Reductionist research programmes in psychology, and elsewhere, are typified by a number of research strategies and methodological assumptions. The current essay isolates and examines some typical reductionist assumptions as they have been embodied in psychological research. Through a brief examination of the use of lesion studies coupled with functional deficit analyses, it is argued that localizationist approaches to the study of brain function incorporate at least four interlocking hypotheses. Two of the hypotheses are examined in detail. It (...) is urged that neither is warranted, and there is reason to think each is suspect. (shrink)

The unity of science movement was itself far from unified. There may have been unity on the rallying call for a unity of science but that is as far as it went. Not only was there disagreement among the main protagonists on what was meant by the unity of science, but also on how to achieve it. In this paper I shall deal with Edgar Zilsel’s (1891-1944) conception. It represents an interesting break with the more programmatic approaches of Carnap, Neurath; (...) Zilsel emphasizes the need for an empirical demonstration of the unity of science, which has interesting meta-philosophical implications. The unity of science is not just central to his research programme; it is what constitutes the latter’s unifying principle, although this is far from evident if one takes a look at the historical essays he published in exile in the USA during the 1940s. (These important essays on the emergence of science, well known among historians of early modern science, have given rise to the so-called Zilsel Thesis, which holds that modern science came into being when, between 1300 and 1600, the social barriers between those who ‘labored with there minds and tongues’, i.e. the university scholars and the humanists, and those who ‘worked with their hands’, i.e the superior artisans, eroded because of the rise of free-enterprise capitalism.) But simultaneously, he also published a couple of smaller and far less known essays, directed against Southwest-German Neo-Kantianism (Rickert, Windelband), Dilthey’s philosophy of life, and interpretative sociology (Max Weber, W. Sombart, G. Simmel, R. Stammler, Alfred Weber, etc.). His main argumentwas that philosophers of cultural science and the humanities had a falseunderstanding of natural science. Because of this false understanding, they erroneously postulated a fundamental methodological difference between the natural sciences and the human sciences. According to Zilsel, this difference does not exist. In his view the historian is basically confronted with the same problems as the natural scientist. If the science of history is not compared with classical mechanics but with, for example, geophysics – that is, “the physics of earthquakes, sea-currents, volcanology, and meteorology” – one will arrive at the conclusion “that historical phenomena are hardly more difficult to predict than the weather, and certainly no more difficult than earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. What would scientists think of a geophysicist who abandoned the search for geophysical laws because of their inexactness? ” (SOMS: 202). (shrink)

During the course of its short history the discipline concerned with the origin of life has given birth to several scientific programmes in the Lakatosian sense, two of the most prominent and widespread being those initiated by Oparin (life began from protein entities) and Muller-Haldane (life began from genetic entities). The present paper sets down the bases for the rational reconstruction of both views by identifying their hard core and some of their successive developments. An assessment is made of the (...) various stages in the evolution of these programmes with respect to the crucial Lakatosian notions of progressivity and regressivity and of how their arguments stand up against one another. This epistemological analysis also establishes the internal reasons why the RNA version of the genotype programme (developed in particular by L. Orgel and S. Spiegelman) has today taken on a progressive character and enjoys recognition by the international scientific community. (shrink)

Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programmes centres around series of theories, with little regard to the role of models in theory construction. Modifying it to incorporate model-groups, clusters of developmental models that are intended to become new theories, provides a description of the model dynamics within the search for physics beyond the standard model. At the moment, there is no evidence for BSM physics, despite a concerted search effort especially focused around the standard model account of electroweak symmetry breaking. (...) Using the framework provided by Lakatosian research programmes, we can capture the way the periphery of a model-group changes as the available parameter space shrinks, while its central tenets remain untouched by unfavourable experimental findings. By way of motivation, I provide two case studies of model-groups that offer alternative mechanisms for electroweak symmetry breaking: supersymmetry and composite-Higgs models. Both of these model-groups are under pressure from the discovery of the Higgs boson, yet they have both been active research projects in the years after the Higgs discovery. However, a proper assessment of the progress of an ongoing research programme is impossible through a purely Lakatosian lens, so I propose replacing it with Laudan’s problem-solving account, which provides ongoing assessment, while offering normative guidance concerning the pursuit-worthiness of research programmes. My incorporation of model-groups into Lakatosian research programmes captures the developments of two attempts to expand our physical description of the world, and Laudan’s problem-solving rationality allows us to assess their pursuit-worthiness. (shrink)

