The final arbitrator in philosophy is not how we think but what we do. Ian Hacking More Quotes by Ian Hacking More Quotes From Ian Hacking 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. Ian Hacking futurecuttingdone If you were just intent on killing people you could do better with a bomb made of agricultural fertiliser. Ian Hacking agriculturebombspeople In each case you settle on an act. Doing nothing at all counts as an act. Ian Hacking doing-nothingsettlingcases The bad player is the one who tries to calculate and play with the odds, as if his game, his life, were one of a large number of games. To do so is at best to succumb to another necessity, the necessity of large numbers. The good player does not fool himself, and accepts that there is exactly one chance, which produces by chance the necessity and even the purpose that he experiences. Ian Hacking oddsplayergames 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. Ian Hacking combinationvocabularyideas 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. Ian Hacking hackingcuriosityworld Acceptance means commitment, among other things. Ian Hacking acceptancemeancommitment I think it's unfortunate when people say that there is just one true story of science. For one thing, there are many different sciences, and historians will tell different stories corresponding to different things. Ian Hacking truethinksciencepeople In every generation, there are quite firm rules on how to behave when you are crazy. Ian Hacking rulesgenerationyoucrazy Foucault's genius is to go down to the little dramas, dress them in facts hardly anyone else has noticed, and turn these stage settings into clues to a hitherto un-thought series of confrontations out of which, he contends, the orderly structure of society is composed. Ian Hacking dressdownsocietyfacts The stability of what's called the Standard Model of particle physics and its ability to make so many clever predictions with immense precision suggests that we may just be stuck with it, and there may never be an overthrow of that. Ian Hacking neverabilityphysicsclever Life on a factory farm is well-nigh unbearable for the animals or birds, and it is often foul for the women and men who process the meat that results - especially in factories for chicken parts. But do not sentimentalize. Do not imagine barnyard life is a bowl of cherries. Ian Hacking life-is-awomenmenlife Amartya Sen is best known to the general reader for his powerful essays on famine. He is an optimist about some of our gravest economic problems, such as mass starvation in a world that at present can easily produce more food than everyone can eat. Reason and voluntary participation are his watchwords. Ian Hacking problemsbestfoodworld Risk analysis can cater to any sort of hazard, but their profession owes its existence to a relatively narrow band of possible dangers. Ian Hacking possibleexistencebandrisk I'm a dilettante. My governing word is 'curiosity.' Ian Hacking dilettantewordgoverningcuriosity What are the relationships between power and knowledge? There are two bad, short answers: 1. Knowledge provides an instrument that those in power can wield for their own ends. 2. A new body of knowledge brings into being a new class of people or institutions that can exercise a new kind of power. Ian Hacking badpowerpeopleknowledge Foucault is one of many who want a new conception of how power and knowledge interact. But he is not looking for a relation between two givens, 'power' and 'knowledge.' As always, he is trying to rethink the entire subject matter, and his 'knowledge' and 'power' are to be something else. Ian Hacking lookingpowermatterknowledge One ought to begin an analysis of power from the ground up, at the level of tiny local events where battles are unwittingly enacted by players who don't know what they are doing. Ian Hacking battlesdoingknowpower Dolomite is a whole mess of stuff, a mixture. It gets characterised as 'a stuff' because of the interest of oil geologists. It would have been a nonentity were it not for its applications. Ian Hacking becausemessoilinterest If you are a researcher and want to publish a paper, if you are applying for money either from a private or public foundation, you have to have a DSM code. Ian Hacking youfoundationmoneywant
