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Cited by 3,586

The DOI matches its Crossref record.

The Taming of Chance

Hacking, Ian·1990·Cambridge University Press eBooks
DOI 10.1017/cbo9780511819766
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Abstract

In this important study Ian Hacking continues the enquiry into the origins and development of certain characteristic modes of contemporary thought undertaken in such previous works as the best-selling The 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. In the same period the idea of human nature was displaced by a model of normal people with laws of dispersion. These two parallel transformations fed into each other, so that chance made the world seem less capricious: it was legitimated because it brought order out of chaos. Combining detailed scientific historical research with characteristic philosophic breadth and verve, The Taming of Chance brings out the relations between philosophy, the physical sciences, mathematics and the development of social institutions, and provides a unique and authoritative analysis of the 'probabilisation' of the western world.

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Metadata

Authors
Hacking, I.
Venue
Cambridge University Press eBooks
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Published
1990-08-31
DOI
10.1017/cbo9780511819766
OpenAlex
W2012758517
Cited by
3,586
References
0
FWCI
70.27
Type
book
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 8679 d)

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.