Imre Lakatos' philosophical and scientific papers are published here in two volumes. Volume I brings together his very influential but scattered papers on the philosophy of the physical sciences, and includes one important unpublished essay on the effect of Newton's scientific achievement. Volume II presents his work on the philosophy of mathematics (much of it unpublished), together with some critical essays on contemporary philosophers of science and some famous polemical writings on political and educational issues. Imre Lakatos had an influence (...) out of all proportion to the length of his philosophical career. This collection exhibits and confirms the originality, range and the essential unity of his work. It demonstrates too the force and spirit he brought to every issue with which he engaged, from his most abstract mathematical work to his passionate 'Letter to the director of the LSE'. Lakatos' ideas are now the focus of widespread and increasing interest, and these volumes should make possible for the first time their study as a whole and their proper assessment. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 19 It is argued in this paper that physicalism is best understood as a research programme, rather than a thesis or an attitude, as some philosophers argue. Given that research programmes connect past, present and future philosophical or scientific activities, physicalists need not decide between current and future physical theories, as it has been required by Hempel’s Dilemma. The author contrasts this proposal with other solutions to Hempel’s Dilemma proposed by currentists, futurists, and (...) those philosophers who claim that physicalism should best be understood as an attitude, arguing that understanding physicalism as a research programme avoids problems that are present in the alternative views, and that it matches well with the standard classifications in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

A summary of the main features of a 'recognition-theoretic' research program in the social sciences and a brief account of how it promises to advance on rival research programs in the social sciences.

At the risk of being ostracized (if not annihilated) by the community of Popperians present, I wish to remark that Professor Lakatos is - and, I think - cannot help being, a second-level inductivist. If Professor Kuhn has pointed out (most eruditely) that science quite frequently is in a rut, and occasionally gets out of it (and into a new one), then Professor Lakatos appraises problem and theory shifts, and methodological innova- tions in the sciences, in the light of his (...) criteria of 'progress' or 'degenera- tion'. There can be little doubt that he wishes to serve (at least) in a critical and/or advisory capacity to scientists. But he can do that only if he 'places his bets', i.e., conjectures as to the fruitfulness of a method, and along with it of a theory engendered or supported by such a method along the lines of success or failure, whichever may be plausibly indicated. I find Professor Lakatos's refutations of simple inductivism (here he agrees with Popper), as well as of simple falsificationism (here he disagrees with a caricature of the early Popper), completely convincing. But if he is to fulfill the critical and/or advisory functions, what else can he do but watch the course of the 'shifts' and extrapolate?! (shrink)

Language evolution, intended as an open problem in the evolutionary research programme, will be here analyzed from the theoretical perspective advanced by the supporters of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Four factors and two associated concepts will be matched with a selection of critical examples concerning genus Homo evolution, relevant for the evolution of language, such as the evolution of hominin life-history traits, the enlargement of the social group, increased cooperation among individuals, behavioral change and innovations, heterochronic modifications leading (...) to increased synaptic plasticity. A particular form of niche construction will be considered in a multilevel framework. It will be argued that the four points mentioned above prove to be fundamental explanatory tools to understand how language might have emerged as a result of a gene-culture coevolutionary dynamics. (shrink)

Debates in the philosophy of science typically take place around issues such as realism and theory change. Recently, the debate has been reformulated to bring in the role of experiments in the context of theory change. As regards realism, Ian Hacking’s contribution has been to introduce ‘intervention’ as the basis of realism. He also proposed, following Imre Lakatos, to replace the issue of truth with progress and rationality. In this context we examine the case of the vitalism — reductionism debate (...) in biology inspired by the works of Indian physicist-turned-biologist Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937), in the early twentieth century. Both camps had their characteristic hardcores. Vitalists led by John S. Burdon-Sanderson and Augustus D. Waller accepted religious metaphysics to support their research programme, which ultimately degenerated. Bose worked more with the ideals of science such as Occam’s razor, large-scale systematization of phenomena and novel prediction. I argue that his religious metaphysics, instead of acting as a protective shield, helped him to consolidate his position and allowed further problem shift resulting in a research programme that involved consciousness too. His research programme remains relevant even today. (shrink)

Embodied Cognition is an approach to cognition that departs from traditional cognitive science in its reluctance to conceive of cognition as computational and in its emphasis on the significance of an organism's body in how and what the organism thinks. Three lines of embodied cognition research are described and some thoughts on the future of embodied cognition offered.

