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Article ID: CBB001021398

Süssmilch lecteur de Petty. Arithmétique politique et théologie naturelle (2008)

Journal Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique
Volume: 4, no. 1
Issue: 1

Publication Date: 2008
Edition Details: http://www.jehps.net/juin2008/Rohrbasser.pdf (Accessed on November 29, 2010)
Language: French

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Science and politics Demography; population research Statistics Science and religion Political arithmetic Mathematics Natural theology 18th century Germany Süssmilch, Johann Peter Petty, William

William Petty (1623-1687) is one of the founders of the science of populations in England, particularly political arithmetic. Petty compares arguments of sense to intellectual arguments, taking back the ancient confrontation of the intelligible and the sensible. Actually, political arithmetic rests on arguments drawn from experience, from perceptible data, without rushing carelessly to explanation a priori of reasons. Johann Peter Süssmilch (1707-1767), as his contemporaries who are concerned about the same questions --- Dutch Nicolas Struyck (1687-1769) and Willem Kersseboom (1691-1771), the Swedish Pehr Wargentin (1717-1783) ---, is perfectly aware of methods and results of Petty's political arithmetic. The Berlin pastor takes it back for himself, endorses it and makes a synthesis, not without trying to enrich it, both with these new data that all contemporary scholars complain, and with his theologian's particular perspective. His objective remains to demonstrate the efficient of the providence. When Süssmilch reads Petty, he insists on two aspects: on one hand, a debate aiming at the design of the Englishman to confer on his country an economic and political dominance, and in that case, arithmetic is enough; one calculates then the size of cities, particularly to arbitrate rivalry between London and Paris, one measures also the economic value of an individual; on the other hand, an use of the method of political arithmetic in the service of natural theology from a cogitation on the growth of populations with first steps in the field of futurology. If Süssmilch sees in method the bulk of the provision of English political arithmetic, to him, intellectual arguments are already present even before arguments of sense operate. Less "empiricist" than Petty, the pastor reserves for experience, only status of starting point. The quantification of the ordinary way of Nature is certainly the object of arithmetic, but its deep understanding rests on a philosophic-theological firm belief: that of natural theology.

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