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Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science
This 1983 book is a lively and clearly written introduction to the philosophy of natural science, organized around the central theme of scientific realism. It has two parts. 'Representing' deals with the different philosophical accounts of scientific objectivity and the reality of scientific entities. The views of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Putnam, van Fraassen, and others, are all considered. 'Intervening' presents the first sustained treatment of experimental science for many years and uses it to give a new direction to debates about realism. Hacking illustrates how experimentation often has a life independent of theory. He argues that although the philosophical problems of scientific realism can not be resolved when put in terms of theory alone, a sound philosophy of experiment provides compelling grounds for a realistic attitude. A great many scientific examples are described in both parts of the book, which also includes lucid expositions of recent high energy physics and a remarkable chapter on the microscope in cell biology.
304 pages, Paperback
First published October 20, 1983
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About the author
Ian Hacking
53 books149 followersIan Hacking is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, specialised in the History of Science.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 6, 2013
Hacking gives us a marvelous overview of (primarily) 20th century philosophy of science (though we do have some Bacon, Hume, Comte and Kant thrown in there, among others), focusing on the debate over realism and anti-realism. The first part of the book focuses on trends in the philosophy of science, especially on the 20th century fixation with language, meaning and reference that we inherited from the positivsts, who thought that certain types of sentences, theoretical or observational could eventually be reduced to pure reference, out of which a solid foundation for our knowledge could be built. They eschewed talk of causes as a Humean violation (preferring talk of theoretical regularity as providing the only scientific explanation), were largely anti-realists (since they restricted the real to the observable), and chanted the mantra "against metaphysics!" Hacking does a great job of laying out and contrasting the basic positions of figures like Carnap, Popper, Hempel, and Van Frassen. He also acknowledges the influential (but somewhat less so) strain of thought arising out of American pragmatism via Peirce, Dewey and James. Hacking is perhaps more of an intellectual descendent of these figures, who wanted to substitute method for truth, than the positivists. These pragmatists are more concerned with what we can do with knowledge than the ultimate truth of it (with the exception of Peirce, perhaps). Actually, I wish he'd spent a bit more time with these guys. As Hacking continues, he explains how he wants to get away from understanding science as a theoretical body of knowledge, and also why we might prefer this move in the aftermath of Kuhnian incommensurability (if science is all about making meaningful theories via precise language, then we have a serious problem when a paradigm "shifts" or a new theory takes the place of an old-how can the knowledge be preserved?).
In the second half of the book, Hacking explains that he wants to go back to what he thinks of as a more properly Baconian ideal of experimental science as intervention in the world. Specifically, he suggests that we should count as real what we can use to intervene in the world. He then shows us how our preoccupation with scientific theory over practice has caused us to misunderstand observation, experiment, and measurement, among other scientific activities. For example, we developed an erroneous notion about theory coming either before or after experiment, but in fact they are both too intertwined to be separable. The positivists gave us a legacy of describing observation as "theory-laden" which seems to create a problem for knowledge. Hacking argues that new equipment gives scientists an expanded notion of what counts as observation, and that the use of instruments doesn't necessarily imply that an experiment is fatally theoretical. Importantly, Hacking insists that scientists create and stabilize phenomena. They don't merely uncover or discover them. I really like this notion because there's so much naive talk about science merely unveiling nature, whereas in fact our experiments present nature to us in a very particular, engineered way. Hacking is happy to argue that science is bigger than us, but not so happy to think of that bigness as real, per-se. In fact, Hacking seems to think that some things we observe in science consistently, like the evidence for black holes, aren't actually real, simply because we can't use black holes to make anything or intervene in nature. Once we could, black holes could pass into Hacking's realm of the real. Until then, they will stay nicely categorized alongside ether.
I really liked this book, though I found that, like with many STS classics, its arguments had already thoroughly permeated my cranium. Perhaps the one thing I'm not so sure about here is whether Hacking's set-up really requires us to be realists as opposed to instrumentalists. Perhaps I missed a big point here...I think realism makes the most sense, but the former still doesn't seem to be precluded on philosophical grounds...Otherwise, I highly recommend this book. It's clearly written (a rarity in philosophy!), with a minimum of absurd made-up examples (his examples all come from actual science, which makes a big difference).
