Statistik and History in the German Enlightenment

Bibliographic Data

ID5306155
AuthorsJohan Van Der Zande (corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume71
Issue3
Pages411-432
Publication date2010-07-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the History of Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-5037 • E-ISSN: 1086-3222
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/jhi.0.0087
OpenAlexW2088423122
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited9

Eighteenth-century German Statistik was an empirical and descriptive discipline of "the land and the people." As the study of material conditions it provided governments with information to assess the strength of their own state in comparison with others. Its adherents' claim that Statistik was a useful science, however, was severely tempered by their empirical method and holistic view of society. As a "science of the present" it was seriously challenged by the recognition of the essential historicity of its subject matter. Both circumstances explain the decline of Statistik from which mathematical statistics, political economy, and political historiography profited

Archaeology · Economics · Enlightenment · Epistemology · German · Historicity (philosophy · Historiography · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · Historical and Literary Studies · History · History and Theory of Mathematics · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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