PERSON
Imre Lakatos
Hungarian-British philosopher of science and mathematics (1922–1974), whose methodology of scientific research programmes provided the intermediate position between Kuhn and Popper — and the most direct precursor to Laudan's framework.
Imre Lakatos developed the methodology of scientific research programmes as an attempt to mediate between Popper's falsificationism and Kuhn's paradigms. His framework proposed that science consists of competing research programmes, each organized around a hard core of theoretical commitments protected by a belt of auxiliary hypotheses. Programmes are progressive when they make novel predictions that turn out to be confirmed; degenerating when they modify their auxiliary hypotheses only to absorb disconfirming evidence without generating new predictions. The framework influenced Laudan heavily but was ultimately superseded by the problem-solving model, which rejected Lakatos's emphasis on predictive novelty in favor of a broader account of problem-solving capacity.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Lakatos's work was itself a response to Kuhn, attempting to preserve the rationality of theory-choice that Kuhn's framework seemed to threaten. Where Kuhn spoke of paradigms as total frameworks, Lakatos spoke of research programmes that could be modified internally. Where Kuhn made paradigm shifts quasi-sociological events, Lakatos proposed criteria by which the progress