Anti-Totalitarian Research Programs and their Tacit Components : Michael Polányi and Imre Lakatos

1999 ◽  
pp. 89-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gábor Palló
Keyword(s):  
Michael Polanyi ◽  
Imre Lakatos ◽  
Research Programs

Evaluating Theories

1997 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 913-917 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth N. Waltz
Keyword(s):  
Good Theory ◽  
Imre Lakatos ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
State Of Affairs

John Vasquez claims to follow Imre Lakatos but distorts his criteria for judging theories and evaluating research programs. Vasquez claims that facts observed can falsify a theory by showing that its predictions are wrong. He fails to consider the puzzles posed by the interdependence of theory and fact. He places all realists in a single paradigm despite the divergent assumptions of traditional and structural realists. In contrast to Vasquez, I argue that explanation, not prediction, is the ultimate criterion of good theory, that a theory can be validated only by working back and forth between its implications and an uncertain state of affairs that we take to be the reality against which theory is tested, and that the results of tests are always problematic.

Lakatosian Consolations for Economics

1986 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Research ◽  
Neoclassical Economics ◽  
Imre Lakatos ◽  
Research Programs

The F-twist is giving way to the methodology of scientific research programs. Milton Friedman's “Methodology for Economics” is being supplanted as the orthodox rationale for neoclassical economics by Imre Lakatos' account of scientific respectability. Friedman's instrumentalist thesis that theories are to be judged by the confirmation of their consequences and not the realism of their assumptions has long been widely endorsed by economists, under Paul Samuelson's catchy rubric “the F-twist.” It retains its popularity among economists who want no truck with methodology, but among the increasing number of able economists who are writing on methodology the F-twist has been surrendered, not so much because these writers have decided it is false, as because something better has finally come along.

Scientific Research Programs, Theory and Schools Interregnum in Criminology and Criminal Justice

1988 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard C. Monk
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Justice Theory ◽  
Imre Lakatos ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
Scientific Research Program ◽  
Criminology And Criminal Justice

Borrowing from the philosopher of science, Imre Lakatos, and sociologist Edward A. Tiryakian, the ideas of "scientific research program," "schools" and "hegemonic schools" are applied to criminology and criminal justice theory development.

The role of synchrony in the study of national literary language histories on the territory of Slavia Orthodoxa

Proglas ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Milena Obretenova ◽  
◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Community ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Imre Lakatos ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
Linguistic History ◽  
Slavia Orthodoxa ◽  
Basic Prerequisite

The article examines the role of the synchronous approach as a basic prerequisite for refined falsifiability in the study of the histories of the national literary languages on the territory of the Slavia Orthodoxa cultural-linguistic community. Its possible role in the study of literary-linguistic history as a component of the historical approach to language in the context of the theory and methodology of Imre Lakatos’ research programs is also analyzed.

Rosenberg's “Lakatosian Consolations for Economists”: Comment

1987 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Roy Weintraub
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Research ◽  
Imre Lakatos ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
Current Practices

Rosenberg (1986) argues that economists have embraced the methodology of scientific research programs, and the writings of Imre Lakatos (1978), at the same time that philosophers have been abandoning that approach. According to Rosenberg, the methodology of scientific research programs (MSRP) appears to allow some work in economics, which is neither tested nor testable, to be “scientific” nonetheless. That is, MSRP justifies some current practices which look hard to justify on strict falsificationist, or dogmatic positivist, grounds.

scholarly journals Tenability of the research program of realism in international relations

2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 206-226
Author(s):  
Mladen Lisanin
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Realist Theory ◽  
Imre Lakatos ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
Limited Scope

It is the author?s intention to explore the realist theory in International Relations in the context of Imre Lakatos?s Methodology of Scientific Research Programs. To this end, after defining the notion of realism in IR and exposing the foundations of Lakatos?s analytical pattern, relevant findings of several authors who took part in the debate on this issue from the area of philosophy of science (John Vasquez, Kenneth Waltz, Stephen Walt, Thomas Christensen and Jack Snyder, Colin Elman and Miriam Fendius Elman, Randall Schweller, William Wohlforth) will be presented and critically analyzed. In that sense, there are two key lines of dispute: about whether Lakatos?s methodology is properly utilized in evaluating realist theory, and whether it represents an adequate tool for such a metatheoretical endeavor in the first place. In the concluding part of the article, author?s findings which point toward tenability of the realist research program, along with a limited scope of applicability of Lakatos?s methodology in the field of International Relations.

Lakatos and MacIntyre on Incommensurability and the Rationality of Theory-change

1998 ◽  
pp. 220-226
Author(s):  
Robert Miner
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Theory Change ◽  
Logical Empiricism ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Shared Decision ◽  
Decision Criteria ◽  
Imre Lakatos ◽  
Research Programs

Imre Lakatos' "methodology of scientific research programs" and Alasdair MacIntyre's "tradition-constituted enquiry" are two sustained attempts to overcome the assumptions of logical empiricism, while saving the appearance that theory-change is rational. The key difference between them is their antithetical stand on the issue of incommensurability between large-scale theories. This divergence generates other areas of disagreement; the most important are the relevance of the historical record and the presence of decision criteria that are common to rival programs. I show that Lakatos' rejection of the incommensurability thesis and dismissal of actual history are motivated by the belief that neither are compatible with the rationality of theory-change. If MacIntyre can deny the necessity of dispensing with the historical record, and show that incommensurability and the consequent absence of shared decision criteria are compatible with rationality in theory-change, then Lakatos' argument will lose its force, and MacIntyre will better honor the intention to take seriously the historicality of science. I argue that MacIntyre can dissolve tensions between incommensurability and rationality in theory-change if he is able, first, to distinguish a sense of the incommensurability thesis that preserves genuine rivalry between theories, and second, to show that the possibility of rationality in theory-change depends not on the presence of common decision criteria, but on the fact that traditions can fail by their own standards. After reconstructing and examining the argument, I conclude that the notion of a tradition's "internal failure" is coherent, but that it leaves crucial questions about the epistemology and ontology of traditions that must be answered if MacIntyre's proposal is to constitute a genuine improvement on Lakatos.

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