Indeterminacy and Society

Bibliographic Data

ID6322756
AuthorsDan Sabia (University of South Carolina, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume4
Issue4
Pages754-755
Publication date2006-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePerspectives on Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1537-5927 • E-ISSN: 1541-0986
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1537592706300473
OpenAlexW1993026981
LanguageEN
Citations received15

Indeterminacy and Society. By Russell Hardin. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. 192p. $39.95 cloth, $14.95 paper. Russell Hardin aims in this wide-ranging text to explain the sources of indeterminacy in social life, its implications for theory, and its consequences for practice. Indeterminacy marks circumstances in which individual and collective actors cannot determine the results or outcomes of their choices, not so much because of lack of power or causal ignorance (which might be remedied) but because the social world characteristically presents them with stochastic and strategic problems, and therefore forces on them stochastic and strategic choices. The two problems are distinct but often related. Stochastic problems arise whenever choice carries with it the possibility of harm; in many social and political contexts, the possibilities and the identities of those harmed may or may not be known, and these factors matter in ways Hardin discusses

Economics · Epistemology · Harm · Ignorance · Indeterminacy (philosophy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Power (physics · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Law · Philosophy

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