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Imprisonment
Between 1945 and 1950, Imre Lakatos had a very important role of influencing Hungarian communism in academics and culture. He also was an informer for State Protection Authority, which was the secret police of the People's Republic of Hungary. They were the most hated organization in the country. Lakatos was later imprisoned on charges of revisionism from 1950 to 1953. -
Soviet Union Invades Hungary
Hungary underwent a revolution in 1956. The Soviet Union invaded Hungary later that year on November 4th to stop the revolution. This caused Lakatos to flee to Vienna and later ended up residing in England. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE1FX0Uf01I] -
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Professor Lakatos
After he moved to England, he taught at the London School of Economics from 1960 to 1969 becoming a professor there in 1969. This is where he worked on the philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1961. -
Falsification & Research Programmes
Lakatos came up with a model of the "research programme" and it's purpose was to settle the dispute between Karl Popper's falsifiability views and Thomas Kuhn's structure of science. This was Imre Lakatos' biggest accomplishment in philosophy of science besides his book "Proofs and Refutations". Lakatos, Imre. (1970). "Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes." In: Lakatos, Musgrave eds. (1970), pp. 91–195. -
"Proofs and Refutations"
Imre Lakatos wrote a book called "Proofs and Refutations" that was actually based on his thesis called "Essays in the Logic of Mathematical Discovery". His own revision of his first chapter is what the book is based on. His goal was to solidify that no theory of informal mathematics is perfect. It was published in 1976, two years after he died. Lakatos, Imre. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery. Edited by John Worrall and Elie Zahar, Cambridge University Press, 2015. -
References
"Lakatos, Imre." Chambers Biographical Dictionary, Liam Rodger, and Joan Bakewell, Chambers Harrap, 9th edition, 2011. Feyerabend, Paul. “Imre Lakatos.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 26, no. 1, Aberdeen University Press, Mar. 1975, pp. 1–18, doi:10.1093/bjps/26.1.1.
