Study Questions for Lakatos

  1. What is Lakatos' opinion of Popper and Kuhn?
  2. What is sophisticated falsificationism?
  3. When is a theory scientific to a sophisticated falsificationist?
  4. What are theoretical progress and empirical progress?
  5. What are a series or succession of theories called?
  6. What is the negative heuristic?
  7. What is the positive heuristic?
  8. What are the two primary components of a research programme?
  9. Why is theoretical science (relatively) autonomous?
  10. How does Lakatos combine or reconcile Popper and Kuhn?
  11. How do Lakatos' contributions relate to our study of American politics?

Things to look for/keep in mind for future readings:

Back to Syllabus