Imre Lakatos

In degenerating programmes, however, theories are fabricated only in order to accommodate known facts

— Imre Lakatos

The history of mathematics, lacking the guidance of philosophy, [is] blind, while the philosophy of mathematics, turning its back on the most…

— Imre Lakatos

Mathematics does not grow through a monotonous increase of the number of indubitably established theorems but through the incessant improvement of guesses…

— Imre Lakatos

The clash between Popper and Kuhn is not about a mere technical point in epistemology.

— Imre Lakatos

Our empirical criterion for a series of theories is that it should produce new facts. The idea of growth and the concept…

— Imre Lakatos

One may rationally stick to a degenerating research programme until it is overtaken by a rival and even after. What one must…

— Imre Lakatos

It would be wrong to assume that one must stay with a research programme until it has exhausted all its heuristic power,…

— Imre Lakatos

The classical example of a successful research programme is Newton's gravitational theory: possibly the most successful research programme ever.

— Imre Lakatos

Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.

— Imre Lakatos

If even in science there is no a way of judging a theory but by assessing the number, faith and vocal energy…

— Imre Lakatos

The positive heuristic of the programme saves the scientist from becoming confused by the ocean of anomalies.

— Imre Lakatos

Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime.

— Imre Lakatos

No experimental result can ever kill a theory: any theory can be saved from counterinstances either by some auxiliary hypothesis or by…

— Imre Lakatos

Intellectual honesty consists in stating the precise conditions under which one will give up one's belief.

— Imre Lakatos

Indeed, this epistemological theory of the relation between theory and experiment differs sharply from the epistemological theory of naive falsificationism.

— Imre Lakatos

The proving power of the intellect or the senses was questioned by the skeptics more than two thousand years ago; but they…

— Imre Lakatos

Research programmes, besides their negative heuristic, are also characterized by their positive heuristic.

— Imre Lakatos

It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and Nature…

— Imre Lakatos

Man's respect for knowledge is one of his most peculiar characteristics. Knowledge in Latin is scientia, and science came to be the…

— Imre Lakatos

The great scientific achievements are research programmes which can be evaluated in terms of progressive and degenerative problemshifts; and scientific revolutions consist…

— Imre Lakatos

There is no falsification before the emergence of a better theory.

— Imre Lakatos

That sometimes clear ... and sometimes vague stuff ... which is ... mathematics.

— Imre Lakatos

Einstein's results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be,…

— Imre Lakatos

Belief may be a regrettably unavoidable biological weakness to be kept under the control of criticism: but commitment is for Popper an…

— Imre Lakatos