos born Novemeber 9th 1922 in Debrecen, Hungary, was a Jewish younth during Hitlers domination of Hungary, given the name Imre Lipschitz at birth later changing it to Imre Molnár, and lastly to Imre Lakatos in order to avoid Nazi persecution. -
University of Debrecen
He received a degree in mathematics, physics, and philosophy from the University of Debrecen in 1944 -
Period: to
Imprisoned From 1950 to 1953
Lakatos found himself on the losing side of internal arguments within the Hungarian communist party and was imprisoned on charges of revisionism from 1950 to 1953 -
Period: to
Translating George Pólya's How to Solve It into Hungarian
After his release, Lakatos returned to his academic life doing mathematical research and earned his living by translating mathematics books into Hungarian, one being George Polya's "How to Solve it". -
Period: to
Fled to Vienna
After the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in November 1956, Many people were sent to the Soviet Union and many of those that never returned were a substantial proportion of Hungary's educated class. Lakatos realized that he was about to be arrested and fled to Vienna and later reached England. -
London School of Economics
Lakatos was appointed to the London School of Economics. He taught there for 14 years. Lakatos lectured on difficult and abstract subjects full of technicalities, but he did it in a way that was intelligible, fascinating, dramatic, and amusing, to a crowded lecture hall in an electric atmosphere, where "gales of laughter would often erupt." The LSE philosophy of science department at that time included Karl Popper and John Watkins. -
Time in England - Cambridge University
In England, Lakatos studied at the University of Cambridge. His work was influenced by Popper and by Pólya and he went on to write his doctoral thesis Essays in the Logic of Mathematical Discovery submitted to Cambridge in 1961. At Pólya's suggestion, his thesis took as its theme the history of the Euler-Descartes formula V - E + F = 2V−E+F=2. -
London School of Economics & Research II
What Lakatos tried to establish was that no theorem of informal mathematics is final or perfect. This means that one should not think that a theorem is ultimately true, only that no counterexample has yet been found. Once a counterexample, that is, an entity contradicting/not explained by the theorem is found, we adjust the theorem, possibly extending the domain of its validity. This is a continuous way knowledge accumulates, through the logic and process of proofs and refutations. -
London School of Economics & Research I
Lakatos' contribution to the philosophy of science was an attempt to resolve the perceived conflict between Karl Popper's "falsificationism" and the revolutionary structure of science described by Thomas S. Kuhn. -
Published Proofs & Refutations
Lakatos published Proofs and Refutations in 1963-64 in four parts in the British Journal for Philosophy of Science. This work was based on his doctoral thesis and is written in the form of a discussion between a teacher and a group of students. A central theme is that definitions are not carved in stone, but often have to be patched up in the light of later insights, in particular failed proofs. This gives mathematics a somewhat experimental flavor. -
Death
Lakatos remained at the London School of Economics until his sudden death in 1974 at 51 years old.