The generalized Darwinian research programme accepts physicalism, but holds that all life is purposive in character. It seeks to understand how and why all purposiveness has evolved in the universe – especially purposiveness associated with what we value most in human life, such as sentience, consciousness, person-to-person understanding, science, art, free¬dom, love. As evolution proceeds, the mechanisms of evolution themselves evolve to take into account the increasingly important role that purposive action can play - especially when quasi-Lamarckian evolution (...) by cultural means comes into existence. This programme of research brings together, into a coherent field of inquiry, aspects of such diverse fields of research as orthodox Darwinian theory (given its purposive interpretation), the study of animal behaviour, palaeontology, archaeology, history, anthropology, psycho-neurology, artificial intelligence, psychology, sociology, philosophy, linguistics, semantics, history and philosophy of science, and history and philosophy of inquiry more generally (the history and philosophy of ideas and culture). The great advantage of the generalized Darwinian research programme is that it provides a framework for understanding the deeds, achievements and experiences of people in a way that is compatible with the kind of knowledge and understanding achieved in the physical sciences, without being reducible to such knowledge and understanding. It promises to enable us to understand ourselves as a part of the biological domain without our humanity, our distinctive human value, being in any way denied: persons are not reduced to animals, and nor are animals misconceived to be persons. It holds out the hope that we can come to understand the human world as an integral part of the natural world without the meaning and value of the human world being thereby conceptually annihilated. The programme specifies in general terms what we must seek to do in order to develop a coherent understanding of nature and of ourselves which does justice to the character of both. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to argue for the epistemic distinction of organisational studies, which have an object of study, a research methodology and a developed theory. Also the peculiarity of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary that characterize them when it comes to understand and intervene in organisations. It is discussed links and complementarities with management science and other social sciences, raising the need to provide an organisational studies epistemic identity through the foundation of its philosophical, methodological and theoretical principles (...) by creating a research programme from the perspective of Imre Lakatos. El propósito de este documento es el de argumentar la particularidad epistémica de los estudios organizacionales, que cuentan con un objeto de estudio propio, una metodología de investigación y teoría desarrollada, así como la peculiaridad de la interdisciplinariedad y transdisciplinariedad que los caracterizan, cuando se trata de conocer, comprender e intervenir en la organización, que es su objeto de estudio. Se muestran los vínculos y complementariedades con la ciencia de la administración, así como con otras ciencias sociales, planteando la necesidad de brindar identidad epistémica a los estudios organizacionales a través de la fundamentación de sus principios filosóficos, metodológicos y teóricos, mediante la creación de un programa de investigación desde la perspectiva de Imre Lakatos. (shrink)

The study “Psychoanalysis—its image and its public” intimates that common sense is increasingly informed by science. But common sense asserts its autonomy and, in turn, may affect the trajectory of science. This is a process that leads to many differentiations—in common sense, in scientific innovation and in political and regulatory structures. Bauer and Gaskell's toblerone model of triangles of mediation provided a distillation of their reading of “La Psychanalyse.” Here it was argued that representations are multi-modal phenomena necessitating the use (...) of multiple methodologies .In this paper we briefly summarise these arguments and elaborate ways in which social representation theory can be considered a progressive research programme. “Progressive” because as the theory has developed it has extended the range and depth of its conceptual basis; it provides a new synthesis for the social scientific understanding of the phenomena of common sense and of representation; it acts as an antidote to the reductionism of public opinion and, finally, it is a stimulus to depart from disciplinary silos. However, there remain unresolved issues: how to segment the relevant social milieus and how to close the feedback loop from common sense to science? (shrink)

