Limits of the Numerical
The Abuses and Uses of Quantification
Dr Christopher Newfield editor Dr Anna Alexandrova editor Dr Stephen John editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:The University of Chicago Press
Published:14th Jun '22
£24.00
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This collection examines the uses of quantification in climate science, higher education, and health.
Numbers are both controlling and fragile. They drive public policy, figuring into everything from college rankings to vaccine efficacy rates. At the same time, they are frequent objects of obfuscation, manipulation, or outright denial. This timely collection by a diverse group of humanists and social scientists challenges undue reverence or skepticism toward quantification and offers new ideas about how to harmonize quantitative with qualitative forms of knowledge.
Limits of the Numerical focuses on quantification in several contexts: climate change; university teaching and research; and health, medicine, and well-being more broadly. This volume shows the many ways that qualitative and quantitative approaches can productively interact—how the limits of the numerical can be overcome through equitable partnerships with historical, institutional, and philosophical analysis. The authors show that we can use numbers to hold the powerful to account, but only when those numbers are themselves democratically accountable.
“Limits of the Numerical shows with compelling detail, theoretical vision, and political urgency just how and why numbers matter. As J. L. Austin and Judith Butler showed us how we do things with words, the authors of Limits of the Numerical show us how we do things with numbers.” * Chad Wellmon, University of Virginia *
“The availability and power of numbers in our ‘data-driven world’ have never been greater, and, for just that reason, are greatly contested. Limits of the Numerical explores the paradoxes of quantitative reasoning that have arisen as a corollary of its power and recognizes that a blind reverence for numbers undermines expertise as much as it supports it. These stories of numbers are inescapably human ones.” * Theodore M. Porter, University of California, Los Angeles *
“In the confusing context of both the pandemic and global warming, this compelling book is a timely unraveling of the uses and abuses of statistical models, quantified measures, big data, and numerical targets. Limits of the Numerical paves the way for renewed scientific controversies and public debates on the work of quantification and its politics.” * Isabelle Bruno, University of Lille and Academic Institute of France (IUF) *
ISBN: 9780226817156
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 18mm
Weight: unknown
304 pages