Digital Scholarship@UNLV

Submission Title

Why Imre Lakatos’s Account of Science is Superior

Category

Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences > Humanities > Philosophy

Received

March 24, 2022

Accepted

August 19, 2022

Published

August 31, 2022

Authors

Kyle J. Q. Catarata, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow

Authors

Kyle Joshua Q. Catarata (KJQC)^{1, 2, 3*}

Author Affiliations

¹Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA.

²Department of World Languages and Cultures, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA.

³Honors College, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Corresponding Author

*Kyle Joshua Q. Catarata, catark2@unlv.nevada.edu

DOI

https://doi.org/10.9741/2766-7227.1017

Author Contributions

KJQC: Data collection, data analysis, methodology, writing, and review of the manuscript

Copyright

Articles in Spectra are freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly cited.

Data Availability Statement

The author confirms that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restrictions upon request.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares that no competing interests exist.

Ethical Considerations

Given that this project did not involve human or animal subjects, no IRB or IACUC approval was needed. All research was derived from publicly shared sources.

Funding

No funding was used to conduct this research.

Abstract

An important question that has always been debated in philosophy of science concerns that of the best account of science. Ranging from multiple accounts, from Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Imre Lakatos, etc., an argument of how Lakatos’s Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (MSRP) is the best account of science will be defended. In addition, the best account of scientific evidence and explanation – featuring philosophers from Lakatos, Peter Achinstein, Nancy Cartwright, and Philip Kitcher – is presented in support of Lakatos’s MSRP. Furthermore, using the scientific theory of continental drift, proposed by Alfred L. Wegener, will illustrate how Wegener’s theory fits well with Lakatos’s account of science.

Keywords

Philosophy of science, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Alfred L. Wegner, falsificationism, naïve falsificationism, normal science, revolutionary science, ethodology of Scientific Research Programmes (MSRP)

Submission Type

Primary research article

Recommended Citation

Catarata, K. J. Q. (2022). Why Imre Lakatos’s account of science is superior. Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal, 2(2), 23-29. https://doi.org/10.9741/2766-7227.1017