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.
Browse Ian Hacking by topic
Ian Hacking on Justice
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“From any vocabulary of ideas we can build other ideas by formal combinations of signs. But not any set of ideas will be instructive. One must have the right ideas.”
The Emergence Of Probability,1975 | Chapter 15, Inductive Logic, p. 139.
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.”
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“Ian Hacking (2012), Introductory Essay, in 50th anniversary edition of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolution”
Kuhn cannot take seriously that “there is some one full, objective, true account of nature.” Does this mean that he does not take truth seriously? Not at all. [...] Kuhn did reject a simple “correspondence theory” which says true statements correspond to facts about the world.[...] In the wave of skepticism that swept American scholarship at the end of the twentieth century, many influential intel -
“Ian Hacking (2012), Introductory Essay, in 50th anniversary edition of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolution”
Notice that there is no sociology in the book. Scientific communities and their practices are, however, at its core, entering with paradigms, as we saw, at page 10 and continuing to the final page of the book. There had been sociology of scientific knowledge before Kuhn , but after Structure it burgeoned, leading to what is now called science studies. This is a self-generating field (with, of cour -
“Ian Hacking, in Gary Stix, "A Q&A with Ian Hacking on Thomas Kuhn's Legacy as "The Paradigm Shift" Turns 50" (April 27, 2012)”
Well, he wasn't a relativist. There's a long and complicated story of the rise of a desire for scientific relativism. Part of it may well be simply sort of rage against reason, the fear of the sciences and a kind of total dislike of the arrogance of a great many scientists who say we're finding out the truth about everything—and here [with Kuhn] there was a way to undermine that arrogance. -
“There are two ways in which a science develops; in response to problems which is itself creates, and in response to problems that are forced on it from the outside.”
Chapter 1, An Absent Family Of Ideas, p. 4. -
“Chapter 1, An Absent Family Of Ideas, p. 4.”
There are two ways in which a science develops; in response to problems which is itself creates, and in response to problems that are forced on it from the outside. -
“Pascal is called the founder of modern probability theory . He earns this title not only for the familiar correspondence with Fermat on games of chance, but also for his conception of decision theory , and because he was an instrument in the demolition of probabilism, a doctrine which would have precluded rational probability theory.”
Chapter 3, Opinion, p. 23. -
“Chapter 3, Opinion, p. 23.”
Pascal is called the founder of modern probability theory . He earns this title not only for the familiar correspondence with Fermat on games of chance, but also for his conception of decision theory , and because he was an instrument in the demolition of probabilism, a doctrine which would have precluded rational probability theory. -
“Opinion is the companion of probability within the medieval epistemology.”
Chapter 3, Opinion, p. 28. -
“Probability fractions arise from our knowledge and from our ignorance.”
The Emergence Of Probability,1975 | Chapter 14, Equipossibility, p. 132.
Ian Hacking on Mind
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Attributed to Ian Hacking:
“Looping effects describe how classifications change those they classify.”
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“Well, he wasn't a relativist. There's a long and complicated story of the rise of a desire for scientific relativism. Part of it may well be simply sort of rage against reason, the fear of the sciences and a kind of total dislike of the arrogance of a great many scientists who say we're finding out the truth about everything—and here [with Kuhn] there was a way to undermine that arrogance.”
Ian Hacking, in Gary Stix, "A Q&A with Ian Hacking on Thomas Kuhn's Legacy as "The Paradigm Shift" Turns 50" (April 27, 2012)
Ian Hacking on Nature
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“To conclude: there are two well-known minor ways in which language has mattered to philosophy. On the one hand there is a belief that if only we produce good definitions, often marking out different senses of words that are confused in common speech, we will avoid the conceptual traps that ensnared our forefathers. On the other hand is a belief that if only we attend sufficiently closely to our mo”
Ian Hacking (1975), Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? , p. 7.
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.”
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“Statistics began as the systematic study of quantitative facts about the state.”
The Emergence Of Probability,1975 | Chapter 12, Political Arithmetic, p. 102.
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.”
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“A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'points to itself'.”
The Emergence Of Probability,1975 | Chapter 4, Evidence, p. 34.