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Birth
Imre Lakatos was born as Imre Lipsitz in the city of Debrecen on the east side of Hungary to a Jewish family. He changed his last name once to Molnár in order to avoid persecution from the Nazi's before later settling on Lakatos in honor of one of Hungary's past leaders. -
Regress and Renaissance
These entries in Lakatos' work focus on empiricism surrounding math. Lakatos both argues for and against it for differing reasons. According to Musgrave and Charles he "hails it due to its' epistemic structure" but "condemns it because of illusion that axioms can be confirmed by their consequences" which he feels is just a mistake. While at this time he was opposing inductivism, he would actually begin suggesting Popper take notice of it only a few years afterwards. -
Proofs and Refutations
At the time Musgrave and Charles state this "look at how to handle proving something was revolutionary", as Lakatos states that a proof doesn't have to be flawless and in fact, much of the time a counter or exception comes into play that requires more study to find a more precise proof. He states this constant change isn't necessarily bad as it leads to new ways to do things and breakthroughs. This gives a more creative culture to discover things. He presented this through four journal articles. -
Period: to
Major Works
According to Musgrave and Charles:
1. Proofs and Refutations (1963–4, 1976) collected and published 2 years after death
2. Regress and Renaissance (1962, 1967)
3. Changes in the Problem of Inductive Logic (1968)
4. Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (1970)
5. The History of Science and Its Rational Reconstructions (1971)
6. Popper on Demarcation and Induction (1974)
7. Why Did Copernicus’s Research Programme Supersede Ptolemy’s? (1976) -
Changes in the Problem of Inductive Logic
Lakatos spent time refuting inductive logic as a proper scientific process due to the inability to actually prove anything. He also noted how Carnap split from his original intended question on theory confirmation to wind up else where with his answer to color comparison. Musgrave and Charles stated that "in Lakatos' opinion this wasn't intellectual progress because Carnap lost the plot". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZKa1S1wPy4 Inductive example is between 1:39 - 5:19. -
Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge
Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge was the best known conference of Imre Lakatos. It's about applying criticism towards the idea rather than towards the scientist. It also understands that parts of the theory may change over time as new evidence is brought forward, but keeps to the idea that the core principles of the theory can remain the same. As Folse states, "As research progresses, scientists attempt to refute or falisify the accepted theory, in good falsificationist fashion." -
Death
Imre Lakatos died in London, the capitol of the United Kingdom at the age of 51.