Ian Hacking, a University Professor at the University of Toronto, is known for bringing a historical approach to the philosophy of science. In 2001 he was appointed to the Chair of Philosophy and of the History of Scientific Concepts at the prestigious Collège de France. In 2002, he was awarded the first Killam Prize for the Humanities, Canada's distinguished award for outstanding career achievements. In 2004, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Professor Hacking's work is broad: spanning 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. His volume Logic of Statistical Inference is considered a classic, and Representing and Intervening has been a highly influential book in both the philosophy of science and in the history of science. His book The Taming of Chance was listed on The Modern Library's "100 Best Non-Fiction Books in English since 1900."

In September 2006, Hacking visited the National Humanities Center where he led a seminar discussion of his article “Genetics, biosocial groups & the future of identity,” which has since been published in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Dædalus.

‘Biosocial’ is a new word, but its pedigree, although brief, is the best. Paul Rabinow, the anthropologist of the genome industry, wrote about ‘biosociality’ in 1992. He invented the word partly as a joke, to counter the sociobiology that had been fashionable for some time. When he wrote, Rabinow was interested in groups and the criteria around which they form. Of course, human beings are biosocial beings: biological animals and social animals. But the fact that many groups of people can be loosely characterized in both biological and social ways, and that the ‘bio’ and the ‘social’ reinforce each other, prompted his term. This phenomenon is immediately evident: what are families or extended kinship structures if not biosocial groups? Currently, the genetic imperative – the drive to find biological, but above all genetic, underpinnings for all things human, in sickness or in health, in success or in strife – is fueling fascination with this concept.*

* Download Ian Hacking’s "Genetics, biosocial groups & the future of identity" to continue reading