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The Emergence of Probability
Ian argues that there was a sudden and dramatic transition in the conception of probability in the mid seventeenth century, which led to modern concepts of probability. He also explains that he is making use of Foucault's archaeology of knowledge to study the historical development and change in the ideas of probability. 1 Hacking 2006, p. iv.
2 Macintosh 2005, p. 357.
3 Franklin 2001, p. 373. -
The Taming of Chance
In The Taming of Chance, Hacking argues for a nineteenth-century "erosion of determinism," making room for genuine chance. (Other historians, e.g., Stephen Brush, made similar claims at about the same time). This erosion of determinism made little immediate difference to anyone. Few were aware of it. Something else was pervasive and everybody came to know about it: the enumeration of people and their habits. -
Rewriting the Soul
Rewriting the Soul is a book by Ian Hacking who offers an account of the formative influences that shape people’s understandings of their lives and their understanding of the lives of those around them. Hacking's work is both a theoretical account of the concepts and modes of agentic engagement through which people encounter the world and make sense of themselves, and a psychological account of how minds relate to memories and the fragility of this relationship. -
Mad Travel
Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illnesses, the book provides an historical account of a medical condition that used to be known as fugue or mad travel. Fugue emerged as ‘a specific, diagnosable type of insanity in late nineteenth century France and then spread to Italy, Germany and Russia. According to Hacking, the fugue epidemic lasted twenty-two years, from 1887 to 1909. The disease never spread heavily in either Britain or America
