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The Taming of Chance (Ideas in Context)
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 123.3
EAN: 9780521388849
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0521388848
Label: Cambridge University Press
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 277
Publication Date: August 31, 1990
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Studio: Cambridge University Press
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Editorial Review:
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 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.
In the course of a continuing inquiry into the origins and development of contemporary thought, this study reveals how statistical patterns were finally perceived in a non-deterministic manner by the end of the late nineteenth century.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The Untamable, Taming of Chance
I read this book because it's on the Modern Library's Top 100 Non-Fiction List.
This book seems to go more in the direction of a historical study of statistics. There's no visible, clearly stated thesis, and while you can tell he has a point he would like to prove, he more or less just rambles on and on about the historical aspects, without making his point clear and discernible.
Some of the facts and such are interesting, it shows in some ways how statistics paved the way for some ... Read More
Rating:  - A fascinating chapter in the 'history of the present'.
This is a fascinating book, which charts the gradual development of statistical ideas in the nineteenth century, along with associated concepts, such as normalcy, chance, and determinism.
However, a few criticisms are in order. Hacking reports that there was a certain conceptual incoherence surrounding ideas relating to statistics in the 19th century, especially concerning ideas relating to determinism and chance. But I'm not quite sure that Hacking has been able to find the thread ... Read More
Rating: - Probable cause to read
Some works of non-fiction manage to be engaging throughout. Others, like the Taming of Chance, are important but can be tough to read through much of the text. Hacking takes on the history of probability; which he describes as "the philosophical success story of the first half of the 20th century." The taming of chance refers to the way apparently irregular events have been brought under the control of natural or social law.
Hacking takes us through the 19th century intellectual battle ... Read More
Rating: - not for everyone, maybe
but a mind-opener for those who are ready, an awesomely rewarding book for those who are willing to make the extra effort
Rating: - Why bother?
If, somewhere, deep within the tortured bowels of this book, there is a central thesis that could be stated in a few short sentences and comprehended by most educated English-speaking peoples, I have yet to find it. Endless restatement, obfuscated in painfully cultivated strings of verbiage, of trivial fact is used to document an hypothesis that if stated clearly could be supported or refuted in about a page-and-a-half and then likely consigned to the graveyard of such endeavor. The prose is a true ... Read More
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