Tag: Imre Lakatos

Imre Lakatos, The methodology of scientific research programmes – An Overview

The methodology of scientific research programmes is a collection of papers published over time expressing a radical review of Popper’s demarcation criterion between science and non-science, leading to a new theory of scientific rationality. Volume I address aspects of the philosophy of science, and volume II contains works on the philosophy of mathematics. For a science historian, the reconstruction proposed by Lakatos is attractive and explains the evolution of science to a level that has not been achieved before. The basic evaluation unit proposed by Lakatos is the research programme, and especially the dynamics of these programmes.
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31605.01767

Imre Lakatos, The methodology of scientific research programmes – An Overview

Lakatos on justificationism

According to the scientific “justificationist” method, knowledge consisted of proven sentences. Classical intellectuals (or “rationalists,” in the narrow sense of the term) have accepted extremely varied – and powerful “proofs“, through revelation, intellectual intuition, experience. These, with the help of logic, have allowed them to prove any kind of scientific statement. Classical empiricists accepted as axioms only a relatively small set of “factual propositions” that expressed “hard facts”. The value of their truth has been established by experience and has been the empirical basis of science.
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28722.25288

Lakatos on justificationism