Petty's instruments : the Down Survey, territorial natural history and the birth of statistics

Komel, Svit (avtor)

William Petty's work has usually been regarded as an epistemic break in the history of statistical and politico-economic thought. In this paper, I argue that Petty's statistical notions stemmed from the natural-historical techniques he originally implemented to manage the Down Survey. Following Bacon, who viewed the description of trades as a paramount branch of natural history, Petty approached the art of surveying itself as an object of natural-historical analysis. He partitioned the surveying work into individual tasks and implemented a meticulous division of labour, employing hundreds of disbanded soldiers as surveyors and using questionnaires to calibrate the responses of his ‘instruments’, as he called his specialized workers. By borrowing these methods from natural history to organize surveying work, Petty was able to conceptualize Ireland as a political body defined by tables of aggregate data. I then compare the Down Survey with John Graunt's observations on the bills of mortality to show that both are representative of a particular style of natural history, aimed at describing the natural and political state of a circumscribed territory. I close by considering other manifestations of ‘territorial natural history’, indicating a continuity between this research tradition and the appearance of statistics in the British Isles.

• Jezik: Angleški jezik
• Ključne besede: Down Survey, William Petty, territorial natural history, statistics, history of trades, questionnaires
• Vrsta gradiva: Članek v reviji
• Tipologija: 1.01 - Izvirni znanstveni članek
• Organizacija: PF - Pravna fakulteta
• Status publikacije: Objavljeno
• Različica publikacije: Objavljena publikacija
• Leto izida: 2024
• Št. strani: Str. 43–64
• Številčenje: Vol. 57, iss. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-153974
• ISSN pri članku: 1474-001X
• DOI: 10.1017/S0007087423001097
• COBISS.SI-ID: 181134851
• Datum objave v RUL: 17.01.2024

Gradivo je del revije

• Naslov: The British journal for the history of science
• Skrajšan naslov: BJHS
• Založnik: Cambridge University Press, British Society for the History of Science
• ISSN: 1474-001X
• COBISS.SI-ID: 518404633

Licence

• Licenca: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Priznanje avtorstva 4.0 Mednarodna
• Povezava: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.sl
• Opis: To je standardna licenca Creative Commons, ki daje uporabnikom največ možnosti za nadaljnjo uporabo dela, pri čemer morajo navesti avtorja.

Sekundarni jezik

• Jezik: Slovenski jezik
• Ključne besede: popis Irske, teritorialna naravna zgodovina, statistika, zgodovina obrti, zgodovina rokodelstva, vprašalniki

Projekti

• Financer: ARIS - Javna agencija za znanstvenoraziskovalno in inovacijsko dejavnost Republike Slovenije