Imre Lakatos

Imre Lakatos (1922–1974) was a pivotal figure in 20th century philosophy of science. Although he was a rationalist, he appreciated opposite views as well, such as findings in the history of science that undermined the logical positivist and Popperian conceptions of science: conceptions about the growth and rationality of science. In its earlier issues, Replika has already devoted thematic sections to Popper’s and Feyerabend’s philosophy of science (see 17–18 in 1995 and 13–14 in 1994, respectively). Lakatos was closely associated with both of these thinkers. He was a renegade student of Popper, just like Feyerabend, of whom he was both friend and fierce oppponent.
The section contains five articles. Gábor Forrai’s “Imre Lakatos’s Philosophy of Science: An Outline” is an introduction to Lakatos’s major ideas. Tihamér Margitay’s “Rationality and Objectivity” offers an analysis of Lakatos’s account of scientific rationality and compares it with Kuhn’s ideas. Although Lakatos is known mainly as a philosopher of science, he started out as a philosopher of mathematics and his work in that field is equally important. This aspect of his work is elaborated in Olga Kiss’s “Lakatos’s Philosophy of Mathematics”. Lakatos was occasionally in contact with another influential philosopher of Hungarian origin, Michael Polányi. Gábor Palló’s “Parallels and Intersections: Lakatos and Polányi” explores their relationship drawing on their still unpublished correspondence. The last piece, “Understanding Toulmin”, is by Lakatos himself. It is a posthumously published review of Stephen Toulmin’s “Human Understanding.” But it is more than a review: it is powerful statement of Lakatos’s conception of the purpose of philosophy of science.