On 2-4 November 2022, this conference will celebrate the life and work of Imre Lakatos, a central figure in the history of LSE Philosophy and a major influence on philosophy of science and philosophy of mathematics worldwide, on the centenary of his birth.

All lectures and contributed paper sessions are open to the public, first come first serve on the day.

The conference will take place at LSE – rooms and buildings are indicated in the programme below.

Preliminary Programme

Wednesday 2 November 2022

18.00 – 19.15 Plenary Lecture (Lakatos Award)
Anya Plutynski (Washington University in St. Louis): Rethinking Progress In Cancer Science And Medicine
Chair: Roman Frigg
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

19.30 – 20.30  Lakatos Award Reception
Chair: Roman Frigg
Shaw Library, Old Building

Thursday 3 November 2022

9.45 – 11.00  Plenary Lecture
Stephan Hartmann (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich): Lakatos, Bayes And The Role Of The History Of Science
Chair: Roman Frigg
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

11.00 – 11.30  Coffee Break
Outside the Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

11.30 – 13.00  Contributed papers [45 mins per paper]

Parallel Session 1: Philosophy of Mathematics I
CBG.1.04, Centre Building
Chair: Laurenz Hudetz

Fenner Tanswell (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Loughborough) Colin Rittberg

(Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and Brendan Larvor (Hertfordshire): Lakatos And

Kneebone: At The Roots Of A Dialectical Philosophy Of Mathematics

Marcus Giaquinto (UCL): Lakatos, Mathematical Practice And Intuitive Arguments

Parallel Session 2: Philosophy of the Special Sciences: Psychology
CBG.1.05, Centre Building
Chair: Roman Frigg

Martin Bauer (LSE), George Gaskell (LSE) and Gordon Sammut (University of Malta): Social Representations Theory – Contours Of A Progressive Research Programme In Social Psychology

Fernand Gobet (LSE), Percy Venegas (LSE) and Giovanni Sala (Liverpool): Can Psychologists’ Scientific Practices Be Described As Progressive Lakatosian Research Programmes?

Parallel Session 3: Philosophical Method I
CBG.2.06, Centre Building
Chair: Giacomo Giannini

Steve Meyer (Tachyon Design Automation): George Polya’s Contribution to Lakatos Philosophy of Mathematics

Miguel Ângelo Flach (São Paulo): Lakatos’s Normativeness Between Fallibilism And History

13.00 Lunch break

13.45-14.00 Spiro Latsis: Remembering Imre
Chair: John Worrall
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

14.00 – 15.15  Plenary Lecture
Philip Kitcher (Columbia): Mathematical Methodology (via Zoom)
Chair: John Worrall
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

15.15 – 15.45 Coffee Break
In front of the Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

15.45 – 17.15  Contributed papers [45 mins per paper]

Parallel Session 1: Philosophy of Mathematics II
CBG.1.03, Centre Building
Chair: Bryan Roberts

Alexander Paseau (Oxford) and Wesley Wrigley (Oxford): Lakatos On The Euclidean Programme

Can Baskent (Middlesex): Proofs And Refutations, Non-Classically

Parallel Session 2: Philosophical Method I
CBG.2.03, Centre Building
Chair: Jason Alexander

Dubian Cañas (UNAM): On Testing Philosophical Claims Against Historical Evidence: Revisiting Lakatos’ Approach To Integrated History And Philosophy of Science

Samuel Schindler (Aarhus): Beyond footnotes: Lakatos’ Meta-Philosophy And The History Of Science

Parallel Session 3: Philosophy of the Special Sciences: Statistical Physics
CBG.2.05, Centre Building
Chair: Roman Frigg

Jennifer Whyte (Pittsburgh): Lotto 1877: Boltzmann, Lakatos, And Model Engineering

Eugene Chua (UCSD): Degeneration And Entropy

17.30 – 18.15  Alan Musgrave remembers Imre Lakatos (Video)
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

Friday 4 November 2022

9.45 – 11.00    Plenary Lecture
Alison Pease (Dundee): Proofs, Refutations And Implementations: Lakatos In The Age of AI
Chair Laurenz Hudetz
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

11.00 – 11.30  Coffee Break
Outside the Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

11.30 – 13.00  Contributed papers [45 mins per paper]

Parallel Session 1: Philosophy of Mathematics III and Demarcation
CBG.1.03, Centre Building
Chair: Miklos Redei

Otávio Bueno (Miami): Extending Heuristics: Mathematical Discovery In Logic And Science

CANCELLED: Alex Bellamy: Lakatos’s ‘Anticipated Novel Facts’ Demarcation Criterion And Its Historical Synchronisation Problems

Parallel Session 2: Philosophical Method II
CBG.2.03, Centre Building
Chair: Liam Bright

Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen (Oulu): Lakatosian Rational Reconstruction Updated

Thodoris Dimitrakos (Patras): Rational Reconstruction And Normative Explanations In Historiography And In Philosophy Of Science: Lakatos Between Eliminative Naturalism And Aprioristic Normativism

Parallel Session 3: Philosophy of the Special Sciences: Biology and Economics
CBG.1.04, Centre Building
Chair: Johanna Thoma

CANCELLED: Larisa Gogianu (Bucharest): A Lakatosian Perspective On Research Programmes In Evolutionary Biology

Natalie Ross: Critiquing Economic Methodologies

13.00   Lunch break

14.00 – 15.30  Contributed papers [45 mins per paper]

Parallel Session 1: Philosophy of the Special Sciences: Computation and Neuroscience
CBG.1.02, Centre Building
Chair: Bryan Roberts

Percy Venegas (LSE) and Fernand Gobet (LSE): Lakatos And Computational Model Consensus

CANCELLED: Oliver Buchholz (Tübingen) and Eric Raidl (Tübingen): A Falsificationist Account of Artificial Neural Networks

Parallel Session 2: Philosophical Method III
CBG.1.03, Centre Building
Chair: Liam Bright

Jack Ritchie (Cape Town): Heuristic, Refutation And Concept-Stretching

Konstantin Genin (Tübingen): Simplicity And Scientific Progress

Parallel Session 3: History of Science
CBG.1.05, Centre Building
Chair: Jason Alexander

Tamás Demeter (Budapest): Methodologies For Disciplinary Integration: Research Programmes In The Scottish Enlightenment

Vincenzo Crupi (Turin): A Predictivist Vindication Of Early Copernicanism

 

15.30 – 16.00   Coffee Break
Outside the Yangtze Theatre, Centre Building

16.00 – 17.15 Plenary Lecture
John Worrall (LSE): A Classic Case Of A Lakatosian Degenerating Research Programme In Current Medicine (With Some Added “Internal/External History”)
Chair: Miklos Redei
Auditorium, Centre Building

 

Programme Committee

Liam Bright, Roman Frigg, Laurenz Hudetz, Bryan Roberts, Lewis Ross, Johanna Thoma, Kate Vredenburgh, John Worrall (chair)

Organising Committee

Jason Alexander, Roman Frigg (chair), Laurenz Hudetz, Miklos Redei, Bryan Roberts, John Worrall

The conference organisers can be reached at LakatosCentenary2022@gmail.com

Acknowledgement

This conference is made possible by generous financial support from Dr Spiro Latsis.