Keywords
Epistemology
Scientific research programs
Science
Imre Lakatos
Métricas
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper examines Marxism's claim to be a science. The first part considers possible models of science and argues that the most coherent is Imre Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programs. In his conception scientific knowledge grows on the basis of a hard core of postulates which are protected from refutation by the development of a series of auxiliary theories. Such a research program is progressive rather than degenerating if successive theories are consistent with the core, explain anomalies and make predictions, some of which are realized. In the second part I argue that with some qualifications the history of Marxism - from Marx and Engels, to German Marxism, to Russian Marxism, and finally to Western Marxism - conforms to the model of a progressive research program. In the third part I claim that deviations from the model, such as Soviet Marxism, are due to the breakdown of the reciprocal interaction between Marxism's heuristics and historical challenges.
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