Conjectures, puzzles, and problems - Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Pólya on the nature of scientific discovery
The work of George Pólya is proved to be one of the most important inspirations for Imre Lakatos as a philosopher of mathematics and science. In Lakatos’ fallibilist epistemology heuristic play the role of the unmethodical method. By that he was able to produce an original contribution to the debates on the nature of scientific discoveries and the growth of knowledge in the 1960s. While Karl Popper introduced the model of conjectures and refutations and Thomas Kuhn talked about puzzle solving as the main procedure going on in normal science, Lakatos criticized both of them partly using the insights Pólya had about problem solving.
