In Search of Lost Causes
Walter Scott and Adolphe Quetelet's Revolutions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4795256 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Margaret Kolb (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 59-85 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Configurations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1063-1801 • E-ISSN: 1080-6520 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/con.2019.0002 |
| OpenAlex | W2910678435 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 7 |
Nineteenth-century mathematicians and novelists shared a pressing question: how might the events preceding revolution be related? This essay outlines a timeline of this question from the novels of Walter Scott to the mathematical projects of Adolphe Quetelet. Drawing on mathematical history, I show how Pierre Simon Laplace and Nicolas Condorcet preceded Quetelet in searching for a metaphor adequate to the application of probability mathematics to history. I argue that Scott's bridge between private and public spheres—a wavering hero—circulated exactly such a metaphor, priming the public imagination for Quetelet's homme moyen (average man), the statistical figure enabling mathematical analysis of social data. Comparing mathematical representational strategies with those of Walter Scott's historical novels, I argue that while many mathematicians saw probability logic as the exclusive language for encoding uncertainty, Scott reads probability logic as one predictive language among many: historically contingent, subject to change, and unpredictably predictive
Art · Epistemology · HERO · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Sociology · Subject (documents · Computer Science · Historical and Literary Studies · History · History and Theory of Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.29 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2025 (7) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |