Ian Hacking Quotes
Ian Hacking was a Canadian philosopher of science whose work bridged the analytic and historical traditions in the philosophy of science. Trained at Cambridge under Wittgensteinian and Quinean influences, he held chairs at Toronto and at the College de France and produced a long series of books on probability, statistics, mental illness, and the historical formation of scientific concepts. The quotes below are attributed to Ian Hacking, organized by topic.
Ian Hacking on Knowledge
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Attributed to Ian Hacking:
“Probability is double-faced from the start: aleatory and epistemic.”
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Attributed to Ian Hacking:
“Statistics has helped to determine the form of laws of nature and what counts as a person.”
Ian Hacking on Mind
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Attributed to Ian Hacking:
“Looping effects describe how classifications change those they classify.”
Ian Hacking on Politics
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Attributed to Ian Hacking:
“Categories of people come into existence at the same time as kinds of people come into being.”
Ian Hacking on Truth
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Attributed to Ian Hacking:
“Reasoning styles bring with them new ways of being a candidate for truth or falsehood.”