Introduction to the Archives of Imre Lakatos, 19221974

Donnelly, Sue.
Perspectives on Science, Volume 14, Number 3, Fall 2006, pp. 347-353 (Article)
Published by The MIT Press

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Introduction to the Archives of Imre Lakatos, 19221974

Sue Donnelly

London School of Economics

The Archives Division of the London School of Economics is home to 77 boxes of papers relating to the life and career of the philosopher, Imre Lakatos and 2,500 books from his personal library. Lakatos joined the Philosophy Department at the London School of Economics in 1960 and in 1969 was appointed Professor of Logic and died in post in 1974. Following his death Lakatos archive and library were transferred to the British Library of Political and Economic Science, the library of the London School of Economics. The archive was sorted and catalogued with the support of the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung by Dr. Michael Hallett, and involved producing a listing of the research papers, with contextual information, and also a selection of the correspondence, the latter being generally closed to researchers. Much of the description in this article draws on the detailed work of Dr. Hallett. In the mid 1990s the Lakatos Memorial Trust decided to open the correspondence to researchers and a full list of correspondents was prepared. The archive consists of sixteen distinct series of papers. Some of the papers post-date Lakatos death in 1974 and consist mainly of posthumous publications.
Series 1: Papers published in Hungary, 19451956.

From 1945 until his arrest in 1950, Lakatos made many contributions to Hungarian newspapers and literary and academic journals, including book reviews. Many of the newspaper articles were unsigned and hence have been impossible to trace. Journal articles that have been traced are included in the archive (as photocopies), together with English translations (by Nicholas Krasso and Ninon Leader).

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Introduction to the Archives of Imre Lakatos, 19221974

Series 2: Notes on mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics, c19451956

35 notebooks and seven les of loose notes representing work undertaken while Lakatos was in Hungary and in the period immediately after his arrival in Britain, Much of it is in Hungarian and many of the items are mathematical exercises from text books.
Series 3: Essays in the logic of mathematical discovery and the philosophy of mathematics, 19611976

From 19561959 Lakatos was studying for his PhD in Cambridge under the title Essays in the Logic of Mathematical Discovery at Kings College under the supervision of R.B.Braithwaite and this series contains notes and drafts of this work. Part of the thesis was expanded into the four part article Proofs and Refutations published in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science volume 14. Lakatos intended to republish this essay in book form, together with other material (rewritten and expanded) from his PhD. After his death a serious attempt was made to carry out his intentions, though of course without the large scale revisions Lakatos himself would undoubtedly have made. Thus Proofs and Refutations: the logic of mathematical discovery edited by John Worrall and E.G.Zahar, contains a more or less unaltered reprint of Proofs and Refutations together with the continuation of the debate based on Chapter 2 of the PhD thesis and the discussion of Cauchys theorem and proof forming part of Chapter 1 of the thesis. In addition, the last chapter of the PhD appears as Chapter 5 (The Method of Analysis-Synthesis) of Philosophical Papers, volume 2. The story of Proofs and Refutations has one strange twist considering Lakatoss political past. In 1967 an unauthorized, though clearly ofcially sanctioned, Russian translation of it appeared in book form in the Soviet Union (Lakatos Dokatatelstva i Oprovershenia translated by I.N.Veselovski). According to Lakatos it became a philosophical best seller in the Soviet Union, selling over 70,000 copies. A copy of this translation is found in 3/ 7, together with a review of it in Russian by G. P. Schedrovitsky, which was found in Lakatoss correspondence
Series 4: Papers in the philosophy of mathematics, c19561976.

Typescript drafts and notes for papers on the philosophy of mathematics including:

Some Philosophical Implications of the Method of Proofs and Refutations What Does A Mathematical Proof Prove Uncategorical Categoricity

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Innite Regress and the Foundations of Mathematics The Signicance of Non-Standard Analysis for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics A Renaissance of Empiricism in the Recent Philosophy of Mathematics Analysis-Synthesisa Heuristic Starting Point of Research Programmes in Failed Attempts of Refutations.

Series 5: Early Papers in the Philosophy of Science, c1962

Typescript and notes relating to early papers in the philosophy of science including:

Necessity, Kneale and Popper The Teaching of the History of Science The Rise of Newtonianism

Series 6: Middle Period Papers in the Philosophy of Science, 19651971.

Typescript and notes relating to papers in the Philosophy of Science including: 6/14 Changes in the Problem of Inductive Logic: this paper was written for Volume 2 of the Proceedings of the 1965 International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science (held at Bedford College London, 1117 July 1965) which Lakatos. The paper was not read at the Colloquium. The seven complete versions of the paper are (a) The Poverty of Inductive Logic (ve pages) (b) Theory Appraisal, Method and Demarcation: The New Problem of Induction (ve pages) (c) Theory Appraisal and Method-the New Problem of Induction (seven pages) (d) Is Inductive Logic Anti-Theoretical?(sixteen pages) (e) Theory appraisal and Method-the New Problem of Induction (forty-one pages) (f) On Inductive Logic (forty-nine pages) (g) Inductive Logic versus Logic of Discovery (fty-nine pages). 6/5 Michalos on the Changing Problem of Inductive Logic. 6/6 Criticism and the Methodology of Scientic Research Programmes 6/7 Sophisticated versus Naive Methodological Falsicationism 6/8 Discussion of Mercier 6/9 Discussion of Popkin 6/1012 Falsication and the Methodology of Scientic Research Programmes. The paper is an extended version of Lakatos Criticism and the Methodology of Scientic Research Programmes that eventually appeared as Lakatos contribution, Falsication and the Methodology of Scientic Research Programmes, to the fourth volume (Lakatos and Musgrave eds 1970) of the Proceedings of the 1965 Bedford Colloquium.

