Orienting to Chance: Probabilism and the Future of Social Theory

Explores the implications of chance and uncertainty in social theory and offers a new interpretation of the sociological canon.   Since the founding of the discipline, sociologists have endeavored to understand the structures of groups, organizations, and societies, and how these entities condition our behavior. While some of the foundational theorists saw these processes as largely deterministic, sociological theory has increasingly insisted on the importance of culture in shaping our position in and responses to social groups. In Orienting to Chance, sociologists Michael Strand and Omar Lizardo aim to show that the social order bears an unmistakable link to chance and urge us to think about how it conditions our actions. Strand and Lizardo provide a sweeping overview of a new social theory framework that they call probabilism. Using examples of probabilism in sociology, particularly in the work of Max Weber, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Pierre Bourdieu, they describe probabilism’s place in multiple fields of science. As the authors argue, their effort at redefinition and recovery helps position sociology as a field of the future, while also keeping it grounded in core issues of action, structure, culture, inequality, and inequity. By sharing these groundbreaking insights and revealing wider theoretical claims about mortality, fate, and technology in the contemporary era, Strand and Lizardo demonstrate how probabilism is an essential intervention for understanding the inevitable role of uncertainty in social life.  

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Enter the Mosaic Part I: Probability and Probabilism Chapter 1: On the Genealogy of Probability A Genealogical Approach From Parlor Games to Large Numbers The Splintering of Probability Turning Frequency into Objectivity The Subjective and the Objective The Present Situation Chapter 2: Introducing Objective Probability A Different Route to Probability Probabilistic Inference: Abduction and Synchysis Kries and Peirce on Probability Pragmatism and Objective Probability Kries’s Diffuse Influence on Subsequent Thinking About Probability American Sociology and Objective Probability: A Missed Chance Du Bois and the Probabilist Theory of Action Part II: Classical and Contemporary Chapter 3: Max Weber, the Probabilist The Making of Economy and Society Weber Discovers the Probabilistic Loop Probabilistic Rationalization The Protestant Ethic as the Construction of a Probability Order Distance, Range, and Orientation Probabilistic Power The Legitimacy of Legitimate Orders Coda: Weber, the Probabilist Chapter 4: Pierre Bourdieu Rediscovers Probabilism The Origins of Bourdieu’s Probabilism Objective Probability After Logos Internalized and Objective Probability in The Logic of Practice Bourdieu’s Journey to Probabilism Recasting Bourdieu’s Key Concepts Probabilistic Sociology in a Bourdieusian Mold Part III: Theory and Cognition Chapter 5: Probabilism and Social Theory Beyond Realism and Interpretivism Hume’s Wager From Central Problems to Basic Questions Bruno Latour’s Clean Slate From the Study of Associations to the Study of Chances Investigating Probability Orders via Distributions Off the Port, Out to Sea Toward a Theory of the Test Chapter 6: Probability in Cognition Continuism and the Predictive Brain Helmholtz Discovers Prediction The Unbearable Lightness of Predicting The Principle of Active Inference Building a Probabilistic Sociology via Predictive Processing Sense and Segmentation: Horizontal and Vertical Crossings Addiction as Action The Study of Action Is the Study of Probability Part IV: Implications Chapter 7: An Outline of Probabilist Method A Dialogue Between Sociologicus and Philosophicus A New Scientific Image Fields, Spaces, and Probability Single-Case Probability Adequate Cause and the Limits of Interpretation Abductive and Synchytic Logic Finding the Chancemakers Steps Toward a Probabilist Method Chapter 8: Reconfiguring Our Grasp on the Social World A New Linguistic Analogue What Is the Smallest Unit? Three Kinds of Looping Effect Interpretation Loops Description Loops Probability Loops A New Continuity Frame Probabilistic Social Truth Epilogue: Theory Versus Machines On Theory On Machines On Fate and Fatedness Glossary Notes Index

About the Author :
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.  

Review :
"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." "With breathtaking boldness, Strand and Lizardo put forward a new, resolutely phenomenological, view of chance at the heart of social life and sociological explanation. This is a profound and creative work, sure to be inspiring, controversial and returned to again and again."