Figures of Chance II: Chance in Theory and Practice

by Anne Duprat (Editor), Alison James (Editor)

Overview

Figures of Chance II: Chance in Theory and Practice proposes a multidisciplinary analysis of cultural phenomena related to notions of chance and contingency. Alongside its transhistorical companion volume (Figures of Chance I), it considers how the projective and predictive capacity of societies is shaped by representations and cultural models of a reality that is understood, by varying degrees, to be contingent, unpredictable, or chaotic. This volume reevaluates the role played by figurative representations of chance in contemporary discourses about chance and contingency. Written by seven interdisciplinary teams, and encompassing philosophy, literature, history of science, sociology, mathematics, cognitive science, information science, and art history, this text puts scientific conceptions of chance into dialogue with their contemporary literary and artistic representations. It thus brings out the central role played by art in the human perception of chance, and in our methods for projecting the future, in order to better understand contemporary human attitudes in the face of risk.

The Introduction and Chapter One of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781040021743
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/31/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	404
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Anne Duprat is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Picardy Jules Verne and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. As Principal Investigator on the ALEA project supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR), she edited and coordinated the two volumes of Figures of Chance.

Alison James is Professor of French Literature and Chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. She co-edited the second volume of Figures of Chance and helped prepare the English version of the first volume.

Table of Contents

Introduction

By Anne Duprat, with Alison James

Chapter 1. Chance, causality, temporality

Edited by Anne Duprat

With Mark Currie, Elie During and Sophie Vlacos

With a counterpoint by Philippe Carrard

Chapter 2. Chance and complexity in narrative

Edited by John Pier

With Demian Battaglia, Marina Grishakova, Maria Poulaki and Richard Walsh

Chapter 3. Chance in philosophy and science: Beyond ontologies and theologies

Edited by Divya Dwivedi

With Michel Bitbol, Zeynep Direk and Maël Montévil

Chapter 4. Doing the right thing: Moral luck and ethical challenges

Edited by Enrica Zanin

With Barbara Carnevali, Anthony Mangeon and Matthias Roick

With a counterpoint by Christian Walter

Chapter 5. Creativity and contingency: Provoking chance across the arts

Edited by Karin Kukkonen

With Ros Ballaster, Guillaume Dumas, Henry Keazor, Juliane Vogel and Michael Wheeler

Chapter 6. Chance in games

Olivier Caïra

With a counterpoint by Sophie Chevalier

Chapter 7. Chance and language

Edited by Valentina Bisconti

With Francesco La Mantia and Raffaele Simone