76 Quotes by Ian Hacking

Many modern philosophers claim that probability is relation between an hypothesis and the evidence for it.

Opinion is the companion of probability within the medieval epistemology.

By legend and perhaps by nature philosophers are more accustomed to the armchair than the workbench.

A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'points to itself'.

Much early alchemy seems to have been adventure. You heated and mixed and burnt and pounded and to see what would happen. An adventure might suggest an hypothesis that can subsequently be tested, but adventure is prior to theory.

We favor hypotheses for their simplicity and explanatory power, much as the architect of the world might have done in choosing which possibility to create.

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.

Probability fractions arise from our knowledge and from our ignorance.

When land and its tillage are the basis of taxation, one need not care exactly how many people there are.