Ian Hacking

Ian Hacking, CC ( born February 18, 1936 in Vancouver, British Columbia) is a Canadian philosopher of science has written and philosopher of language, the vielrezipierte contributions to the realism debate.

Life

After studying in British Columbia ( BA 1956) and Cambridge ( with BA degree in 1958 ) and a PhD in Cambridge in 1962. He was since 1982 a professor at the University of Toronto and was from 2001 to 2006 Honorary Professor of Philosophy and History of scientific concepts at the Collège de France. 1983 married Hacking the philosopher Judith Baker.

His focus is in the areas of science, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophical questions about psychopathology. He is a representative of Entitätsrealismus.

Hacking is allocated along with Nancy Cartwright, John Dupre and Patrick Suppes, Stanford school in the philosophy of science. This one of the critical approach to the reductionist ideal of unified science.

Work

Show and intervention

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

In his own historical observations Hacking describes using a variety of examples of the diversity of relationships between observation, experiment and theory; He also strives to emphasize the undetectable dominance theory in experimental practice in relation to the representation of a " theoretical " history.

Entitätsrealismus

Hacking provides throughout the book various arguments against any theories - realism. He turns out that the classical realist believes in the truth or falsity of a theory. Hacking itself, however, differs from this issue in order to positively answer the question of the reality of entities, which he admits a high degree of independence of theories. It makes hacking point out that the question of the reality of entities is a matter of life and not a question of truth or falsity ( as in the case of theories ).

See through microscopes

Hacking negates the objection of Norwood Russell Hanson as relativists, Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, all experience is theory-laden. Although was needed for the production of physical instruments quite theory, the view through the microscope geschähe but largely theory- free. The biologist does not need the theory knowledge of a physicist or engineer to get a microscope to use, any more than the layman would not understand anything about the structure of a TV to watch TV.

The reality of an observed with the microscope object generated after hacking the fact that the same object can be observed by microscopes of various types. Artifact of small dots of the character in platelets - viewed under the electron microscope - is thereby excluded that these same points can also be seen using a light microscope. The coincidence would be too large to provide the realism of the observation in question.

Just as Nancy Cartwright and contrary to the Scientific Realism Hacking explanations can get a subordinate value. Evidence for the existence of the above does not explain this. Nor is involved with this simple proof theory.

Manipulability as reality indicator

Entities are then exactly real, i.e., exist, if they can be used as an instrument with a clear causal behavior experiments.

Of entities, which we use as causal agents, we have extensive knowledge; they have become part of the instrumental apparatus, with which we explore the world. Electrons according to hacking, these causal agents.

The Social Construction of What

In the work of the philosopher develops a contribution to the controversy between scientific realism and the postmodern critique by a reconsideration of the social construction of ideas. Hacking separated into several steps between the object and its idea, and is it based on relevant examples in the literature by his position to substantiate.

Awards

• 2009: Holberg Prize of the Norwegian University of Bergen
• 2012: Austrian Decoration for Science and Art

Works

• Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? ( German: . The importance of language for philosophy, 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: Topics Philosophical 13 (1982 ), pp. 71-87.
• Representing and Intervening (1983) ( German: . Introduction to the philosophy of science Ph. Reclam, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-15-009442-9. )
• Making up People, in: T. Heller / M. Sosna / Wellbery D. ( eds. ): Reconstructing Individualism, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1986, pp. 222-236 ( German: people (rightly ) make: Making up People. Axel Dielmann -Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 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: Multiple Personality On the history of the soul in the modern C. Hanser, Munich 1996, ISBN 978-3-446-18745-0. .. )
• Mad Travellers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illness (1998)
• The Social Construction of What? ( 1999) ( Abridged German edition: .. What is called ' social construction ' economy to a fight vocabulary in the sciences S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1999, ISBN 978-3-596-14434-1 )
• Probability and Inductive Logic (2001)
• Historical Ontology (2002) ( German: Historical Ontology: Contributions to Philosophy and History of Knowledge Chronos, Zurich 2006 ISBN 978-3-0340-0763-4. . )