Imre Lakatos
Imre Lakatos
Imre Lakatoswas a Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science, known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its 'methodology of proofs and refutations' in its pre-axiomatic stages of development, and also for introducing the concept of the 'research programme' in his methodology of scientific research programmes...
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth9 November 1922
character concept criterion empirical growth produce series theories
Our empirical criterion for a series of theories is that it should produce new facts. The idea of growth and the concept of empirical character are soldered into one.
clash mere point technical
The clash between Popper and Kuhn is not about a mere technical point in epistemology.
stuff sometimes mathematics
That sometimes clear ... and sometimes vague stuff ... which is ... mathematics.
latin men names
Man's respect for knowledge is one of his most peculiar characteristics. Knowledge in Latin is scientia, and science came to be the name of the most respectable kind of knowledge.
heuristics research rivals
It would be wrong to assume that one must stay with a research programme until it has exhausted all its heuristic power, that one must not introduce a rival programme before everybody agrees that the point of degeneration has probably been reached.
negative heuristics research
Research programmes, besides their negative heuristic, are also characterized by their positive heuristic.
thinking tables philosopher
Einstein's results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be, proven knowledge.
theory relation experiments
Indeed, this epistemological theory of the relation between theory and experiment differs sharply from the epistemological theory of naive falsificationism.
mazes may theory
It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and Nature may shout INCONSISTENT.
successful example research
The classical example of a successful research programme is Newton's gravitational theory: possibly the most successful research programme ever.
regret commitment criticism
Belief may be a regrettably unavoidable biological weakness to be kept under the control of criticism: but commitment is for Popper an outright crime.
philosophy intriguing blind
The history of mathematics, lacking the guidance of philosophy, [is] blind, while the philosophy of mathematics, turning its back on the most intriguing phenomena in the history of mathematics, is empty.
philosophy blind empty
Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.
lying numbers judging
If even in science there is no a way of judging a theory but by assessing the number, faith and vocal energy of its supporters, then this must be even more so in the social sciences: truth lies in power.