Book contents
- Pioneers of Sociological Science
- Pioneers of Sociological Science
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Beginnings
- 2 Quetelet and His Critics
- 3 The English Statisticians
- 4 The Sample Survey Specialists
- 5 Weber and the Concept of Action
- 6 From Columbia to Chicago
- 7 From Chicago back to Columbia
- 8 Duncan and Sociology as a Population Science
- 9 The Return to the Concept of Action and Micro–Macro Relations
- 10 Conclusion
- References
- Index
2 - Quetelet and His Critics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2021
- Pioneers of Sociological Science
- Pioneers of Sociological Science
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Beginnings
- 2 Quetelet and His Critics
- 3 The English Statisticians
- 4 The Sample Survey Specialists
- 5 Weber and the Concept of Action
- 6 From Columbia to Chicago
- 7 From Chicago back to Columbia
- 8 Duncan and Sociology as a Population Science
- 9 The Return to the Concept of Action and Micro–Macro Relations
- 10 Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
Quetelet sought to take further the application of probability theory to quantitative social data. Using the Gaussian error curve – or normal distribution -- he undertook analyses, based on the concept of average types of men and women, that went beyond regularities in simply ‘events’, such as deaths, to those that he believed were demonstrable in ‘volitional phenomena’ such as suicide, crime and marriage. These he recognised as examples of the basic explananda of sociological science. He grappled with problems of the identification of the causal factors underlying such regularities and of the creation of variables that adequately reflected population heterogeneity. Although achieving no great success in these respects, being in various ways too far ahead of his times, he did highlight problems of a fundamental kind and signposted the directions in which advances had to be made. The reception of his work in France, Germany and Britain pointed to a range of major issues that lay ahead.
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- Pioneers of Sociological ScienceStatistical Foundations and the Theory of Action, pp. 25 - 41Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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