In the second half of the book, Hacking explains that he wants to go back to what he thinks of as a more properly Baconian ideal of experimental science as intervention in the world. Specifically, he suggests that we should count as real what we can use to intervene in the world. He then shows us how our preoccupation with scientific theory over practice has caused us to misunderstand observation, experiment, and measurement, among other scientific activities. For example, we developed an erroneous notion about theory coming either before or after experiment, but in fact they are both too intertwined to be separable. The positivists gave us a legacy of describing observation as "theory-laden" which seems to create a problem for knowledge. Hacking argues that new equipment gives scientists an expanded notion of what counts as observation, and that the use of instruments doesn't necessarily imply that an experiment is fatally theoretical. Importantly, Hacking insists that scientists create and stabilize phenomena. They don't merely uncover or discover them. I really like this notion because there's so much naive talk about science merely unveiling nature, whereas in fact our experiments present nature to us in a very particular, engineered way. Hacking is happy to argue that science is bigger than us, but not so happy to think of that bigness as real, per-se. In fact, Hacking seems to think that some things we observe in science consistently, like the evidence for black holes, aren't actually real, simply because we can't use black holes to make anything or intervene in nature. Once we could, black holes could pass into Hacking's realm of the real. Until then, they will stay nicely categorized alongside ether.
I really liked this book, though I found that, like with many STS classics, its arguments had already thoroughly permeated my cranium. Perhaps the one thing I'm not so sure about here is whether Hacking's set-up really requires us to be realists as opposed to instrumentalists. Perhaps I missed a big point here...I think realism makes the most sense, but the former still doesn't seem to be precluded on philosophical grounds...Otherwise, I highly recommend this book. It's clearly written (a rarity in philosophy!), with a minimum of absurd made-up examples (his examples all come from actual science, which makes a big difference).
June 7, 2022
The book that opened the door of the philosophical reflection on the experimental practice. A classic, far more subtle, richer and penetrating than how it is usually summarized in text-books footnotes or by lazy scholars.
September 11, 2025
Simply great reading…Hacking is so passionate about microscopes and electron guns, trampling both positivism and basically all post-Popperian philsci. At first I thought his thesis (“if you can spray something, it exists”) was a little glib but by the end he argues it very tightly. Along the way he reframes history of science not as a story about theories or facts, but of engineering new contraptions. Intervening, i.e. messing around with shit, is more important, it lets us pierce the maya-like veils of representation and theory.
Rakes Lakatos over the coals for sloppy history and Putnam for basic incoherence, but still kindles great interest in both writers. Very funny, showcasing his ability to get a punchline off. Abounding in specifics: The glyptodon! PEGGY II! The renaissance theory that geese grew from logs!
Title is very misleading, I think it’s not a great intro text, more of a supplement and rejoinder to established classics by Kuhn et al.
Rakes Lakatos over the coals for sloppy history and Putnam for basic incoherence, but still kindles great interest in both writers. Very funny, showcasing his ability to get a punchline off. Abounding in specifics: The glyptodon! PEGGY II! The renaissance theory that geese grew from logs!
Title is very misleading, I think it’s not a great intro text, more of a supplement and rejoinder to established classics by Kuhn et al.
November 27, 2016
Es una mierda de libro. No tiene hilo conductor y va diciendo cosas según le van viniendo a la mente. Se podría resumir todo en una cuartilla de folio.
March 11, 2023
This book is a useful antidote to a lot of the philosophy of science as it was being practiced back in the 1970s and 1980s, when the main question was whether to be a scientific realist. Hacking takes the time to recount some facts about the history of science, and not just the theoretical stuff, but the messier and more interesting work of experimenters. It's probably better nowadays to bypass those older discussions entirely and simply turn to books by careful historians of science. Still, Hacking is a delightful writer: clear, smart, and direct.
January 10, 2019
TL;DR: This book does what I believe a good introductory book should do: give you a bit of background, ask some tough questions that leave you pondering and thinking and wanting more, and then giving you some "X said Y about this", and pointing you in the directions of the "answers" so that you just want to go and read all the things. However it has some style problems that make it a bit annoying every now and then.
