Making Sense of Hacking: Styles, Metaphilosophy and Naturalism

I argue a useful way to conceptualise all of Hacking’s work is through his styles project. This provides us with a simple structure to organise many of Hacking’s main texts and brings into sharp relief two of his major philosophical projects. The first is to explain the stability of science. The sec...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor: Ritchie, Jack
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:Brasil
Recursos:Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Repositorio:Transversal (Belo Horizonte)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:periodicos.ufmg.br:article/49244
Acesso em linha:https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/transversal/article/view/49244
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Ian Hacking
Styles of Thinking
Philosophical Anthropology
Metaphilosophy
Naturalism
Descrição
Resumo:I argue a useful way to conceptualise all of Hacking’s work is through his styles project. This provides us with a simple structure to organise many of Hacking’s main texts and brings into sharp relief two of his major philosophical projects. The first is to explain the stability of science. The second is metaphilosophical: to understand why scientific activity gives rise to certain philosophical difficulties, for example realism disputes. In its most ambitious form, Hacking called his project Philosophical Anthropology, and his aim was to explain how creatures like us, in a world like this have happened to alight on methods of finding out that work so well. I end with a brief discussion of how successfully he realised his goals and an even briefer comparison with two naturalist philosophers, Mark Wilson and Penelope Maddy, who share some of his interests and ambitions.