Single Review on past events

It was a perfect follow-up presentation after Karim Becher´s talk about “Signs” one week before, as Gunhild Berg and Zsuzsanna Török spoke about “Words and Numbers – construing Knowledge and Ignorance in Central European Scholarship, 1750-1850”. Their presentation was based on a workshop entitled “Literature between description of the state (Staatenbeschreibung) and statistics. Narratives of Knowledge and Ignorance in Central Europe (1750-1850)”, held in December 2012 at the University of Konstanz. The event was organized by the two Fellows, as well as Marcus Twellmann affiliated with the Center of Excellence “Cultural Foundations of Social Integration”.

Eighteenth’-century statistics was widely different from our modern understanding of the discipline. The two Fellows engaged themselves in explaining these differences and also the process of the shaping of modern statistics. They addressed two main questions: first, what kind of knowledge did contemporary statistics purport and what was left out of its grasp? Second, how did literature and other scholarly disciplines (e.g. pedagogy, psychology) relate to the epistemological claims, results and pretenses of the statistical methods? As an answer to these questions, they distinguished between qualitative (Staatenkunde) and quantitative (political arithmetic, statistical tables, probability calculus) forms of statistics.  According to the renown professor of the discipline, August Ludwig Schlözer, for the description of the state one needed quantifiable (size of a territory, number of inhabitants) and unquantifiable (governmental form and character, inhabitants´ national character) objects. Concretely this meant that the scholarly version of statistics, Staatenkunde used both numbers and descriptions.

Gunhild and Zsuzsa presented case studies to illustrate the use of statistics. As part of her project “A Media History of Knowledge,” Gunhild showed how the tabular notation systems were used in the 18th century for characterizing individuals. As the sciences of man discovered a high number of possible impacts on human characters during the 18th century, of the demand for voluminous narrations emerged for comprehensive characterizations of individuals. On the quantitative side tabular notation systems were used for pedagogical, psychological and other practices, on the qualitative side narrative notation systems like novels, diaries and case studies continued to dominate the pedagogical practice. 

Zsuzsa reported on “The (relative) Strength of the State: Staatenkunde in Hungary around 1800”. She explained how scholars from Hungary tried to determine the parameters of the country in an age when most numerical data relevant for such purposes were not available for the public. The ratio between territorial extent and the number of inhabitants  – a population density of sorts – was such a criterion. The widespread solution was to use probability estimates and/or medium count of other data gathered by fellow “statisticians.” No wonder that Staatenkunde remained largely encyclopedic in format for long, based on descriptions and comparisons. People and produces of the country were classified according to their language, race, religion, profession etc.  This method harbored, of course, a huge problem of precision. Also, much data became obsolete by the time such a handbook received permission of print from the censors. The birth pangs of modern statistics illustrate that knowledge production was largely dependent on state infrastructure and support.

Zsuzsa and Gunhild finished their talk with the conclusion that the problem area of quantification is connected to gains and losses of the mathematization of science. In the case of Staatenkunde/statistics this lead on the long run to the relegation of descriptions into specific discourses and disciplines. Moreover, as state bureaucracies engaged themselves in producing aggregate numerical statistics, this new knowledge led to the loss of qualitative analyses, therefore to the production of new ignorance.