The modern mathematical theory of dynamical systems proposes a new model of mechanical motion. In this model the deterministic unstable systems can behave in a statistical manner. Both kinds of motion are inseparably connected, they depend on the point of view and researcher's approach to the system. This mathematical fact solves in a new way the old problem of statistical laws in the world which is essentially deterministic. The classical opposition: deterministic‐statistical, disappears in random dynamics. The main thesis of the (...) paper is that the new theory of motion is a revolution in the research programme of classical mechanics. It is the revolution brought about by the development of mathematics. (shrink)

By 'scientific theory' I shall mean a core of fundamental assumptions fleshed out by a suitable array of auxiliary assumptions. Let there be two or more competing scientific theories in a certain field, thrown up by rival research programmes in Lakatos's sense. Now consider these two questions: (1) Which of these theories should I accept? (2) Which of these theories should I work on? They are surely very different questions. The personal pronoun 'I' could be dropped from question (1), (...) which could be reformulated as 'Which of these theories should anyone accept as the best one, in the light of the presently available evidence?' In my (1984) I suggested that the best theory is the one that best fulfils what I depicted as the optimum aim for science; and this, I argued, will be the one that is best corroborated. Which means that we may turn question (1) into: (1 ') Which of these theories is best corroborated? (shrink)

The methodology of Scientific Research Programmes created by Imre Lakatos is applied to draw an outline of a programme invented to comprehend Hawking’s discovery of black-hole evaporation.

In this paper I wish to discuss some relationships between philosophy and science, or rather, between the philosophy of science and the natural sciences, as well as the role of research programmes in these relationships. My interest in the topic rises out of the problems involved in teaching philosophy, and especially epistemology, to science, engineering and technology students. My “field experience” in the last five years has led me to the conclusion that the purpose is better served through a (...) programme of courses of different levels carried out by the joined forces and complementary efforts of philosophers and scientists. However, I do not intend to discuss either this conclusion or my own teaching experiences concerning a particular educational system at a particular period — in fact, one of reformation. If I mention this, it is in order to draw attention to two implicit distinctions, made by teachers and students, philosophers and scientists, but not always in the same manner, which may become the source of dispute when one attempts to make them explicit. The two distinctions are (a) the one between philosophy (of science) and (the natural) science(s), and (b) the one between the view of science presented in the philosophy of science and the view of science created by the scientists and science teachers. (shrink)

Some peculiarities of the evaluation of theories within scientific research programmes and of the assessing of rival SRPs are described assuming that scientists try to maximise an ‘epistemic utility function’ under economic and institutional constraints. Special attention is given to Lakatos' concepts of ‘empirical progress’ and ‘theoretical progress’. A notion of ‘empirical verisimilitude’ is defended as an appropriate utility function. The neologism ‘methodonomics’ is applied to this kind of studies.

The arguments are exhibited in favour of the necessity to modify the history of the genesis and advancement of general relativity (GR). I demonstrate that the dynamic creation of GR had been continually governed by internal tensions between two research traditions, that of special relativity and Newton’s gravity. The encounter of the traditions and their interpenetration entailed construction of the hybrid domain at first with an irregular set of theoretical models. Step by step, on eliminating the contradictions between the (...) models contrived, the hybrid set was put into order. It is contended that the main reason of the GR victory over the rival programmes of Abraham and Nordström was a synthetic character of Einstein’s programme. Einstein had put forward as a basic synthetic principle the principle of equivalence that radically differed from that of rival approaches by its open, flexible and contra-ontological character. (shrink)

