1.2.6.2 Background

Lakatos was a mathematical literate philosopher. He was a graduate in mathematics, physics and philosophy at Debrecen 1944, a survivor of the Nazis whose mother and sister died at Auschwitz. After the war he was an active communist and for a time a high official in the Ministry of education but in 1950 he was arrested and imprisoned for three years. After the 1956 uprising in Hungary he fled the country and settled in England where he studied under Karl Popper.