Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
Ian MacDougall Hacking, born February 18, 1936, is a Canadian philosopher specializing in the philosophy of science. Throughout his career, he has won numerous awards, such as the Killam Prize for the Humanities and the Balzan Prize, and been a member of many prestigious groups, including the Order of Canada, the Royal Society of Canada and the British Academy...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth18 February 1936
CountryCanada
curiosity world hacking
I have this extraordinary curiosity about all subjects of the natural and human world and the interaction between the physical sciences and the social sciences.
future cutting done
Cutting up fowl to predict the future is, if done honestly and with as little interpretation as possible, a kind of randomization. But chicken guts are hard to read and invite flights of fancy or corruption.
legends philosopher armchairs
By legend and perhaps by nature philosophers are more accustomed to the armchair than the workbench.
observation inconsistent generalization
A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'points to itself'.
adventure might theory
Much early alchemy seems to have been adventure. You heated and mixed and burnt and pounded and to see what would happen. An adventure might suggest an hypothesis that can subsequently be tested, but adventure is prior to theory.
race hacking realising
Every once in a while, something happens to you that makes you realise that the human race is not quite as bad as it so often seems to be.
simplicity done world
We favor hypotheses for their simplicity and explanatory power, much as the architect of the world might have done in choosing which possibility to create.
vocabulary ideas combination
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.
ignorance fractions arise
Probability fractions arise from our knowledge and from our ignorance.
land people taxation
When land and its tillage are the basis of taxation, one need not care exactly how many people there are.
two way problem
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.
ideas paradox reactions
The best reaction to a paradox is to invent a genuinely new and deep idea.
science technology reality
Philosophers of science constantly discuss theories and representation of reality, but say almost nothing about experiment, technology, or the use of knowledge to alter the world. This is odd, because 'experimental method' used to be just another name for scientific method.... I hope [to] initiate a Back-to-Bacon movement, in which we attend more seriously to experimental science. Experimentation has a life of its own.
taken wings ideas
Molecular biology has routinely taken problematic things under its wing without altering core ideas.