Ian HackingThinkers

Chance is a mere seeming, the result of intersecting causal lines.

Crime is prepared by society. The guilty are only the instruments.

Death is defined legally. In most parts of the world it is illegal to die of anything except causes on the official list.

Entity realism is a kind of realism that states that if thing can be manipulated in the world, then they are real. Said of electrons which were sprayed onto a metal sphere in a laboratory: 'If you can spray them, they are real'.

Evidence is historical in nature. Until the early modern period, evidence depended on its source it consist in gesturing beyond itself to the person who provided its authority.

Freedom is possible, so long as it is mental.

Historical ontology is the study of the emergence of concepts and objects through new uses of words and sentences in specific settings, and new patterns and styles of reasoning within those sentences.

Insurance is a tool of government allowing individuals to have freedom and security for the whole.

Science is the adventure of the interlocking of representing and intervening.

Social construction is often motivated by a problematic and unstated nominalist metaphysical view.