Position

Progressive Research Programmes

What is scientific is not a single theory but a series of them, and the series earns the title by predicting novel facts rather than only absorbing known ones.

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Classification

Position level
specific
Domains
Epistemology , Philosophy of Science

Overview

Lakatos took the unit of appraisal to be a research programme: a hard core of claims held immune from refutation, surrounded by auxiliary hypotheses that absorb anomalies. Because the core is protected by decision, no single observation can refute a programme, which is why he thought naive falsification could not be the criterion.

A programme is progressive while its adjustments predict facts not already known, and degenerating when it only accommodates the facts that forced the adjustment. The verdict is therefore historical: it is passed on a sequence over time, never on a theory at a moment.

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References

  • Imre Lakatos, 'Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes' (1970)
  • Imre Lakatos, 'Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes' (1970), §1 and §3, which relocates the unit of appraisal from the single theory to the series and makes progress the criterion