Ian Hacking - On the Philosophy of Science (12 books, 150+ papers)

* Ian Hacking - On the Philosophy of Science (12 books, 150+ papers)

IAN HACKING (1936 – 2023) was a Canadian philosopher and author whose wide-ranging work probed foundational questions about the nature of concepts and who is credited with bringing a historical approach to the philosophy of science.

Writing in a clear and penetrating style not typical for academics, he brought his analytical skills to bear on a diverse range of topics, including experimental physics, probability, anthropology, philosophy of language, and logic, but also social constructivism, mental health, race, and poverty. Whatever the subject, whatever the audience, one unifying thread ran through all his work: an investigation into how phenomena, and their corresponding concepts, came into existence, in turn shaping our lives and interactions.

He wrote several landmark works on the philosophy and history of probability. In THE EMERGENCE OF PROBABILITY (1975), he examined how concepts of statistical probability have evolved over time, shaping people’s understanding not just of arcane fields like quantum physics but also of everyday life. THE TAMING OF CHANCE (1990) was named one of the best 100 nonfiction books of the 20th century by the Modern Library.

Influenced by the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault, Hacking used the term "looping effect" to argue that as the human sciences evolved, they created categories of people, shaping how they are perceived and how they perceive themselves, which in turn influences their behaviour and alters the category. In his influential writings about autism, for example, Hacking charted the evolution of the diagnosis and its profound effects on those diagnosed, which in turn broadened the definition to include a greater number of people.

In REWRITING THE SOUL (1995), Hacking wrote about the emergence of multiple personality disorder (now dissociative identity disorder) and its links with child abuse to scrutinize today's moral and political climate, especially our power struggles about memory and our efforts to cope with psychological injuries. MAD TRAVELERS (1998) focused on "hysterical fugue", a short-lived epidemic of compulsive wandering that emerged in Europe in the 1880s, largely among middle-class men who walked vast distances in a trance-like state. Drawing comparisons to more recent syndromes, Hacking reasoned that some forms of mental illness are transient and arise in certain societies at certain times but not in others. A hallmark of his treatment of these subjects was his nuance and care not to deny the suffering of those who were so categorized.

Throughout his career, Hacking won numerous awards, such as the Killam Prize for the Humanities and the Balzan Prize. In 2000, he became the first Anglophone to win a permanent position at the Collège de France in Paris, where he held the chair in the philosophy and history of scientific concepts until he retired in 2006.

After years of declining health, Ian Hacking died on May 10, 2023.


In addition to more than 150 papers, the following books are in PDF format unless otherwise noted:

* The Emergence of Probability, 2e (Cambridge, 2006) – ePub
* Historical Ontology (Harvard, 2002)
* Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic (Cambridge, 2001)
* Logic of Statistical Inference (Cambridge, 2016)
* Mad Travelers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illness (Virginia, 1998)
* Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science (Cambridge, 1983)
* Rewriting the Soul (Princeton, 1998) – ePub + PDF
* The Social Construction of What? (Harvard, 1999)
* The Taming of Chance (Cambridge, 1990)
* Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? (Cambridge, 1975)
* Why is There Philosophy of Mathematics At All? (Cambridge, 2014)

== EDITOR ==

* Scientific Revolutions (Oxford, 1981)


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