The Taming of ChanceIn 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. |
Contents
The argument | 1 |
The doctrine of necessity | 11 |
Public amateurs secret bureaucrats | 16 |
Bureaux | 27 |
The sweet despotism of reason | 35 |
The quantum of sickness | 47 |
The granary of science | 55 |
Suicide is a kind of madness | 64 |
Society prepares the crimes | 115 |
The astronomical conception of society | 125 |
The mineralogical conception of society | 133 |
The most ancient nobility | 142 |
Cassirers thesis | 150 |
The normal state | 160 |
As real as cosmic forces | 170 |
The autonomy of statistical law | 180 |
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Common terms and phrases
average Babbage became Berlin biopolitics birth Broussais Broussais's bureau C.S. Peirce causality causes chapter Charles Sanders Peirce Comte conception Condorcet constant conviction crime criminal criminal anthropology curve determinism deterministic disease distribution doctrine of necessity Durkheim Emile Durkheim Engel English Ernst Engel error Esquirol essay example fact Farr France Francis Galton French Galton German Guerry History of Statistics human Ian Hacking Ibid idea individual induction inference Jewish jurors jury kind labour Laplace large numbers law of large Leibniz Logic London madness mathematical mean measure metaphysics method moral science nation Neumann nineteenth century normal Normal distribution organ Paris pathological Peirce Peirce's person philosophical phrenology physical physiology Poisson political population preussischen Probabilistic probability Prussian statistical published Quetelet reason regularities reliability Renouvier Report revolution social society sociology statistical fatalism statistical law statistical stability statisticians Statistik statistique suicide taming of chance theory thought universe vigintillion word wrote