Imre Lakatos Quotes
"Einstein's results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be, proven knowledge."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: Knowledge, Results, Scientists)
"If even in science there is no a way of judging a theory but by assessing the number, faith and vocal energy of its supporters, then this must be even more so in the social sciences: truth lies in power."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: Faith, Power, Science, Truth, Energy, Lies, Theory)
"Indeed, this epistemological theory of the relation between theory and experiment differs sharply from the epistemological theory of naive falsificationism."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: Theory)
"It would be wrong to assume that one must stay with a research programme until it has exhausted all its heuristic power, that one must not introduce a rival programme before everybody agrees that the point of degeneration has probably been reached."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: Power, Research, Wrong)
"The positive heuristic of the programme saves the scientist from becoming confused by the ocean of anomalies."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: Positive, Ocean)
"Our empirical criterion for a series of theories is that it should produce new facts. The idea of growth and the concept of empirical character are soldered into one."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: Idea, Character, Growth, Facts, Theories)
"Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: History, Science, Blind, Philosophy)
"Research programmes, besides their negative heuristic, are also characterized by their positive heuristic."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: Negative, Positive, Research)
"The classical example of a successful research programme is Newton's gravitational theory: possibly the most successful research programme ever."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: Successful, Example, Research)
"There is no falsification before the emergence of a better theory."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: Theory)
"The clash between Popper and Kuhn is not about a mere technical point in epistemology."
- Imre Lakatos