Orienting to Chance

Probabilism and the Future of Social Theory

Michael Strand, Omar Lizardo

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English

University of Chicago Press
25 September 2025

Sociology & anthropology

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.

By: Michael Strand, Omar Lizardo
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 399g
ISBN: 9780226843131
ISBN 10: 0226843130
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 25 September 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

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.

Reviews for Orienting to Chance: Probabilism and the Future of Social Theory

""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'