Sociologists have increasingly adopted the insight that ‘modern societies’ undergo major historical transformations; they are not stable or undergoingonly smooth social change once their basic institutional structure has been established. There is even some broad agreement that the late twentieth century witnessed the most recent one of those major transformations leading into the present time – variously characterized by adding adjectives such as ‘reflexive’, ‘global’ or simply ‘new’ to modernity. However, neither the dynamics of the recent social transformation nor the (...) characteristic features of the present social constellation have been adequately grasped yet.Rather than assuming a socio-structural or politico-institutional perspective, as they dominate in sociology and political science respectively, this articleconcentrates on the way in which current social practices are experienced and interpreted by the human beings who enact them as parts of a common worldthat they inhabit together. It will be suggested that current interpretations are shaped by the experience of the dismantling of ‘organized modernity’ from the 1970s onwards and of the subsequent rise of a view of the world as shaped by parallel processes of ‘globalization’ and ‘individualization’, signalling the erasure of historical time and lived space, during the 1990s and early 2000s. In response to these experiences, we witness today a variety of interconnected attempts at re-interpretation of modernity, aiming at re-constituting spatiality and temporality. The re-constitution of meaningful time concerns most strongly questions of historical injustice, in terms of the present significance of past oppression and exclusion and in terms of the unequal effects of the instrumental transformation of the earth in the techno-industrial trajectory of modernity. The re-constitution of meaningful space focuses on the relation between the political form of a spatially circumscribed democracy and the economic practices of expansionist capitalism as well as on the spatial co-existence of a plurality of ways of world-interpretation. (shrink)

The detailed analysis of a particular quasi-historical numerical example is used to illustrate the way in which a Bayesian personalist approach to scientific inference resolves the Duhemian problem of which of a conjunction of hypotheses to reject when they jointly yield a prediction which is refuted. Numbers intended to be approximately historically accurate for my example show, in agreement with the views of Lakatos, that a refutation need have astonishingly little effect on a scientist's confidence in the ‘hard core’ of (...) a successful research programme even when a comparable confirmation would greatly enhance that confidence. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis. (shrink)

The historiography of the ‘dark age’ of biochemistry between 1910–1930 is examined. The biochemistry of the period is located within a larger contemporary debate on the interrelationship between structure and function on a submicroscopic level. It is suggested that biocolloid science was an understandable part of the historical development of biochemistry, representing a conceptual bridge between the cell biology of the late nineteenth century, and the era of structural macromolecular studies of proteins that began after 1930.

In this editorial contribution, two issues relevant to the question, what should be at the top of the research agenda for ethics and technology, are identified and discussed. Firstly: can, and do, engineers make a difference to the degree to which technology leads to morally desirable outcomes? What role does professional autonomy play here, and what are its limits? And secondly, what should be the scope of engineers’ responsibility; that is to say, on which issues are they, as engineers, (...) morally obliged to reflect? The research agendas proposed by the authors contributing to this special section, implicitly, give different answers to these questions. We suggest that an explicit discussion of these issues would greatly help in constructing a common research agenda. (shrink)

Imre Lakatos; II—Criticism and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1 June 1969, Page.

Imre Lakatos' philosophical and scientific papers are published here in two volumes. Volume I brings together his very influential but scattered papers on the philosophy of the physical sciences, and includes one important unpublished essay on the effect of Newton's scientific achievement. Volume II presents his work on the philosophy of mathematics, together with some critical essays on contemporary philosophers of science and some famous polemical writings on political and educational issues. Imre Lakatos had an influence out of all proportion (...) to the length of his philosophical career. This collection exhibits and confirms the originality, range and the essential unity of his work. It demonstrates too the force and spirit he brought to every issue with which he engaged, from his most abstract mathematical work to his passionate 'Letter to the director of the LSE'. Lakatos' ideas are now the focus of widespread and increasing interest, and these volumes should make possible for the first time their study as a whole and their proper assessment. (shrink)

In this paper I briefly reply to Shant Shahbazian’s comments on my paper “Austere quantum mechanics as a reductive basis for chemistry” and argue that quantum theory of atoms in molecules can be characterised as a research programme in the theories of chemistry. I also explore the areas in which Shahbazian and me agree and disagree.

In this paper I assess the obstacles to a transfer of Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programmes to mathematics. I argue that, if we are to use something akin to this methodology to discuss modern mathematics with its interweaving theoretical development, we shall require a more intricate construction and we shall have to move still further away from seeing mathematical knowledge as a collection of statements. I also examine the notion of rivalry within mathematics and claim that this appears (...) to be significant only at a high level. In addition, ideas of ‘progress’ in mathematics are outlined. (shrink)

In this article, the diagram is used to chart the movement from Deleuze's transcendental empiricism and engagement with structuralism in the 1960s to Deleuze and Guattari's ethico-aesthetic constructivism of the 1970s and 1980s. This is shown to culminate in a biopolitical critique and decoding of philosophy, which is part of the unfolding of a transdisciplinary research programme where art is seen to come ontologically ahead of philosophy.

