Lakatos

Imre Lakatos (1922-74), the internationally

renowned philosopher of mathematics and
science, lectured at the LSE in its Department of
Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method from
1960 until his untimely death in 1974 at the age
of 51. He became its Professor of Logic in 1969.
He is the author of the classic work in the
philosophy of mathematics Proofs and
Refutations and proposed a renowned account
of scientific method called The Methodology of
Scientific Research Programmes
Prof. Lakatos is now also associated with the Lakatos Award, established
in 1986 and endowed by The Latsis Foundation, which is the most
prestigious international prize for contributions to the philosophy of
science.

Hear Lakatos Speak

1973 Lecture 6: Popper and the rules of the

game of science

1973 Lecture 7: Falsification and intellectual

honesty
These lectures are from a series of 8 lecture on scientific method given by
Lakatos in the 1973 Michaelmas (Autumn) term. Lakatos gave a series of
8 lectures on scientific method. Only recordings of his two lectures 6 and
7 made by Alex Bellamy have survived. Transcripts of the lectures are
held in the LSE Library Lakatos Archive in its catalogue items Lakatos
9/1, and in For and Against Method: Lakatos and Feyerabend.

1973 Science and Pseudoscience BBC Radio

Talk / Overview and Transcript
The Imre Lakatos Memorial Fund of the London School of Economics and
Political Science made this radio talk and its text available to mark the
80th anniversary of Lakatoss birth on 8th November 1922.

Lakatos Resources

Imre Lakatos biography in the St Andrews University History of

Mathematics website

Imre Lakatos short biography in LSE History Timeline series 194560

Wikipedia article on Lakatos

Lakatos biography in Section 1 of the LSE British Library Lakatos

Archive Catalogue

Lakatos biography on the LSE Lakatos Award webpage

The Lakatos Archive at the LSE British Library: Catalogue of

holdings Photocopies of Archive holdings can be ordered by
completing a downloadable order form

The Lakatos Award for Philosophy of Science

The LSE CPNSS Lakatos Archive project

LSE British Library Philosophy Archives

Imre Lakatos information in Geometry online learning centre

Lakatoss 1947/8 Hungarian Doctoral Thesis: On the likely contents

of Lakatoss lost Hungarian doctoral thesis entitled Socio-historical
aspects of concept formation in science, the Eotvos University
webpage on this issue includes an English translation of Lakatoss
1947 Hungarian Ministry of Culture (Education) essay for science
teachers Modern Physics, Modern Society, thought to be a major
part and theme of the thesis. It offers a Lukacsian modern
philosophy of physics, including a critique of the metaphysical world
views of the English physicists Jeans and Eddington, who claimed
they were based on science, as in fact reflecting the alienation
inherent in the capitalist mode of production rather than science,
the fact that their metaphysics were not logically entailed by
science having already been pointed out by the London University
logician Susan Stebbing.

An introduction to Lakatoss philosophy by Brendan

Larvor: Lakatos: An Introduction, Routledge, 1998

For an application of Lakatoss methodology of science to

evaluating theories in the academic subject International Relations,
see Elman & Elman Progress in International Relations Theory:
Appraising the Field, The MIT Press, 2003

The Open University Library.

ABEBooks Suppliers of used, rare, and out-of-print books.

Matteo Motterlinis For and Against Method: Imre Lakatos and Paul
Feyerabend,University of Chicago Press, 1999. It includes
Lakatoss 1973 LSE Lectures in Scientific Method and also his
correspondence with Feyerabend, being offered as a proxy for the
proposed joint book of the same title Lakatos and Feyerabend were
planning before Lakatos died.
For a less censored version of Lakatoss LSE Lectures and also

some items of the Lakatos-Feyerabend correspondence not

included in this book, see Motterlinis prior Italian version of
it: Sullorlo della scienza: Pro e contro il metodo, Imre Lakatos &
Paul K. Feyerabend, Raffaello Cortina Editore, 1995.

Waterstones

Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS)

at the LSE

Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the

LSE

United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Imre Lakatos in 1961 on the occasion of his Cambridge University

doctoral award for his now world renowned PhD thesis Essays in the
Logic of Mathematical Discovery, published in part as Proofs and
Refutations.

Dedication
This page was established to commemorate the life and work of Imre
Lakatos (1922-74) on his 80th birthday anniversary in 2002. To celebrate

this occasion both audio and text versions of Science and Pseudoscience
one of Lakatoss last public talks before he died are provided here. To
celebrate his 90th birthday anniversary in 2012, audio recordings of two
of his last LSE Scientific Method lectures in 1973 are also provided here.

Acknowledgements
The Imre Lakatos Memorial Fund wishes to thank the following for their
contributions to enabling this site: The Open University for use of the
recording of Professor Lakatoss talk for this purpose; The Open
University Librarys archive for providing a digital copy of the recording
and most especially for having preserved it; Gillian Goss of the Imre
Lakatos Memorial Fund Committee for her invaluable generous advice
and information and for providing the photograph of Imre Lakatos; Dr
Jason Alexander of LSE Philosophy Department and Business Systems &
Services (LSE) for their technical advice and assistance; and Professor
John Worrall, Chair of the Imre Lakatos Memorial Fund Committee, for
authorising the creation of the site.
The original idea for this memorial site and its realisation are due to Alex
Bellamy, to whom the department is very grateful.
How to contact us regarding this Lakatos Memorial page
Editor: Alex Bellamy
Email: a.c.bellamy@lse.ac.uk