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Texture in the Work of Ian Hacking

Michel Foucault as the Guiding Thread of Hacking’s Thinking

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  • © 2021

Overview

  • Introduces a systematized overview of Ian Hacking's work
  • Examines the influence of Michel Foucault's thinking on Hacking's oeuvre
  • Explores a possible complementarity between Hacking and Foucault's proposals

Part of the book series: Synthese Library (SYLI, volume 435)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

This book offers a systematized overview of Ian Hacking's work. It presents Hacking’s oeuvre as a network made up of four interconnected key nodes: styles of scientific thinking & doing, probability, making up people, and experimentation and scientific realism.

Its central claim is that Michel Foucault’s influence is the underlying thread that runs across the Canadian philosopher’s oeuvre. Foucault’s imprint on Hacking’s work is usually mentioned in relation to styles of scientific reasoning and the human sciences. This research shows that Foucault’s influence can in fact be extended beyond these fields, insofar the underlying interest to the whole corpus of Hacking’s works, namely the analysis of conditions of possibility, is stimulated by the work of the French philosopher.

Displacing scientific realism as the central focus of Ian Hacking’s oeuvre opens up a very different landscape, showing, behind the apparent dispersion of his works, thefar-reaching interest that amalgamates them: to reveal the historical and situated conditions of possibility for the emergence of scientific objects and concepts.

This book shows how Hacking’s deployment concepts such as looping effect, making up people, and interactive kinds, can complement Foucauldian analyses, offering an overarching perspective that can provide a better explanation of the objects of the human sciences and their behaviors.

Reviews

“The current book provides a deep and thorough insight into the influence of Foucault on Hacking's thinking. … The author has nicely spelled out the structure and main content of the book in the Introduction, chapter by chapter.”  (Peeter Müürsepp, Mathematical Reviews, April, 2022)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Institute of Philosophy, School of Humanities and Education Sciences, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay

    María Laura Martínez Rodríguez

About the author

María Laura Martínez, PhD, is Adjunct Professor of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the Universidad de la República (Uruguay). The focus of her research are the History and Philosophy of Science and the History of Science in Uruguay. She has published articles in those areas and is author of 75 primeros años en la formación de los ingenieros nacionales. Historia de la Facultad de Ingeniería (1885-1960) [The first 75 years in the education of national engineers. History of the School of Engineering (1885-1960)] (2014) and Realismo científico y verdad como correspondencia:  estado de la cuestión (2009) [Scientific realism and correspondence theory of truth; state of the art] (2009). She has received the National Prize of Literature in the category Philosophy Essays, from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay (2016).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Texture in the Work of Ian Hacking

  • Book Subtitle: Michel Foucault as the Guiding Thread of Hacking’s Thinking

  • Authors: María Laura Martínez Rodríguez

  • Series Title: Synthese Library

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64785-8

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-64784-1Published: 20 January 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-64787-2Published: 20 January 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-64785-8Published: 19 January 2021

  • Series ISSN: 0166-6991

  • Series E-ISSN: 2542-8292

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVIII, 175

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Philosophy of Science, Social Sciences, general

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