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Series 7: Later papers in the philosophy of science, 19691976.

Typescript, offprints and notes relating to papers on the philosophy of science including:

History of Science and its Rational Reconstructions Comments on Shimony: a conference paper by Shimony with Lakatos handwritten comment or reply. Popper on Demarcation and Induction Anomalies versus Crucial Experiments Why did Copernicus Research Programme Supercede Ptolemys? The Role of Crucial Experiments in Science Science and Pseudoscience.

Series 8: Papers on general philosophy, 19671976.

Manuscript, typescript and notes on general philosophy including:

The Social Responsibility of Science On the Intellectuals Betrayal of Reason Professor Toulmin between the Hegelian Devil and Wittgensteinian Deep Blue Sea.

Also includes a letter relating to the student unrest at LSE during 1968.
Series 9: Lectures, 19731974.

Notes for Scientic Method lectures given at the London School of Economics. Lakatos gave a course of eight lectures on scientic method at the London School of Economics in the Lent Term of 1973. These lectures were recorded and then transcribed. Unfortunately lecture 5 was accidentally not recorded.
Series 10: Notes on Feyerabend, Kuhn and Popper, 19601970.

Seven les of loose notes on the work of Feyerabend, Kuhn and Popper.
Series 11: Biographical and general papers, 19601976.

General and personal papers relating to Imre Lakatoss life including obituaries, desk diaries and papers relating to LSE Troubles.
Series 12: Selected correspondence, 19591974

When the papers were rst made available only a selection of Lakatoss wide correspondence was opened to researchers, mainly through photocopying the originals. The items selected were chosen to reect Lakatoss intellectual and political interests, occasionally his wicked sense of humor

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and perhaps most importantly the way he learned through discussion with friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Characteristically, having written a paper Lakatos would circulate it and ask for (or rather demand) critical comments and suggestions. The nished product (though Lakatos never regarded any of his papers as beyond revision) was then a result of various repetitions of this process. For this reason the letters in Lakatos/12/2 covering philosophy of mathematics are perhaps the most interesting selections here. Lakatos was concerned to discover what working mathematicians and logicians thought of his work. Thus there are letters here from Bernays, Polya and van der Waerden, all mathematicians which a strong interest in the philosophy of mathematics and leading logicians and philosophers of mathematics like Quine, Kreisel and Dummett. Later it seems that Lakatos was more discriminating, sending his work in preparation to fewer people, mostly colleagues whom he presumably felt were closer and sympathetic, though not the less critical for that.
Series 13: Correspondence, 19531974.

In 1994 the Lakatos Memorial Trust took the decision to open all of the correspondence and a full list of correspondents was produced in 1995. Lakatos had an extremely extensive correspondence with friends and academics across the globe. The archive contains over 1000 les of correspondence arranged in alphabetical order by correspondent. The series includes correspondence with philosophers from around the world including Sir Karl Popper, Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Bernays, George Polya, Willard Van Quine, Georg Kreisel and Michael Dummett. Lakatos also corresponded with LSE colleagues from both within and without the Philosophy Department. Another interesting aspect of the correspondence is in the contacts Lakatos retained with Hungarian philosophers and mathematicians including rpd Szab and Lszl Kalmr. There are over 60 les of correspondence in Hungarian. Lakatos/13/949 includes recent summary reports on the contents of Lakatoss Hungarian state security police les now available in Budapest, including copies of documents from those les. Amongst other things, they reveal that at an early 1960s science conference in England Lakatos was approached by a Hungarian agent to become one himself, but refused. It is interesting to note that his le remained active until his death.1

1. With thanks to Alex Bellamy for this information.

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Series 14: International Colloquium on the Philosophy of Science, London, 1965, 19641968

The International Colloquium on the Philosophy of Science was jointly organized by the British Society for the Philosophy of Science and the London School of Economics. The Colloquium was divided into 3 sections:

Problems in the Philosophy of Mathematics. The Problem of Inductive Logic Problems in the Philosophy of Science.

The Colloquium resulted in a publication Problems in the Philosophy of Science: proceedings of the International Colloquium on the Philosophy of Science, 1965, 1967 edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave.
Series 15: Additional papers, 19341974.

These les added to the archive following its initial cataloguing includes letters with Paul Feyerabend not included in Matteo Motterlini (ed.), For and Against Method (Chicago and London, 1999), typescripts, photocopies of articles with light annotations and underlining. Offprints, personal documents providing biographical details on Lakatos, rough notes and press cuttings, references by Lakatos regarding students and others and papers formerly belonging to Lakatos father, J. M. Lipsitz.
Series 16: Additional papers deposited by Alex Bellamy, 19641970s

This series consists of: a folder of papers regarding Lakatos in the 1960s; a CD of an Open University programme featuring Lakatos from 1973; and, a paper on Galileo by A.C.Bellamy discussed in the correspondence contained in Lakatos/13/65. In addition to the archives the Library also holds Lakatos Collection of books comprising Imre Lakatoss personal library. The collection was donated to the Library by his estate and contains around 2,500 books, conference papers and periodicals in English, in Lakatoss native Hungarian, and in many other European languages. Most of the book collection can be browsed by researchers; with the exception of volumes containing annotations thought to be in Lakatos own hand, which are held in Archives. Items can be traced via the Library Catalogue. Further information about the Lakatos Collection of books can be found at http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/whinthli/Lakatos.htm. The catalogue to the Lakatos papers can be browsed via the Archives Catalogue (http:// archives.lse.ac.uk/) and researchers wishing to use the papers should contact the Archives Division at:

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Library, London School of Economics and Political Science 10 Portugal Street London WC2A 2HD Email: document@lse.ac.uk Telephone: 020 7955 7223. http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/archive/