Limits of the Numerical: The Abuses and Uses of Quantification - Couverture souple

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0226817156 ISBN 13 : 9780226817156

Editeur : University of Chicago Press, 2022

Synopsis

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.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Christopher Newfield is director of research at the Independent Social Research Foundation, London.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Chicago Press
• Date d'édition: 2022
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0226817156
• ISBN 13: 9780226817156
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 323
• Éditeur: Newfield Christopher, Alexandrova Anna, John Stephen
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible