A history of the modern fact : problems of knowledge in the sciences of wealth and society / Mary Poovey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Poovey, Mary.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social sciences--Great Britain--Statistical methods--History.

Social sciences.

Social sciences--Great Britain--Statistics--History.

Social sciences--Statistical methods--History.

Social sciences--Statistics--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (446 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How did the fact become modernity's most favored unit of knowledge? How did description come to seem separable from theory in the precursors of economics and the social sciences? Mary Poovey explores these questions in A History of the Modern Fact, ranging across an astonishing array of texts and ideas from the publication of the first British manual on double-entry bookkeeping in 1588 to the institutionalization of statistics in the 1830's. She shows how the production of systematic knowledge from descriptions of observed particulars influenced government, how numerical representation became the privileged vehicle for generating useful facts, and how belief-whether figured as credit, credibility, or credulity-remained essential to the production of knowledge. Illuminating the epistemological conditions that have made modern social and economic knowledge possible, A History of the Modern Fact provides important contributions to the history of political thought, economics, science, and philosophy, as well as to literary and cultural criticism.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. THE MODERN FACT, THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION, AND QUESTIONS OF METHOD

2. ACCOMMODATING MERCHANTS: DOUBLE-ENTRY BOOKKEEPING, MERCANTILE EXPERTISE, AND THE EFFECT OF ACCURACY

3. THE POLITICAL ANATOMY OF THE ECONOMY: ENGLISH SCIENCE AND IRISH LAND

4. EXPERIMENTAL MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE PROBLEMS OF LIBERAL GOVERNMENTALITY

5. FROM CONJECTURAL HISTORY TO POLITICAL ECONOMY

6. RECONFIGURING FACTS AND THEORY: VESTIGES OF PROVIDENTIALISM IN THE NEW SCIENCE OF WEALTH

7. FIGURES OF ARITHMETIC, FIGURES OF SPEECH: THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION IN THE 1830's

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613058508

9781283058506

1283058502

9780226675183

0226675181

OCLC:

695993894