In diesem Artikel wird der wissenschaftstheoretische Stand der Geochronologie mit Hintergrund in den Arbeiten von Kuhn und besonders Popper diskutiert. Die Geochronologie wird untersucht mit Hinblick auf generelle methodologische Voraussetzungen, Terminologie, normal-wissenschaftliche Aktivitätsform und "theoretische Dogmatik". Als Konklusion ergibt sich, daß die fundamentalen Theoriekonstruktionen der Geochronologie nicht testbar sind, sondern als ein metaphysisches Forschungsprogramm im Sinne Poppers charakterisiert werden müssen.

Imre Lakatos; II—Criticism and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1 June 1969, Page.

Transcendental philosophy was not born like Athena out of Zeus’s head, mature and in full armour from the very beginning. That is why in both prefaces to the Critique of Pure Reason (1781 and 1787) Kant introduces the concept of transcendental philosophy as an “idea.” The idea understood architectonically develops slowly and only gradually acquires a definite form. As witnessed by the works of Kant himself and of his predecessors and followers, the idea of transcendental philosophy has undergone a series (...) of changes and adjustments compared to the initial plan. In this context, my goal is not simply exegesis and historical investigation of transcendental philosophy, but also to look at it from a systematic and methodological perspective. I examine the concept of transcendental philosophy from the viewpoint of programmatic metaphilosophy. The first part discusses programmatics as a distinct subsection of metaphilosophy. I argue that Kant’s architectonic methodology and the methodology of Lakatos can be used to understand the inception, development and degradation of philosophical systems. In the second part I look at the project of transcendental philosophy and the stages of its development from the standpoint of architectonics. The third part shows that Lakatos’s methodology can provide a detailed insight into the elements of transcendental philosophy, a clear idea of its logic and identify the component parts that can be improved and developed. In spite of the different levels of detailing and epistemological prerequisites, the methodologies of Kant and Lakatos can be combined to achieve a metaphilosophically informed and progressive understanding of philosophical projects. (shrink)

Pros and contras of Lakatosian epistemological theory-change model in respect to economics are considered. It is argued that one of the main shortcomings of the model is connected in its inability to treat the social factors.

Research programmes are sets of problems preferred on epistemic grounds and including preferred heuristics for inquiry. Charles Lyell's research programme for biogeograpy includes the problem of explaining the distribution of species constrained by laws governing locomotion and containment of species. Included in the programme are laws governing the supernatural introduction of replacement species. Wallace and Darwin derected arguments against the putative intelligibility of this aspect of Lyell's programme before discovering natural selection, and their defence, at (...) this time of natural laws governing the introduction of new species is interesting as a defence of a noval programme of research, not a defence of a proposed theroy. These arguments are presented and an epistemological foundation is offered for them. 1 The author is indebted to a referee for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. (shrink)

The introspective devices framework proposed by Kammerer and Frankish (this issue) offers an attractive conceptual tool for evaluating and developing accounts of introspection. However, the framework assumes that different views about the nature of introspection can be easily evaluated against a set of common criteria. In this paper, I set out to test this assumption by analysing two formal models of introspection using the introspective device framework. The question I aim to answer is not only whether models developed outside of (...) philosophy can be successfully evaluated against the set of conceptual criteria proposed by Kammerer and Frankish, but also whether this kind of evaluation can reveal some limitations inherent to the framework. (shrink)

We propose a new approach to the study of introspection. Instead of asking what form introspection actually takes in humans or other animals, we ask what forms it could take, in natural or artificial minds. What are the dimensions along which forms of introspection could vary? This is a relatively unexplored question, but it is one that has the potential to open new avenues of study and reveal new connections between existing ones. It may, for example, focus attention on possible (...) forms of introspection radically different from the human one and help to integrate competing theories of human introspection in a non-adversarial manner. We introduce and motivate the project, provide a preliminary mapping of the space of possible forms of introspection, and sketch a programme for interdisciplinary research on the topic. (shrink)