Ian Hacking's Holberg Lecture: The Social Construction of What?

Ian Hacking was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2009 He is a Professor in Philosophy at the University of Toronto / Collège de France. Professor Hacking received his B.A. in Mathematics and Physics from the University of British Columbia in 1956 and a B.A. in Moral Sciences from Cambridge University in 1958, where he subsequently received both his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in 1962. Professor Hacking joined the University of Toronto in 1982, and was selected as a University Professor in 1991. From 2000 to 2006, he held the Chair of Philosophy and History of Scientific Concepts at the Collège de France. Professor Hacking’s work is enormously broad – he is someone who makes sense of the fundamental issues that unite discrete disciplines. His work spans the philosophy of science, the philosophy of language, the theory of probability and statistical inference, and the socio-historical examination of the rise and fall of disciplines and theories. In each of these areas, his contributions have been transformative and inspiring. In addition to appearing in the best peer-reviewed academic journals, his work can be found in The Globe and Mail, New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement.