Orienting to Chance
Probabilism and the Future of Social Theory
Published on 5. September 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-0-226-84313-1 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
"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." -- Stephen Turner, University of South Florida "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." -- John Levi Martin, author of 'The True, the Good and the Beautiful: On the Rise and Fall and Rise of the Kantian Architectonic of Action'More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
5 line drawings, 2 tables
Dimensions
Height: 225 mm
Width: 151 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
456 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-84313-1 (9780226843131)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
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.
Omar Lizardo is professor of sociology and LeRoy Neiman Term Chair at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Content
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
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