This book serves its purpose as an introduction to the Philosophy of Science, and it does it well.
The book is divided in two parts: Representing, and Intervening.
The first part, representing deals with the usual topics of philosophy of science, e.g., realism, incommensurability of theories, scientific revolutions, and truth. It revolves around theories. This first part serves really well as an appetizer, leaving the reader interested and giving her hints of where to go and who to read. This, I believe, is what a good introductory topic should do: give you a bit of background, ask some tough questions that leave you pondering and thinking and wanting more, and pointing you in the directions of the "answers" so that you just want to go and read all the things. A minor annoyance is that he does not put all the books and authors that he mentions in the text in the Further Reading section at the end (he says "apart from everything I mentioned before, you can read these:"). It's a bit frustrating to have to go back and try to remember what author did he mention where.
The second part, Intervening, talks about the (according to Hacking, oft-neglected) role of experimentation and measurement (hence the "intervening") in the philosophy of science, specifically regarding the question of realism of entities. This part is where Hacking allows himself to write down his own ideas and positions regarding realism, and backing it up with the history of experimentation in different areas of science.
The writing style leaves a lot to be desired. It does its purpose of exposition and direction of the topics, but it does it barely well. Sometimes (especially in the beginning) there is some gratuitous name-dropping, without further explanation, that is disorienting to the beginner. I understand that it is unreasonable to explain Kant in depth, but if your sentence is "X was a Kantian" with no further explanation, this is meaningless and confusing for a beginner (which this book is, I assume, aimed at). Aside from this, very often the text loses cohesion and feels like each paragraph is a bullet point whose relation to the previous and following bullet point is mysterious.
Hacking is very charitable and reasonable with everyone's opposing perspectives on these philosophical questions. From the beginning he states his own position with respect to realism, but he still unbiasedly explains the opposing viewpoints. His writing is not arrogant nor pretentious, except for the Intermezzo between parts where he breaks character and writes a quite biased opinion piece.
In summary, this is a good introductory book. The writing leaves something to be desired, but it does a good job at getting you interested and directing you to more information and further discussion. It asks good questions that leave you wanting to know more.
This book serves its purpose as an introduction to the Philosophy of Science, and it does it well.
The book is divided in two parts: Representing, and Intervening.
The first part, representing deals with the usual topics of philosophy of science, e.g., realism, incommensurability of theories, scientific revolutions, and truth. It revolves around theories. This first part serves really well as an appetizer, leaving the reader interested and giving her hints of where to go and who to read. This, I believe, is what a good introductory topic should do: give you a bit of background, ask some tough questions that leave you pondering and thinking and wanting more, and pointing you in the directions of the "answers" so that you just want to go and read all the things. A minor annoyance is that he does not put all the books and authors that he mentions in the text in the Further Reading section at the end (he says "apart from everything I mentioned before, you can read these:"). It's a bit frustrating to have to go back and try to remember what author did he mention where.
The second part, Intervening, talks about the (according to Hacking, oft-neglected) role of experimentation and measurement (hence the "intervening") in the philosophy of science, specifically regarding the question of realism of entities. This part is where Hacking allows himself to write down his own ideas and positions regarding realism, and backing it up with the history of experimentation in different areas of science.
The writing style leaves a lot to be desired. It does its purpose of exposition and direction of the topics, but it does it barely well. Sometimes (especially in the beginning) there is some gratuitous name-dropping, without further explanation, that is disorienting to the beginner. I understand that it is unreasonable to explain Kant in depth, but if your sentence is "X was a Kantian" with no further explanation, this is meaningless and confusing for a beginner (which this book is, I assume, aimed at). Aside from this, very often the text loses cohesion and feels like each paragraph is a bullet point whose relation to the previous and following bullet point is mysterious.
Hacking is very charitable and reasonable with everyone's opposing perspectives on these philosophical questions. From the beginning he states his own position with respect to realism, but he still unbiasedly explains the opposing viewpoints. His writing is not arrogant nor pretentious, except for the Intermezzo between parts where he breaks character and writes a quite biased opinion piece.
In summary, this is a good introductory book. The writing leaves something to be desired, but it does a good job at getting you interested and directing you to more information and further discussion. It asks good questions that leave you wanting to know more.
