2023年6月5日 星期一

“The Taming of Chance” Ian Hacking, Eminent Philosopher of Science and Much Else, Dies at 87苑舉 正編: Scientific Reason by Ian Hacking/大學生哲學桂冠獎得獎作品集第一輯


98. THE TAMING OF CHANCE by Ian Hacking

Statistics saturate our conversations, our news, and our governments—but how, and why, did these numbers attain such outsize influence? Hacking argues that our belief in statistics reflects our attitudes toward randomness: Do we believe that randomness exists? Or do we believe that chance is merely ignorance of undiscovered laws of the universe? Although this book may not be for everyone, it did earn rave reviews from the American Historical Review and the Journal of the American Statistical Association (“very pleasant reading”). A book that has shaped how we talk about probability and our attitudes toward science.



Professor Hacking’s intellectual scope seemed to know no bounds. Because of his ability to span multiple academic fields, he was often described as a bridge builder.

“Ian Hacking was a one-person interdisciplinary department all by himself,” Cheryl Misak, a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto, said in a phone interview. “Anthropologists, sociologists, historians and psychologists, as well as those working on probability theory and physics, took him to have important insights for their disciplines.”


Image
The cover of the book “The Taming of Chance” by Professor Hacking.
Professor Hacking’s book “The Taming of Chance” was named one of the best 100 nonfiction books of the 20th century by the Modern Library.

Professor Hacking wondered aloud, the interviewer noted, if the whole universe was governed by nonlocality — if “everything in the universe is aware of everything else.”

“That’s what you should be writing about,” he said. “Not me. I’m a dilettante. My governing word is ‘curiosity.’”


Ian Hacking, Eminent Philosopher of Science and Much Else, Dies at 87

Never limited by categories, his free-ranging intellect delved into physics, probability and anthropology, establishing him as a major thinker.

Ian Hacking, lecturing, gesturing with his hands, wearing a brown sport jacket over a pullover sweater and brown glasses.
The philosopher Ian Hacking “was a one-person interdisciplinary department all by himself,” a colleague said.Credit...via Jane Frances Hacking
Ian Hacking, lecturing, gesturing with his hands, wearing a brown sport jacket over a pullover sweater and brown glasses.



https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/28/science/ian-hacking-dead.html

從演講到出書苑舉正兄送書 已近一年半
我覺得可惜的是: 應該出中英文合版的書才好



 訂購號:s019

Scientific Reason
作者 : Ian Hacking
出版時間 : 2009年1月 初版
出版單位 : 國立臺灣大學出版中心
裝訂 : 精裝
語言 : 英文
ISBN : 978-986-01-6115-1
GPN : 1009703212


這是一本有關科學理性(Scientific Reason)的科學哲學作品。科學理性是西方學界長期關切的一個研究主題,作者從它的四個側面進行探討,即是從各個面向來討論基本的科學哲學問題:什麼是「真實」?什麼是理性?科學概念是否是真實的?

  作者將訪問臺灣大學、清華大學與東吳大學時,圍繞科學理性的一系列四個演講,輯成此一專書,內容分四部份:科學理性的歷史根源;數學對象從何而來;思考與作為的實驗風格;(多義的)實在論與反實在論。

  從結構來看,作者圍繞著科學理性的四部份內容,彼此前後呼應,自成一體,相當完整。換言之,他在此系列演講的四部份內容展現科學理性的四個側面。

  作者是一位治學嚴謹的科學哲學專業學者,不但精於科學哲學,對科學哲學相關領域,與其歷史發展亦相當嫻熟。作者具有相當寬廣的視野,採取哲學人類學的觀點,來探討的科學理性,觸類旁通,豐富此書內涵,也使全書讀來生動有趣。

  整體而言,這是一本具有獨到見解的科學哲學專門佳作,非常值得出版。雖然書中仍存在著一些技術方面的小問題,不掩原著精闢獨到內容的光彩。


Editors' Foreword by Jeu-Jeng Yuann 苑舉正
Preface

Lecture 1. ON THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF SCIENTIFIC REASON
1. Learning how to learn
2. Styles of scientific thinking
3. The European Tradition
4. Styles as constituted by methods and objects
5. A crude template for organizing the past
6. Crystallization
7. Regrets about the word style
8. Self-authenticating styles
9. Objects
10. Leibniz and Bourdieu
11. Society
12. Bernard Williams Truthfulness
13. Silence about truth
14. Truthfulness about the past
15. Mathematics
16. Caution about X
17. The Galilean style
18. The laboratory style
19. Logic
20. Three radical propositions
I Styles are self-authenticating
II Ontological debates
III Cognitive foundations and cultural history

