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Birth of Ian Hacking
Ian MacDougall Hacking was born on February 18, 1936, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. There isn't much content floating around on the web about his early life outside of his education. It may be deliberate out of his desire for privacy, but I took this as being a possible indicator that his childhood and upbringing was what a person would view as being under normal circumstances -
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Education and Teaching begins (From University of B.C. to Princeton)
After spending his formative years in Western Canada, Hacking was able to obtain a BA in Mathematics and Physics from the University of British Columbia. Following that, he completed his BA, MA, and Ph. D. at Cambridge Univ. Hacking has become very distinguished as an educator. He would eventually become the first Anglophone to hold a department chair in College de France's History. To add, he was a University Professor at the Univ. of Toronto, also the highest position to attain. -
The Logic of Statistical Inference
The book intended to lay down the basic principles of statistical reasoning. It first analyzed philosophical ideas, then it preceded to use modern logic to develop a theory behind why we would choose to use statistics in the first place. This contributed to the Philosophy of Science by answering how to properly test a statistical hypothesis and how to make the application of statistics simple for non-statistical researchers. -
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Ian Hacking, The Philosopher
Hacking was influenced by the works of Michael Foucault, Thomas Kuhn, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. How exactly did that affect the Canadian Professor's work? It had led him to argue from history (Foucault) combined with mathematical principles (Wittgenstein). Hacking examined the role that probability plays in scientific reasoning. Another take away from Hacking's work was the exploration of the relationship between experimentation and its influence based on how we select scientific theories. -
The Emergence of Probability
This writing is on the history of probability, or, the likelihood of a given hypothesis based on the evidence provided. Probability deals with random processes, whereas, statistics deals with data and inference based on data. This contribution was important to the Philosophy of Science because it recaps the birth modern understanding of probability in 17th century Europe and it examines the problem of induction, which asks if we should support inductive methods of reasoning. -
An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic
This textbook reviews probability and Inductive Logic. It uses probabilistic problem solving to solve puzzles set up by the author in the introduction. In Chapter 1, we are introduced to deductive logic, and towards the end of the book, we are eventually faced with the problem of induction once again. This textbook is important for Philosophy of Science because it helps the reader familiarize themselves with the probability theory and it assists in its application in the decision-making process. -
Scientific Truth (INTELECOM Video)