November 23, 2019
Hacking's thesis is that to "know" something scientifically requires that you can actively employ it's causal processes to achieve predictable outcomes. For example, despite debate through the 19th century about whether we knew electrons exist, by the mid 20th century engineers were employing electrons, and their polarity properties, in microcircuits, hence the question about their existence was settled. The usefulness of a concept for passive explanation is emphatically not, by Hacking's argument, a sound basis for arguing the existence of that concept. Hence the book ends with skepticism about black holes (although one could argue that as of 2019 we are learning how we might "employ" black holes to bend light backwards, although our ability to do this actively is out of reach).
The thesis resonates with me as someone who conducts experimental work in social science.
That said it's only three stars because the frequent digressions and circularity of Hacking's writing made this an unnecessarily difficult read.
The thesis resonates with me as someone who conducts experimental work in social science.
That said it's only three stars because the frequent digressions and circularity of Hacking's writing made this an unnecessarily difficult read.
October 3, 2022
On the author's recommendation, I began with Part B. Everyone should, in my opinion. While the author claims this to be an introductory text, I do not think that's an honest description. Even those with some background in philosophy will need to work through the arguments and sift the arguments from the storytelling. For those without such background, beginning with Part B, I expect, should be even more rewarding. The central complaint here is that philosophers have been on the wrong track for a very long time by trying to fit theories, especially about science, on to the world. What they should instead do, the author claims, is to find a theory fit enough to explain what scientists do. Historically grounded, the author isn't at the same time advocating for some sort of opposition between doing and theorising. The emphasis in philosophy should shift, the author reccomends, because for too long the discipline has ignored the interplay of theory and experiment in scientific practice.
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October 1, 2021Este clásico de Hacking es sobresaliente por varios motivos. Primero, porque se trata de una de las introducciones más claras y completas a la filosofía de la ciencia (previa a los años 80, claro) y una de las obras que ayudaron a definir y asentar el canon de autores de esta disciplina. Pero además porque no se limita a exponer, sino que cuestiona los planteamientos básicos de la filosofía de la ciencia hasta la fecha y propone un modelo alternativo menos interesado en estudiar las teorías y el conocimiento científico y más en las prácticas científicas (observación, experimentación, vida de laboratorio), que son lo que hace realmente únicas a las ciencias. Todo ello lo lleva a defender una particular versión del realismo científico: el realismo de entidad, que no se preocupa por si las teorías científicas nos dicen "la verdad", sino por si las entidades con las que trabajan los científicos existen o no. Su respuesta es que sí, siempre y cuando puedan usarse para causar nuevos efectos. Esto que ahora es casi un sentido común en la filosofía de la ciencia fue una auténtica novedad en los 80 y por ello Hacking ha pasado a ser con el tiempo otro más en ese canon filosófico que él mismo ayudó a definir años atrás.
August 5, 2024
High on my list of books to reread. This introduced me to the Philosophy of Science and helped me better understand my own perspective on science and the broader world. Ian Hacking uses thought experiments and anecdotes to explain the central concept of each chapter. The lecture-style prose is clear, direct, and easy to follow. Highly recommend.
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October 31, 2020it is also thought-provoking although I knew not everybody agreed with Hacking.
February 21, 2025
Het onderwerp is minder interessant dan ik had verwacht en het taalgebruik is verwarrend.
November 29, 2023
The ideal end of science is not unity but absolute plethora.
The first section provides an overview of key developments within the philosophy of science from Hume, Kant, and Comte to the likes of Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend, primarily concerning itself with the major points of tension between (and within) the ‘realist’ and ‘anti-realist’ camps; however, as Ian Hacking writes, his central objective is to shift the discussion “away from realism about theories and towards realism about those entities we can use in experimental work.” The back half of the book is his attempt to do exactly that and leave the realm of ‘representing’ behind in order to explore how this academic discussion might be better applied to the down-and-dirty ‘intervening’ through which science actually changes our relationship to the world around us.
