Summary |
Imre Lakatos (1922-1974) was a Hungarian philosopher of science and mathematics who spent the latter part of his career working in Britain, where he held a position at the London School of Economics. He is best-known in the philosophy of science for his proposal of a methodology of scientific research programmes, which is in some respects an attempt to form a synthesis of Karl Popper's falsificationism and Thomas Kuhn's model of scientific theory change. According to Lakatos, scientists work in research programmes which contain an inviolable hard core of laws and a revisable protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses. Research programmes may be appraised on the basis of whether they make progress. A programme is said to be progressive if it is both theoretically and empirically progressive. A programme is theoretically progressive if a stage in the research programme leads to at least one novel prediction, and empirically progressive if at least some of its novel predictions are confirmed. Scientists are able to rationally choose between competing research programmes by determining whether a programme is progressive. Programmes which fail to be progressive are degenerative or stagnating and are to be rejected. |