Ian Hacking
Encyclopedia
Ian Hacking, CC
, FRSC
, FBA
(born February 18, 1936) is a Canadian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of science
.
, British Columbia
, Canada, he has undergraduate degrees from the University of British Columbia
(1956) and the University of Cambridge
(1958), where he was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge
. Hacking also took his Ph.D.
at Cambridge (1962), under the direction of Casimir Lewy
, a former student of Wittgenstein's.
He taught at UBC in Canada as an Assistant Professor, then an Associate Professor, spending some time teaching at the Makerere University
in Uganda
. He became a lecturer at Cambridge in 1969 before shifting to Stanford in 1974. After teaching for several years at Stanford University
, he spent a year at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Bielefeld
, Germany, (1982–1983). He became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto
in 1983 and University Professor (the highest honour the University of Toronto bestows on faculty) in 1991. From 2000 to 2006, he held the Chair of Philosophy and History of Scientific Concepts at the Collège de France
, the first Anglophone to be elected to a permanent chair in the Collège's history.
Influenced by debates involving Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend and others, Hacking is known for bringing a historical approach to the philosophy of science. The fourth edition of Feyerabend's 1975 book Against Method includes an Introduction by Hacking. Hacking is sometimes described as a member of the "Stanford School" in philosophy of science, a group that also included John Dupré
, Nancy Cartwright
and Peter Galison
. He himself still identifies as a Cambridge analytic philosopher. Hacking defended a realism about science, "entity realism
", albeit only on pragmatic and particularly experimental grounds: the electron is real because human beings use it to make things happen. This form of realism encourages a realistic stance towards the entities postulated by mature sciences but skepticism towards scientific theories. Hacking has also been influential in directing attention to the experimental and even engineering practices of science, and their relative autonomy from theory. In that way Hacking moved philosophical thinking a step further than the initial historical, but heavily theory-focused, turn of Kuhn et al.
In his later work (from 1990 onward), his focus has shifted somewhat from the natural sciences to the human sciences, partly under the influence of the work of Michel Foucault
. Foucault was an influence as early as Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? and The Emergence of Probability (both 1975). In the latter book, Hacking proposed that the modern schism between subjective or personalist probability, and the long-run frequency interpretation, emerged in the early modern era as an epistemological "break" involving two incompatible models of uncertainty and chance. As history the idea of a sharp break has been criticized, but competing 'frequentist' and 'subjective' interpretations of probability still remain today. Foucault's approach to knowledge systems
and power is also reflected in Hacking's work on the historical mutability of psychiatric disorders and institutional roles for statistical reasoning in the 19th century. He labels his approach to the human sciences "dynamic nominalism" (or, alternately, "dialectical realism"), a historicised form of nominalism that traces the mutual interactions over time between the phenomena of the human world and our conceptions and classifications of them.
In Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory
, by developing a historical ontology
of Multiple Personality Disorder, Hacking provides a discussion of how people are constituted by the descriptions of acts available to them. (see Acting under a description
).
In Mad Travelers (1998) he documented the fleeting appearance in the 1890s of a fugue state in which European men would walk in a trance for hundreds of miles without knowledge of their identities.
In 2002, he was awarded the first Killam Prize for the Humanities, Canada's most distinguished award for outstanding career achievements. In 2004, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada
. Hacking was appointed visiting professor at University of California, Santa Cruz
for the Winters of 2008 and 2009. On August 25, 2009 Hacking was named winner of the Holberg International Memorial Prize
, a Norwegian award for scholarly work in the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology. Hacking was chosen for his work on how statistics and the theory of probability have shaped society. In 2003, he gave the Sigmund H Danziger Jr Memorial lecture The Sigmund H. Danziger, Jr. Memorial Lecture in the Humanities
in 2003. In 2010, he gave the René Descartes Lectures at the Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS).007. In 2010, Hacking also gave the Howison lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, on the topic of mathematics and its sources in human behavior ('Proof, Truth, Hands and Mind').
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
, FRSC
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...
, FBA
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
(born February 18, 1936) is a Canadian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
.
Life and works
Born in VancouverVancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Canada, he has undergraduate degrees from the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
(1956) and the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
(1958), where he was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
. Hacking also took his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
at Cambridge (1962), under the direction of Casimir Lewy
Casimir Lewy
Casimir Lewy was a Polish-born British philosopher. He worked in philosophical logic but published scantily. According to Ian Hacking, He had early acquired the conviction that one should publish only when one got something absolutely right, so he left very little in print...
, a former student of Wittgenstein's.
He taught at UBC in Canada as an Assistant Professor, then an Associate Professor, spending some time teaching at the Makerere University
Makerere University
Makerere University , Uganda's largest and second-oldest higher institution of learning, , was first established as a technical school in 1922. In 1963 it became the University of East Africa, offering courses leading to general degrees from the University of London...
in Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
. He became a lecturer at Cambridge in 1969 before shifting to Stanford in 1974. After teaching for several years at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, he spent a year at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Bielefeld
Bielefeld
Bielefeld is an independent city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 323,000, it is also the most populous city in the Regierungsbezirk Detmold...
, Germany, (1982–1983). He became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
in 1983 and University Professor (the highest honour the University of Toronto bestows on faculty) in 1991. From 2000 to 2006, he held the Chair of Philosophy and History of Scientific Concepts at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
, the first Anglophone to be elected to a permanent chair in the Collège's history.
Influenced by debates involving Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend and others, Hacking is known for bringing a historical approach to the philosophy of science. The fourth edition of Feyerabend's 1975 book Against Method includes an Introduction by Hacking. Hacking is sometimes described as a member of the "Stanford School" in philosophy of science, a group that also included John Dupré
John Dupré
John Dupré is a professional philosopher of science. He is the director of the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society and professor of philosophy at the University of Exeter. Dupré was educated at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge and taught at Oxford, Stanford University and...
, Nancy Cartwright
Nancy Cartwright (philosopher)
Nancy Cartwright FBA is a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics and the University of California at San Diego, and a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship...
and Peter Galison
Peter Galison
Peter Louis Galison is the Pellegrino University Professor in History of Science and Physics at Harvard University.Galison received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in both Physics and the History of Science in 1983. His publications include Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics ...
. He himself still identifies as a Cambridge analytic philosopher. Hacking defended a realism about science, "entity realism
Entity realism
Entity realism is a philosophical position within the debate about scientific realism. Whereas traditional scientific realism argues that our best scientific theories are true, or approximately true, or closer to the truth than their predecessors, entity realism does not commit itself to judgments...
", albeit only on pragmatic and particularly experimental grounds: the electron is real because human beings use it to make things happen. This form of realism encourages a realistic stance towards the entities postulated by mature sciences but skepticism towards scientific theories. Hacking has also been influential in directing attention to the experimental and even engineering practices of science, and their relative autonomy from theory. In that way Hacking moved philosophical thinking a step further than the initial historical, but heavily theory-focused, turn of Kuhn et al.
In his later work (from 1990 onward), his focus has shifted somewhat from the natural sciences to the human sciences, partly under the influence of the work of Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
. Foucault was an influence as early as Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? and The Emergence of Probability (both 1975). In the latter book, Hacking proposed that the modern schism between subjective or personalist probability, and the long-run frequency interpretation, emerged in the early modern era as an epistemological "break" involving two incompatible models of uncertainty and chance. As history the idea of a sharp break has been criticized, but competing 'frequentist' and 'subjective' interpretations of probability still remain today. Foucault's approach to knowledge systems
Knowledge-based systems
Knowledge based systems are artificial intelligent tools working in a narrow domain to provide intelligent decisions with justification. Knowledge is acquired and represented using various knowledge representation techniques rules, frames and scripts...
and power is also reflected in Hacking's work on the historical mutability of psychiatric disorders and institutional roles for statistical reasoning in the 19th century. He labels his approach to the human sciences "dynamic nominalism" (or, alternately, "dialectical realism"), a historicised form of nominalism that traces the mutual interactions over time between the phenomena of the human world and our conceptions and classifications of them.
In Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory
Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory
Rewriting the Soul is a book by the Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking. The book offers an account of the formative influences that shape people’s understandings of their own lives and their understanding of the lives of the people around them...
, by developing a historical ontology
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
of Multiple Personality Disorder, Hacking provides a discussion of how people are constituted by the descriptions of acts available to them. (see Acting under a description
Acting under a description
Acting under a description is a conception of the intentionality of human action introduced by philosopher G. E. M. Anscombe.-Anscombe:Anscombe wrote that a human action is intentional if the question "Why?", taken in a certain sense , has application...
).