Hacking walks the reader through the philosophy comfortably enough but finds himself on somewhat shakier footing as far as the technical science is concerned. To be sure, there are a number of interesting sequences throughout that I remember fondly: his discussion of Hume’s argument for seeking regularities instead of causes (which are not “any of our business”), the role of experimentation in creating and ‘stabilizing’ phenomena within the maelstrom of complexity that is the natural world, the issues arising for positivism as the modern instruments used for scientific measurement take us further away from pure, physical observation (though I would have loved more of a discussion on why our natural observational tools should be treated as any less fallible), to name a few. Still, this is one of those texts that is so self-conscious it almost seems determined to write itself out of existence. Hacking does a lot of that John Gray thing where he acts so flippantly dismissive of the ideas with which he’s interacting that it occasionally feels hard to trust him as a responsible guide to this intellectual landscape. Fair play to his gruff and totalizing “if you can spray them then they are real” mantra, but the resulting externality of this attitude is that one could easily interpret Hacking as arguing that reading this work is a waste of time when one could just be learning about actual cutting-edge experimentation instead.
THC #7
The first section provides an overview of key developments within the philosophy of science from Hume, Kant, and Comte to the likes of Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend, primarily concerning itself with the major points of tension between (and within) the ‘realist’ and ‘anti-realist’ camps; however, as Ian Hacking writes, his central objective is to shift the discussion “away from realism about theories and towards realism about those entities we can use in experimental work.” The back half of the book is his attempt to do exactly that and leave the realm of ‘representing’ behind in order to explore how this academic discussion might be better applied to the down-and-dirty ‘intervening’ through which science actually changes our relationship to the world around us.
Hacking walks the reader through the philosophy comfortably enough but finds himself on somewhat shakier footing as far as the technical science is concerned. To be sure, there are a number of interesting sequences throughout that I remember fondly: his discussion of Hume’s argument for seeking regularities instead of causes (which are not “any of our business”), the role of experimentation in creating and ‘stabilizing’ phenomena within the maelstrom of complexity that is the natural world, the issues arising for positivism as the modern instruments used for scientific measurement take us further away from pure, physical observation (though I would have loved more of a discussion on why our natural observational tools should be treated as any less fallible), to name a few. Still, this is one of those texts that is so self-conscious it almost seems determined to write itself out of existence. Hacking does a lot of that John Gray thing where he acts so flippantly dismissive of the ideas with which he’s interacting that it occasionally feels hard to trust him as a responsible guide to this intellectual landscape. Fair play to his gruff and totalizing “if you can spray them then they are real” mantra, but the resulting externality of this attitude is that one could easily interpret Hacking as arguing that reading this work is a waste of time when one could just be learning about actual cutting-edge experimentation instead.
THC #7
April 30, 2016
This book goes very well with my previously read Nancy Cartwright's 'How the Laws of Physics Lie' and Paul Feyerabend's 'Against Method.' However, Hacking takes a more philosopher realist tone who believes cautiously in theoretical entities in a way that Cartwright and Feyerabend cannot. This has taught me a lot about science that I did not know and, I suspect, that a lot of people who consider themselves pro-science did not know. For instance, A is said to cause B, not because A causes B but because B always occurs after A.(46) This has stunning implications theologically, which concerns me, especially when the modernist discounts the God of the Bible. Another important point is that once we start defining things and categorizing them we change them and even create new things.(94) This brings to mind a great many questions in me regarding our taxonomic classifications. There are many other interesting thoughts that come from reading this book and considering what you are reading. They way we create types of knowledge with kinds of reasoning and how our very effort to experiment on something changes it. There is a great deal of ideology and irrational thinking in the scientific community which makes it even more interesting to me than it ever was.
February 14, 2009
A great overview of the Philosophy of Science
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November 21, 2009Needs to be rebound.
August 7, 2011
Un classique de philo des sciences.
March 30, 2013
Fantastic book. Extremely thought provoking. The middle is a bit slow for a little while and I would just skip the intermediate chapter, but its truly excellent philosophical work.
May 12, 2015
A good, accessible but incisive coverage of various aspects and the development of philosophy of science.
September 5, 2015
Check Joy's review since I'm in complete agreement with it despite giving the book a lower grade.
April 27, 2016
Harika bir Bilim Felsefesi kitabı. Kuhn ve Feyerabend gibi postmodernlerin panzehiri....
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