Lecture 2. WHERE DO MATHEMATICAL OBJECTS COME FROM?
1. Philosophical anthropology
2. Mathematics as a motley
3. Nature
4. Folkloric history of a discovery of a human potential
5. Truthfulness about geometrical objects
6. Argumentative Greeks
7. Mathematics has mattered to some and only some philosophers
8. The obsession with mathematics
9. Two visions of a remarkable book on Greek mathematics
10. An aside on Science Studies
11. Return to the two-faced paradox
12. Plato for better or worse
13. The shift in conceptions about telling the truth
14. Proof, not axioms, and not calculation
15. Two conceptions of proof
16. A second crystallization within the mathematical style?
17. Mathematical objects
18. Broaden your horizons!
19. Comparative anthropology of reason
20. Ancient Chinese mathematics
21. The origin of the objects




比較有趣的是 "愈益精確的重力常數" (知識通訊評論96期 2010年10月號)
".......數年前 苑老師送他編的 Scientific Reason by Ian Hacking

我只說 "從演講到出書苑舉正兄送書 已近一年半
我覺得可惜的是: 應該出中英文合版的書才好"
其實這本書在第一講第一頁就指出 2003年的現代物理評論Reviews of Modern Physics第 75卷 403-455 有篇" The Fundament Constants and Their Variation: Observational and theoretical Status"....."--戴明博士的小故事





出版緣起
國立臺灣大學哲學系教授兼主任 苑舉正
   「臺大學生哲學桂冠獎」是李嗣涔校長任內的一項重要創舉,也是對校內哲學教育的最大支持。李校長的構想,來自知識份子面對社會發展的期許。近年來,伴隨 著民主的深化,臺灣人民每每因為堅持己見,導致理念分歧,有時甚至因為情緒,失去理性對話空間。有鑑於此,李校長想到,作為培育知識份子的臺大,應當謀求 改善之道,提振理性對話風氣,鼓勵學生以文章,寫出道理。李校長之構想,立即獲得響應,由文學院、理學院、社科院等院院長共同組成「哲學桂冠獎委員會」, 首倡臺大校內哲學論文競賽,並委託文學院、哲學系輔助校方舉辦。
  兩年來,哲學獎的籌備與舉辦,歷經兩任文學院院長(葉國良教授與陳弱水 教授)暨兩任哲學系系主任(孫效智教授與我本人)。我還記得,當初接此重任時,葉院長指導,孫主任策劃,「哲學桂冠獎」從無到有的過程。在這個過程中,我 們感謝哲學系師生暨臺大領導學程學生大力支持,締造出今天哲學桂冠獎的運作成果。在所有參與者當中,最重要者,莫過於孫主任所延聘,由哲學系內外比例相當 的學者專家組成審議委員會。委員會成員,參酌國內現有議題,將獎項分為人文、社會、自然與生命教育四個組別,訂定題目。
  第一屆「臺大學生哲學桂冠獎」的徵文題目如下:
  1. 人文組:幸福是什麼?
  2. 社會組:性可以沒有愛嗎?
  3. 自然組:科學是「發現」還是「發明」了真相?
  4. 生命教育組:人生的意義是什麼?
  第二屆「臺大學生哲學桂冠獎」的徵文題目如下:
  1. 人文組:論當代應有的人文精神。
  2. 社會組:論臺灣經濟發展與社會正義的衝突。
  3. 自然組:科學如何看待特異功能。
  4. 生命教育組:死亡對人生的意義。
   從這兩年的題目中,可以看得出來,哲學獎的徵文題目已經經歷過從問題轉向論述的發展。這個發展固然代表不同哲學徵文的方向,也顯示哲學獎是一個新的獎 項,嘗試以各種方式,鼓勵學生盡量投稿。目前,哲學獎已經舉辦過了兩屆,所有審議委員也在兩年來,經歷了選擇題目時的唇槍舌戰,審查論文時的理念之爭,也 看到獲獎學生風風光光走上講台的英姿。在這份費盡苦心、絞盡腦汁與花盡心力的工作中,我們只想建立一個光榮的傳統,讓理性論證的空間,在臺大校園滋生、養 成後,傳遞到全國。目前我們正在主辦第三屆「臺大學生哲學桂冠獎」。
  伴隨著這一本得獎論文集的出版,我們應該感謝的人太多,無能在此一一列舉,謹此致歉。


 書摘1

「科學發現或發明真相?」也許最終的問題不是發現或者發明,而是這個問句本身的意涵:人作為主體透過一組關係,去理解身邊的客體:自然以及自然的種種現象。

──自然組首獎〈科學是「發明」還是「發現」了真相〉

書摘2

不追求生命意義、不發揮精神價值者,便是行屍走肉,即為「活著的死人」。他們無法為自己的生存合理辯解,卻食息於天壤之間,消耗有限的資源;這是說不能體現與追求生命的意義與價值者,其生存即無意義與價值,死亡對其而言即是必然的終局。

──生命教育組首獎〈死亡對人生的意義〉

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