Orienting to Chance

Michael Strand is assistant professor of sociology at Brandeis University, where he is also affiliate faculty in the History of Ideas Program.Omar Lizardo is professor of sociology and LeRoy Neiman Term Chair at the University of California, Los Angeles.

• Introduction: Enter the MosaicPart I: Probability and ProbabilismChapter 1: On the Genealogy of ProbabilityA Genealogical ApproachFrom Parlor Games to Large NumbersThe Splintering of ProbabilityTurning Frequency into ObjectivityThe Subjective and the ObjectiveThe Present SituationChapter 2: Introducing Objective ProbabilityA Different Route to ProbabilityProbabilistic Inference: Abduction and SynchysisKries and Peirce on ProbabilityPragmatism and Objective ProbabilityKries’s Diffuse Influence on Subsequent Thinking About ProbabilityAmerican Sociology and Objective Probability: A Missed ChanceDu Bois and the Probabilist Theory of ActionPart II: Classical and ContemporaryChapter 3: Max Weber, the ProbabilistThe Making of Economy and SocietyWeber Discovers the Probabilistic LoopProbabilistic RationalizationThe Protestant Ethic as the Construction of a Probability OrderDistance, Range, and OrientationProbabilistic PowerThe Legitimacy of Legitimate OrdersCoda: Weber, the ProbabilistChapter 4: Pierre Bourdieu Rediscovers ProbabilismThe Origins of Bourdieu’s ProbabilismObjective Probability After LogosInternalized and Objective Probability in The Logic of PracticeBourdieu’s Journey to ProbabilismRecasting Bourdieu’s Key ConceptsProbabilistic Sociology in a Bourdieusian MoldPart III: Theory and CognitionChapter 5: Probabilism and Social TheoryBeyond Realism and InterpretivismHume’s WagerFrom Central Problems to Basic QuestionsBruno Latour’s Clean SlateFrom the Study of Associations to the Study of ChancesInvestigating Probability Orders via DistributionsOff the Port, Out to SeaToward a Theory of the TestChapter 6: Probability in CognitionContinuism and the Predictive BrainHelmholtz Discovers PredictionThe Unbearable Lightness of PredictingThe Principle of Active InferenceBuilding a Probabilistic Sociology via Predictive ProcessingSense and Segmentation: Horizontal and Vertical CrossingsAddiction as ActionThe Study of Action Is the Study of ProbabilityPart IV: ImplicationsChapter 7: An Outline of Probabilist MethodA Dialogue Between Sociologicus and PhilosophicusA New Scientific ImageFields, Spaces, and ProbabilitySingle-Case ProbabilityAdequate Cause and the Limits of InterpretationAbductive and Synchytic LogicFinding the ChancemakersSteps Toward a Probabilist MethodChapter 8: Reconfiguring Our Grasp on the Social WorldA New Linguistic AnalogueWhat Is the Smallest Unit?Three Kinds of Looping EffectInterpretation LoopsDescription LoopsProbability LoopsA New Continuity FrameProbabilistic Social TruthEpilogue: Theory Versus MachinesOn TheoryOn MachinesOn Fate and FatednessGlossaryNotesIndex

"Probabilism, the idea that causal relations and thus our interactions with the world are ultimately probabilistic, seems especially relevant to sociology, and several key historical figures have taken it seriously, as Strand and Lizardo show in this important book. But despite the importance of statistics to sociology, the radical implications of probabilism have not been widely grasped. This book brilliantly remedies this by recasting the history of sociology in terms of this core problem and connecting it to present discussions on predictive processing, looping effects, and Bayesianism."