The Taming of Chance [Paperback]

This book combines detailed scientific historical research with characteristic philosophic breadth and verve.In the course of a continuing inquiry into the origins and development of contemporary thought, this study reveals how statistical patterns were finally perceived in a non-deterministic manner by the end of the late nineteenth century.In the course of a continuing inquiry into the origins and development of contemporary thought, this study reveals how statistical patterns were finally perceived in a non-deterministic manner by the end of the late nineteenth century.In this important new study Ian Hacking continues the enquiry into the origins and development of certain characteristic modes of contemporary thought undertaken in such previous works as his best selling Emergence of Probability. Professor Hacking shows how by the late nineteenth century it became possible to think of statistical patterns as explanatory in themselves, and to regard the world as not necessarily deterministic in character. Combining detailed scientific historical research with characteristic philosophic breath and verve, The Taming of Chance brings out the relations among philosophy, the physical sciences, mathematics and the development of social institutions, and provides a unique and authoritative analysis of the probabilization of the Western world.Acknowledgements; 1. The argument; 2. The doctrine of necessity; 3. Public amateurs, secret bureaucrats; 4. Bureaux; 5. The sweet despotism of reason; 6. The quantum of sickness; 7. The granary of science; 8. Suicide is a kind of madness; 9. The experimental basis of the philosophy of legislation; 10. Facts without authenticity, without detail, without control, and without value; 11. By what majority?; 12. The law of large numbers; 13. Regimental chests; 14. Society prepares the crimes; 15. The astronomical conception of society; 16. The mineralogical conception of society; 17. The most ancient nobility; 18. Cassirer's thesis; 19.l3+