Knowra Imre Lakatos Imre Lakatos Imre Lakatos (1922–1974) was a Hungarian-British philosopher of mathematics and science. He developed the methodology of scientific research programmes and analyzed how mathematical knowledge grows through proofs and criticism.
Karl Popper : A philosopher of science who argued that scientific theories must expose themselves to possible refutation. Lakatos adapted Popperian criticism while rejecting simple rules for discarding theories after one failed prediction.
Hard core : The central commitments of a research programme, protected from direct revision by its methodological rules. Lakatos distinguishes these commitments from the more adjustable assumptions surrounding them.
Budapest : The capital of Hungary and Lakatos’s birthplace. His early education and political life began in Hungary before his move to Britain.
The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes : A collection of Lakatos’s essays on scientific research programmes, edited by John Worrall and Gregory Currie. It gathers the mature essays that set out and defend his philosophy of science.
Research programme : A sustained, organized line of inquiry guided by shared assumptions and research practices. Lakatos made the programme, rather than an isolated theory, the unit of scientific appraisal.
Thomas Kuhn : A historian and philosopher of science who described scientific development through paradigms and revolutions. Lakatos sought a rational account of progress that answered Kuhn’s challenge to cumulative, rule-governed science.
Protective belt : The auxiliary hypotheses and initial conditions revised to shield a research programme’s hard core. Changes to this belt absorb anomalies without immediately abandoning the programme.
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 : A nationwide uprising against Soviet control in Hungary, suppressed by Soviet forces in November 1956. Lakatos left Hungary after the revolution and settled in Britain.
Proofs and Refutations : Lakatos’s dialogue-form study of how mathematical conjectures, proofs, and definitions change under criticism. It presents mathematical knowledge as a historical process of conjecture and counterexample.
Scientific realism : The view that successful scientific theories describe a mind-independent world, including unobservable entities. Lakatos’s account of progress is often read as supporting belief in increasingly successful theories.
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