Ian Hacking

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Ian Hacking

Ian Hacking , CC (born February 18, 1936 in Vancouver , British Columbia ) is a Canadian philosopher of science and linguistic philosopher who has made well-received contributions to the realism debate.

Life

After studying in British Columbia (with a BA in 1956) and in Cambridge (with a BA in 1958), he received his doctorate in Cambridge in 1962. He had been a professor at the University of Toronto since 1982 and was honorary professor of philosophy and history from 2001 to 2006 scientific concepts at the Collège de France . In 1983 Ian Hacking married the philosopher Judith Baker .

His focus is on the theory of science , philosophy of language , philosophy of mathematics, and philosophical questions about psychopathology. He is a representative of entity realism .

Hacking is included in the Stanford School of Science along with Nancy Cartwright , John Dupré and Patrick Suppes . This school is united by a critical approach to the reductionist ideal of unified science .

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Representation and intervention

Ian Hacking's contribution to the epistemological realism debate with the 1983 published book Introduction to Philosophy of Science (Original title: Representing and Intervening) is a shift in perspective from scientific theory to scientific practice.

The lesson is: think about practice, not theory.

In his own historical considerations, Hacking uses a large number of examples to describe the diversity of the relationships between observation, experiment and theory; He also tries to emphasize the undetectable predominance of theory in experimental practice over the presentation of a “theoretical” historiography.

Entity Realism

Hacking provides various arguments against any theory realism throughout the book . He points out that the classical realist believes in the truth or falsity of a theory. Hacking himself, however, evades this question in order to give a positive answer to the question of the reality of entities to which he grants a high degree of independence from theories. Hacking draws attention to the fact that the question of the reality of entities is a question of existence and not a question of truth or falsehood (as in the case of theories).

Seeing through microscopes

Hacking negates the objection of relativists like Norwood Russell Hanson , Thomas S. Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend that all experience is theory-laden. The production of physical instruments certainly requires theory, but looking through the microscope is largely free of theory. The biologist does not need the theoretical knowledge of a physicist or engineer to use a microscope, just as the layman does not need to understand anything about the structure of a television set in order to watch television.

According to Hacking, the reality of an object observed with a microscope is generated by the fact that the same object can be observed with different types of microscope. The artifact character of small dots in platelets - viewed under the electron microscope - is excluded because these dots are also visible with a light microscope . The coincidence would have to be too great to call into question the reality content of the observation.

Just like Nancy Cartwright and contrary to scientific realism , hacking gives explanations a minor value. Evidence of the existence of the above does not explain them . Nor is theory involved in this simple proof.

Manipulability as an indicator of reality

Entities are real if and only then. H. exist if they can be used as instruments with clear causal behavior in experiments.

Experimenting on an entity does not commit you to believing that it exists. Only manipulating an entity, in order to experiment on something else need do that.
Electrons are no longer ways of organizing our thoughts or saving the phenomena that have been observed. They are ways of creating phenomena in some other domain of nature. Electrons are tools.

We have extensive knowledge of entities that we use as causal agents ; they have become part of the instrumental apparatus with which we explore the world. According to Hacking, electrons are such causal agents.

The Social Construction of What

The book "The Social Construction of What?", Published in 2000, consists of eight chapters. In the work, the philosopher makes a contribution to the controversy between scientific realism and its postmodern criticism through a re-examination of the social construction of ideas. Hacking separates in several steps between the object and its idea and plays this through with the help of relevant examples in the literature in order to underpin its position.

Among other things, hacking addresses the issue of child abuse, where child abuse is a reality, but the idea of ​​child abuse is a social construct. He also describes the conflict between biological and social approaches to the subject of "mental illness".

In the first chapter of his book “The Social Construction Of What?” Ian Hacking presents an analysis of social constructions, which is explained below:

(0) At the present state of affairs, X is to be taken as given; X seems to be inevitable.

(1) X shouldn't have existed or shouldn't have been as it is now. X or X in the present state of affairs is not determined by the nature of things, it is not inevitable.

Ian Hacking lists two other theses that are not always, but often assumed.

(2) X is pretty bad as it is now.

(3) We would be better off if X were eliminated or at least fundamentally changed.

In this context, “X” as a variable is to be seen as a general indicator for a social construction. An example for X is the social construct “gender”. Some feminists claim that (1) gender traits and relationships are highly interdependent, (2) they are bad, and (3) it would be better if the current gender traits and relationships were eliminated or fundamentally changed.

Ian Hacking also explains the so-called "looping effect" in his book. This means that information about people of a certain kind, such as a woman or a person with a disability, can turn out to be incorrect. Because people of this kind have changed because of their classification in society, because of their self-assessment in the context of society or how they are treated by society on the basis of this classification.

Awards (selection)

Works

  • Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1975
    • German edition: The meaning of language for philosophy. Translated from English by Uta Müller. Hain, Königstein 1985, ISBN 3-445-02304-2 , u. 2nd edition, Philo Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin 2002, ISBN 978-3-86572-119-8 .
  • Logic of Statistical Inference
  • The Logic of Statistical Inference (1965)
  • The Emergence of Probability (1975)
  • Experimentation and Scientific Realism. In: Philosophical Topics 13 (1982), pp. 71-87.
  • Representing and Intervening (1983)
    • German edition: Introduction to the philosophy of the natural sciences . Reclam, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-15-009442-9 .
  • Making up people. In: T. Heller, M. Sosna, D. Wellbery (Eds.): Reconstructing Individualism , Stanford University Press, Stanford 1986, pp. 222-236
    • German edition: Making up people: Making up people . Axel Dielmann, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 978-3-933974-09-9 .
  • The Taming of Chance (1990)
  • Scientific Revolutions (1990)
  • A Tradition of Natural Kinds , in: Philosophical Studies 61 (1991), pp. 109-126.
  • Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory (1995)
    • German edition: Multiple personality. On the history of the soul in modern times . Hanser, Munich 1996, ISBN 978-3-446-18745-0 .
  • Mad Travelers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illness (1998)
  • The Social Construction of What? (1999)
    • Abridged German first edition: What does 'social construction' mean? On the boom of a battle vocabulary in the sciences . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 978-3-596-14434-1 .
  • Probability and Inductive Logic (2001)
  • Historical Ontology (2002)
    • German edition: Historical Ontology: Contributions to the philosophy and history of knowledge . Chronos, Zurich 2006, ISBN 978-3-0340-0763-4 .
  • Why Is There Philosophy of Mathematics At All? (March 31, 2014)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ [1] The International Who's Who 2004, p. 671
  2. ↑ Hacking: Representing and Intervening, 274
  3. ↑ Hacking: Representing and Intervening, 262f.
  4. ↑ Hacking, Ian: The Social Construction of What ?, Cambridge (Massachusetts): Harvard University Press 1999, p. 12
  5. ↑ Hacking, Ian: The Social Construction of What ?, Cambridge (Massachusetts): Harvard University Press 1999, p. 6th
  6. ↑ Hacking, Ian: The Social Construction of What ?, Cambridge (Massachusetts): Harvard University Press 1999, p. 7th
  7. ↑ Hacking, Ian: The Social Construction of What ?, Cambridge (Massachusetts): Harvard University Press 1999, p. 104

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hacking, Ian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian philosophy of science
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Vancouver