finished reading The Politics of Large Numbers 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
从「数理」的一面之外的角度看待统计作为现代生活社会科学化的过程。一个技术与国家建构的双线结构，套用涂尔干的话「consider social facts as things」，既是「as = are」，也是「as = as if」，而后者是统计的社会史里缺乏的「statistics is connected with the contruction of the state, with its unification and administration」。统计同时反应了现实，也要制造出新惯例——后者成为一个新的认知和话语空间。知识社会学谱系里的异类。93年的原作，依然读起来很棒。
Book
The Politics of Large Numbers
Douban
Alain Desrosières
translator:
Camille Naish
publishing house:
Harvard University Press
2002
- 9
Statistics-driven thinking is ubiquitous in modern society. In this study of the history of statistics, which begins with probability theory in the 17th century, Alain Desrosieres shows how the evolution of modern statistics has been inextricably bound up with the knowledge and power of governments. He traces the complex reciprocity between modern governments and the mathematical artifacts that both dictate the duties of the state and measure its successes.