In Mad Travelers (1998) he documented the fleeting appearance in the 1890s of a fugue state in which European men would walk in a trance for hundreds of miles without knowledge of their identities.
In 2002, he was awarded the first Killam Prize for the Humanities, Canada's most distinguished award for outstanding career achievements. In 2004, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
. Hacking was appointed visiting professor at University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
for the Winters of 2008 and 2009. On August 25, 2009 Hacking was named winner of the Holberg International Memorial Prize
Holberg International Memorial Prize
The Holberg International Memorial Prize was established in 2003 by the government of Norway with the objective of increasing awareness of the value of academic scholarship within the arts, humanities, social sciences, law and theology, either within one of these fields or through interdisciplinary...
, a Norwegian award for scholarly work in the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology. Hacking was chosen for his work on how statistics and the theory of probability have shaped society. In 2003, he gave the Sigmund H Danziger Jr Memorial lecture The Sigmund H. Danziger, Jr. Memorial Lecture in the Humanities
The Sigmund H. Danziger, Jr. Memorial Lecture in the Humanities
The Sigmund H. Danziger, Jr. Memorial Lecture in the Humanities is an annual honorary bestowed upon an “established scholar of classical literature, who has made substantial contributions to the critical analysis of classical literature, or has been exceptionally skilled at inspiring an...
in 2003. In 2010, he gave the René Descartes Lectures at the Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS).007. In 2010, Hacking also gave the Howison lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, on the topic of mathematics and its sources in human behavior ('Proof, Truth, Hands and Mind').
Books
Hacking's works have been translated into several languages.- The Logic of Statistical Inference (1965)
- The Emergence of Probability (1975)
- Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? (1975)
- Representing and Intervening, Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1983.
- The Taming of Chance (1990)
- Scientific Revolutions (1990)
- Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of MemoryRewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of MemoryRewriting the Soul is a book by the Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking. The book offers an account of the formative influences that shape people’s understandings of their own lives and their understanding of the lives of the people around them...
(1995) - Mad Travellers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illness (1998)
- The Social Construction of What? (1999)
- An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic (2001)
- Historical Ontology (2002)
External links
- University of Toronto profile
- Collège de France profile with links to online lessons (French) and texts (English and French)
- Hacking, Ian in The Canadian EncyclopediaThe Canadian EncyclopediaThe Canadian Encyclopedia is a source of information on Canada. It is available online, at no cost. The Canadian Encyclopedia is available in both English and French and includes some 14,000 articles in each language on a wide variety of subjects including history, popular culture, events, people,...
- China on My Mind: Ian Hacking on the 1989 Demonstrations
- "How We Have Been Learning to Talk About Autism" Podcast of lecture delivered September 19, 2008 to a conference entitled Cognitive Disability: A Challenge to Moral Philosophy, held at Stony Brook University. 42 minutes 264 MB
- Ideas - How to think about Science Podcast of an edited conversation on IdeasIdeas (radio show)Ideas is a long running scholarly radio documentary show on CBC Radio One. Co-created by Phyllis Webb and William A. Young, the show premiered in 1965 under the title The Best Ideas You'll Hear Tonight...
(CBC Radio) regarding the meshing of theory and experiment. (This radio series includes interviews with several authors discussed in Hacking's Social Construction of What?). 52 minutes 25 MB - Hacking's contributions to The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
- Hacking's contributions to the London Review of BooksLondon Review of BooksThe London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
- Root and Branch, in The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, October 8, 2007 - "The Complacent Disciplinarian", presented in Rethinking Interdisciplinarity.
- "Les Mots et les choses, forty years on", lecture delivered at the Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University, on October 6, 2005, about Michel FoucaultMichel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
's The Order of ThingsThe Order of ThingsThe Order of Things is a book by Michel Foucault first published in 1966. The full title is Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines... - "Genetics, biosocial groups & the future of identity", Daedalus, Fall 2006, Vol. 135, No. 4: 81–95
- "Truthfulness", Common Knowledge, Vol. 11, No. 1. (2005), pp. 160–172.
- "Kinds of People: Moving Targets", British AcademyBritish AcademyThe British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
Lecture, delivered 11 April 2006, published in Proceedings of the British AcademyProceedings of the British AcademyThe Proceedings of the British Academy is a peer-reviewed academic journal. The publication consists of conference proceedings and lectures, and several of the individual volumes have their own unique titles. Articles from volume 51 onwards are available as PDF files for members, with the first...
151 (2007), 285-318