Annotation
Our task in this course is to explore the application and diffusion of statistical thinking in Central Europe in the long nineteenth century.
Statistical thinking is not merely investigated as an academic discipline, but the course will look at practical uses of statistical methods ranging from the public sphere to the private economy that constantly exploited advances in statistical mathematics and probability theory.
It thus plans to reconcile specific forms of statistical knowledge about society and economy with their equally diverse forms of application by natural and social scientists, private and public clerks, and other intellectuals.
During the course we will be attentive to the relevance of Central European debates concerning statistics at the backdrop of pioneering ideas in Western states. We will explore how debates inform the local and regional agendas of our protagonists—not only political but epistemological, institutional, and empirical as well.
By the same token, the course concentrates on the specific places of knowledge production and its effects on methods and on the way our protagonists pursued credibility and battled for social authority.
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