The Myth of Luck: Philosophy, Fate, and Fortune - Hardcover

by Steven D. Hales (Author)

Humanity has thrown everything we have at implacable luck-novel theologies, entire philosophical movements, fresh branches of mathematics-and yet we seem to have gained only the smallest edge on the power of fortune. The Myth of Luck tells us why we have been fighting an unconquerable foe.

Taking us on a guided tour of one of our oldest concepts, we begin in ancient Greece and Rome, considering how Plato, Plutarch, and the Stoics understood luck, before entering the theoretical world of probability and exploring how luck relates to theology, sports, ethics, gambling, knowledge, and present-day psychology. As we travel across traditions, times and cultures, we come to realize that it's not that as soon as we solve one philosophical problem with luck that two more appear, like heads on a hydra, but rather that the monster is altogether mythological. We cannot master luck because there is nothing to defeat: luck is no more than a persistent and troubling illusion.

By introducing us to compelling arguments and convincing reasons that explain why there is no such thing as luck, we finally see why in a very real sense we make our own luck, that luck is our owndoing. The Myth of Luckhelps us to regain our own agency in the world - telling the entertaining story of the philosophy and history of luck along the way.

Author Biography

Steven D. Hales, Ph.D. (Brown) is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, USA. He works primarily in metaphysics and epistemology, and also in popular philosophy. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Cambridge, Turin, Edinburgh, and London. He is an award-winning writer and teacher, and has published numerous books and articles. Find him at stevenhales.org.