On Progressive and Degenerative Research Programs

Here's Lakatos' talk from the LSE lectures he gave during Lent term, 1973.


Here is an extended discussion: part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


Now Larry Paulson might like to reframe the following post in terms of Lakatos' Proofs and Refutations. See Logic, and this really interesting definition of a Turing Machine as something not much more complex than an iterative deterministic finite automaton with a pattern substitution operator, just like the one I almost implemented in 1990, but which I never would have thought of this way!


See also this brilliant lecture, which mentions some guy called Ian Hacking, which, to me, sounds more like a verbal-phrase than a proper noun.


This essay, Measuring Ignorance is also relevant to how we could go about choosing between research programmes, which Lakatos didn't address. See the second part of the above lecture at 11 minutes 52 seconds , and Larry and Ross will be particularly amused by the bit about risk, at 16 minutes.

And on progressive and degenerative teaching programmes, and the importance of good teaching for research, see Oxford Lecturers on How to Make Maths Seem Boring.

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