Imre Lakatos
Scientists rightly keep a theory despite counterexamples as long as its research programme keeps predicting new facts; it is abandoned when it only makes excuses.
Placement
Hungarian-British philosopher of mathematics and science at the LSE: theories are not refuted one by one; whole research programmes compete and are judged by whether they predict novel facts (progressive) or only patch up anomalies (degenerating).
Key ideas
- Research programmes (hard core and auxiliary hypotheses)
- Progressive vs. degenerating
- Proofs and refutations
Influence
Influenced by 1
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
influenced by
Lakatos named Hegel’s dialectic, beside Popper and Pólya, among the sources of his account of mathematics as growing through proofs and counterexamples (‘Proofs and Refutations’, 1963–64). I. Lakatos, “Proofs and Refutations”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 14 (1963–64); Proofs and Refutations (ed. J. Worrall and E. Zahar, 1976); SEP “Imre Lakatos”
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Criticism
Criticized by 1
Paul Feyerabend influenced
influenced ✓
Feyerabend dedicated Against Method (1975) to Lakatos, ‘friend and fellow-anarchist’, as his half of a planned joint debate book, For and Against Method (publ. 1999). P. K. Feyerabend, Against Method (1975); I. Lakatos and P. K. Feyerabend, For and Against Method (ed. M. Motterlini, 1999); SEP “Paul Feyerabend”
criticised by
Feyerabend argued that Lakatos’s methodology of research programmes is ‘anarchism in disguise’, since it gives no rule for when a degenerating programme must be abandoned (Against Method, 1975). P. Feyerabend, Against Method (1975), ch. 16 (the book is dedicated to Lakatos); I. Lakatos & P. Feyerabend, For and Against Method (1999)
Evidence: AI draft
Paul Feyerabend › 1924–1994
Criticizes 2
Karl Popper influenced by
influenced by ✓
Lakatos, Popper’s colleague at the LSE from 1960, applied his critical rationalism to mathematics, whose growth he traced through proofs and counterexamples (‘Proofs and Refutations’, 1963–64). I. Lakatos, “Proofs and Refutations”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 14 (1963–64); SEP “Imre Lakatos”
criticised
Against Popper’s naive falsificationism, Lakatos argued that single refutations decide nothing; research programmes are judged as progressive or degenerating (‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes’, 1970). I. Lakatos, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes” (1970); “Popper on Demarcation and Induction”, in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper (1974)
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Popper › 1902–1994
Thomas S. Kuhn
criticised
Lakatos objected that Kuhn makes theory change a matter of ‘mob psychology’ and proposed rationally reconstructed research programmes instead (‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes’, 1970). I. Lakatos, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes”, in I. Lakatos & A. Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (1970), 91–196
Evidence: AI draft
Thomas S. Kuhn › 1922–1996
Works
Between Popper and Kuhn: research programmes with a hard core and auxiliary hypotheses, judged as progressive or degenerating.
A classroom dialogue on Euler’s formula for polyhedra: mathematics grows through conjectures, counterexamples and improved concepts (articles 1963–64, book 1976).
Position
Proofs and Refutations, based on his thesis and published as articles in 1963–64, is a classroom dialogue about Euler’s formula for polyhedra. Each proof meets counterexamples; the class responds by barring “monsters”, adjusting the claim or improving the concepts. Mathematics, Lakatos argued, is not a growing heap of certainties but develops through conjectures and refutations, an idea he took from Popper and from George Pólya, with a debt to Hegel’s dialectic. In the philosophy of science he tried to steer between Popper and Kuhn. Against “naive” falsificationism he observed that scientists rightly keep theories in spite of anomalies; against Kuhn he insisted that theory change can be rational and is not a matter of “mob psychology”. His unit of appraisal is the research programme: a “hard core” of assumptions protected by a belt of auxiliary hypotheses. A programme is progressive if its adjustments lead to the prediction of novel facts that are then confirmed, and degenerating if it only explains anomalies after the event. His friend Paul Feyerabend, who dedicated Against Method to him, replied that the methodology gives no rule for when to abandon a programme; their planned joint book appeared as For and Against Method in 1999.
Life & context
Imre Lakatos was born Imre Lipsitz in Debrecen in 1922 into a Jewish family. During the war he joined a communist resistance group and changed his name, first to Molnár and later to Lakatos; his mother and grandmother were murdered in Auschwitz. In 1944, according to later accounts, he persuaded the group that its youngest member, Éva Izsák, should take her own life to avoid betraying them, and she died. After 1945 he worked in the Ministry of Education as a committed Stalinist until he was arrested in 1950 and imprisoned for three years. He fled Hungary after the uprising of 1956, took his doctorate at Cambridge under R. B. Braithwaite in 1961 and from 1960 taught at the London School of Economics. He died in London in 1974, aged 51.
Further main works
- History of Science and Its Rational Reconstructions (1971)
- The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (Philosophical Papers I, 1978)
As of November 2026 · Sources · Improve this page · How Agora is made