Top Ian Hacking Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Ian Hacking Biography

Ian MacDougall Hacking (born February 18, 1936) is a Canadian philosopher specializing in the philosophy of science. Throughout his career, he has won numerous awards, such as the Killam Prize for the Humanities and the Balzan Prize, and been a member of many prestigious groups, including the Order of Canada, the Royal Society of Canada and the British Academy.

Read about Ian Hacking in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Ian Hacking Quotes

By legend and perhaps by nature philosophers are more accustomed to the armchair than the workbench.

Legends, Philosopher, Armchairs, Perhaps, Armchair, Accustomed

Much early alchemy seems to have been adventure. You heated and mixed and burnt and pounded and to see what would happen. An adventure might suggest an hypothesis that can subsequently be tested, but adventure is prior to theory.

Adventure, Might, Theory, Burnt, Hypothesis, Suggest

The final arbitrator in philosophy is not how we think but what we do.

Philosophy, Thinking, Finals, Arbitrator, Final

From any vocabulary of ideas we can build other ideas by formal combinations of signs. But not any set of ideas will be instructive. One must have the right ideas.

Vocabulary, Ideas, Combination, Right, Combinations

Probability fractions arise from our knowledge and from our ignorance.

Ignorance, Arise, Fractions, Probability, Knowledge

We favor hypotheses for their simplicity and explanatory power, much as the architect of the world might have done in choosing which possibility to create.

Simplicity, Done, World, Possibility, Architect

A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'points to itself'.

Generalization, Inconsistent, Observation, Points, Single, Thereby

Acceptance means commitment, among other things.

Acceptance, Among, Commitment, Mean

I have this extraordinary curiosity about all subjects of the natural and human world and the interaction between the physical sciences and the social sciences.

Curiosity, World, Hacking, Extraordinary, Interaction

Why should there be the method of science? There is not just one way to build a house, or even to grow tomatoes. We should not expect something as motley as the growth of knowledge to be strapped to one methodology.

Math, Science, House, Methodology, Build

The best reaction to a paradox is to invent a genuinely new and deep idea.

Ideas, Paradox, Reactions, Idea, Reaction

The important thing is to be able to understand anyone who has something useful to say. - There is a general moral here. Be very careful and very clear about what you say. But do not be dogmatic about your own language. Be prepared to express any careful thought in the language your audience will understand. And be prepared to learn from someone who talks a language with which you are not familiar.

Important, Able, Moral, Understand, Learn, Thing

In each case you settle on an act. Doing nothing at all counts as an act.

Doing Nothing, Settling, Cases, Settle, Act, Nothing

Plutonium has a quite extraordinary relationship with people. They made it, and it kills them.

People, Plutonium, Made, Extraordinary, Quite

Cutting up fowl to predict the future is, if done honestly and with as little interpretation as possible, a kind of randomization. But chicken guts are hard to read and invite flights of fancy or corruption.

Future, Cutting, Done, Corruption, Honestly

Every once in a while, something happens to you that makes you realise that the human race is not quite as bad as it so often seems to be.

Race, Hacking, Realising, Human, Happens

If you were just intent on killing people you could do better with a bomb made of agricultural fertiliser.

Agriculture, People, Bombs, Bomb, Agricultural, Fertiliser

Statistics began as the systematic study of quantitative facts about the state.

Statistics, Systematic, Facts, Quantitative

Experimental work provides the strongest evidence for scientific realism. This is not because we test hypotheses about entities. It is because entities that in principle cannot be 'observed' are manipulated to produce a new phenomena [sic] and to investigate other aspects of nature.

Science, Reality, Principles, Provides, Evidence, Principle

Opinion is the companion of probability within the medieval epistemology.

Opinion, Medieval, Companion, Epistemology, Probability