Lakatos and Research Programs Flashcards
Briefly explain the following concepts, according to Lakatos: (1) Research Programs; (2) Hard core beliefs; (3) Protective belt; (4) Progressive research program and degenerating research program.
Research programs: is defined by a set of principles absolutely essential to the program.
Hard core beliefs: The central principles of the research program. These principles are irrefutable, they are fundamental to the research program.
-For example, in the Copernican program in astronomy, there are three hard core beliefs about the program: (1) the earth and other planets orbit around the sun, (2) the sun is stationary, and (3) the earth spins on its axis once a day.
The protective belt: is made up of auxiliary beliefs which are refutable. The job of the protective belt is to protect the hard core.
-For Lakatos, the hard core is the heart of your program, if you give them up you have no more research program, it is better to reject the supplementary principles of the protective belt.
-Logically, there is no difference between fundamental and supplementary principle, but methodologically, fundamental principles are more valuable, so it is better to protect fundamentals and sacrifice auxiliary principles.
Progressive research programs: ones that lead to novel predictions.
Degenerating research programs: ones that have no novel predictions.
Novel prediction: a bold prediction. It is a prediction which clashes with knowledge accepted at the time. Novel predictions can help us choose which research program is better, because we can prefer the research program which has more novel predictions.
How does Lakatos’s view respond to the holistic objection to Popper’s view
-Direct refuting cases to the protective belt, and not the hard core
-This preserves the boldness/openness to criticism that Popper was advocating for.
-This way, we can still protect the heart of our theory.
How does Lakatos’s view respond to the relativistic objection that Kuhn’s view was subject to?
-Finding an objective ground for comparing different research programs by making the distinction between progressive research programs and degenerating research programs which relies on the concept of novel predictions.
-This preserves the dogmatism/conservatism that Kuhn was encouraging.
What are the roles of negative and positive heuristics? Use an example for each to explain it.
Rules to explain how we can make changes to protective belt
Positive heuristic- what scientists should do
-in general they give us guidance on how hardcore needs to be supplemented, and how the resulting protective belt is to be modified in order for a program to lead to explanation and predictions of observable phenomena
Negative heuristic- what scientists shouldn’t do
1) Never subject hard core beliefs to refutation
2) modify or change auxiliary beliefs *no ad hoc
What are “novel predictions” in Lakatos’ view and what role they play in a research program?
Novel prediction: a bold prediction. It is a prediction which clashes with knowledge accepted at the time. Novel predictions can help us choose which research program is better, because we can prefer the research program which has more novel predictions.
