Lakatos and the Euclidean Programme
Paseau, A. C. & Wrigley, W.
(2025).
Lakatos and the Euclidean Programme.
In
Frigg, R., Alexander, J. M., Hudetz, L., Rédei, M., Ross, L. & Worrall, J.
(Eds.),
Proofs and Research Programmes: Lakatos at 100
(pp. 47 - 67).
Springer Nature.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88213-5_4
(2025).
Lakatos and the Euclidean Programme.
In
Frigg, R., Alexander, J. M., Hudetz, L., Rédei, M., Ross, L. & Worrall, J.
(Eds.),
Proofs and Research Programmes: Lakatos at 100
(pp. 47 - 67).
Springer Nature.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88213-5_4
Euclid’s Elements inspired a number of foundationalist accounts of mathematics, which dominated the epistemology of the discipline for many centuries in the West. Yet surprisingly little has been written by recent philosophers about this conception of mathematical knowledge. The great exception is Imre Lakatos, whose characterisation of the Euclidean Programme in the philosophy of mathematics counts as one of his central contributions. In this essay, we examine Lakatos’s account of the Euclidean Programme with a critical eye, and suggest an alternative picture that builds on his while differing from it in a number of important ways.
