Free shipping on all orders over $79* Limited Time Only
Track My Order
Help Centre
Likes
My Wish ListsLogin / Join
Booktopia
Australia's local bookstore
Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
The Taming of Chance : Ideas in Context - No Information Available
eTextbook alternate format product

Instant online reading.
Don't wait for delivery!
Go digital and save!

The Taming of Chance

By: No Information Available

Hardcover | 31 December 1990

At a Glance

Hardcover

RRP $155.95

$139.75

10%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $34.94 with

 or 

Ships in 5 to 7 business days

In 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 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. Professor Hacking argues that these developments have led to a new style of scientific reasoning gaining its hold upon us. The greater the level of indeterminism in our conception of the world and of people, the more we expect control and intervention in our lives, and the less we expect freedom. 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.
Industry Reviews
"Hacking has an uncanny instinct for honing in upon some critical and novel feature of the past and showing how seemingly disparate facts fall into place once we grant him his central category. He does not pretend to make a complete survey of his topic. Again like an archaelogist, he respects the fragmentary record as one of the limitations of the trade. But what he digs up and deciphers never fails to engage and illuminate." Science "My summary hardly does justice to the richness of Hacking's ideas or his many asides, like the striking comparison of Peirce and Friedrich Nietzsche...Hacking's meticulous scholarship, his comprehension of various areas of learning, and his commitment to linear exposition seem to me to exceed Foucault's." Bruce Kuklick, American Historical Review "The Taming of Chance contains a wealth of information and is very pleasant reading. The various pursuits that impinge on the taming of chance and the development of statistical law are overwhelming. I recommend this book strongly to anyone interested in the development of statistical thought." Peter Guttorp, Journal of the American Statistical Association

You Can Find This Book In

Non-FictionSociety & CultureCultural StudiesHistory of IdeasPolitics & GovernmentPhilosophyPhilosophy of The Mind

More in History of Ideas

The Infinite Game : From the bestselling author of Start With Why - Simon Sinek

The Infinite Game

From the bestselling author of Start With Why

Paperback

RRP $29.99

$24.99

17%
OFF
Homo Deus : A Brief History of Tomorrow - Yuval Noah Harari

Homo Deus

A Brief History of Tomorrow

Paperback

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
Sapiens A Graphic History, Volume 2 : The Pillars of Civilization - Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens A Graphic History, Volume 2

The Pillars of Civilization

Hardcover

RRP $39.99

$31.75

21%
OFF
Start With Why : How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action - Simon Sinek

Start With Why

How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Paperback

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
Sand Talk : How Indigenous thinking can save the world - Tyson Yunkaporta

Sand Talk

How Indigenous thinking can save the world

Paperback

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Made to Stick : Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck - Chip Heath

Made to Stick

Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck

Paperback

RRP $29.99

$24.99

17%
OFF
Meditations : The Philosophy Classic - Marcus Aurelius

Meditations

The Philosophy Classic

Hardcover

RRP $24.95

$21.75

13%
OFF
Kant and the Origins of the Good Will - Patrick Kain

Kant and the Origins of the Good Will

Hardcover

$450.75

Keeping Time : Henry David Thoreau's Kalendar - Kristen Case

Keeping Time

Henry David Thoreau's Kalendar

Hardcover

RRP $62.99

$61.99

Talking to My Daughter : The Sunday Times Bestseller - Yanis Varoufakis

Talking to My Daughter

The Sunday Times Bestseller

Paperback

RRP $26.99

$22.75

16%
OFF
Roberto Schwarz Beyond Borders - Laura Rivas Gagliardi

Roberto Schwarz Beyond Borders

Hardcover

$64.32

The History of Sexuality: 1 : The Will to Knowledge - Michel Foucault

The History of Sexuality: 1

The Will to Knowledge

Paperback

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
Rebel Ideas : The Power of Diverse Thinking - Matthew Syed

Rebel Ideas

The Power of Diverse Thinking

Paperback

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas - Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas

Hardcover

RRP $45.00

$35.75

21%
OFF
Being and Nothingness - Jean-Paul Sartre

Being and Nothingness

Paperback

$47.75

This product is categorised by