IsisCB Explore

Thesis ID: CBB001562729

Quetelet's Average Men: Bureaucratic Science in Belgium at the End of Enlightenment 1796--1874 (2011)

Brandeis University

Publication Date: 2011
Physical Details: 285 pp.
Language: English

Outside Links

Academia.edu

Biographies Science and government Social sciences Societies; institutions; academies 19th century Belgium Quetelet, Lambert Adolphe Jacques

This dissertation presents an analysis of the professional life and thought of the Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1874). In particular, it examines the intersection between Quetelet's social thought - his proposed science of physique sociale - and his work to create institutions of science in Belgium and Europe. Not only has this relationship not been recognized by Quetelet's many critics and interpreters, but a focus on these two interdependent aspects of his career helps answer a number of the most important questions concerning nineteenth-century science and social thought. Quetelet was raised in a broad intellectual tradition inspired by the Enlightenment that did not draw distinct boundaries between the arts and science, but the consensus of the eighteenth-century philosophes collapsed near the time he entered the professional scientific ranks of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Unlike many of his friends and colleagues, Quetelet easily adapted to this new form of scientific work, reforming Belgian institutions of science and raising the prestige of his country in Europe. At the same time as he revolutionized a national program of science, he created physique sociale, a science of human activity that attracted harsh criticism, but one that endured much longer than many other nineteenth-century social theories. Through exploring Quetelet's overlooked literary and institutional publications in addition to his more famous writings, this dissertation presents an examination of the one of the most interesting nineteenth-century savants and the history of his two average men.

...More

Description Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. : doc. no. 3456125.

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001562729/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Pich, Santiago; (2013)
Adolphe Quetelet e a biopolítica como teologia secularizada (/isis/citation/CBB001420668/)

Book Donnelly, Kevin Padraic; (2015)
Adolphe Quetelet, Social Physics and the Average Men of Science, 1796--1874 (/isis/citation/CBB001422482/)

Book Joris Vandendriessche; Benoît Majerus; David Cantor; (2021)
Medical histories of Belgium: New narratives on health, care and citizenship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (/isis/citation/CBB486637264/)

Article Donnelly, Kevin Padraic; (2014)
The Other Average Man: Science Workers in Quetelet's Belgium (/isis/citation/CBB001551592/)

Article Stamhuis, Ida H.; (2007)
A Nineteenth-Century Statistical Society that Abandoned Statistics (/isis/citation/CBB000773207/)

Article Kevin Donnelly; (2017)
Redeeming Belgian Science: Periodic Phenomena and Global Physics in Brussels, 1825-1870 (/isis/citation/CBB348785063/)

Article Cooper, Brian P.; Murphy, Margueritte S.; (2000)
The death of the author at the birth of social science: The cases of Harriet Martineau and Adolphe Quetelet (/isis/citation/CBB000111761/)

Article Droesbeke, Jean-Jacques; (2005)
La place de l'éducation dans la vie et l'œuvre de Quetelet (/isis/citation/CBB000931991/)

Article Filippo Maria Sposini; (2020)
At the Borders of the Average Man: Adolphe Quêtelet on Mental, Moral, and Criminal Monstrosities (/isis/citation/CBB294903530/)

Article David Aubin; (2020)
Congress Mania in Brussels, 1846–1856: Soft Power, Transnational Experts, and Diplomatic Practices (/isis/citation/CBB709617053/)

Article Caponi, Sandra; (2013)
Quetelet, el hombre medio y el saber médico (/isis/citation/CBB001420667/)

Article Donna Tafreshi; (2022)
Adolphe Quetelet and the legacy of the “average man” in psychology (/isis/citation/CBB333634470/)

Chapter Bracke, Nele; (2010)
For State and Society? The Production of Official Statistics in 19th-Century Belgium (/isis/citation/CBB001031933/)

Article Bertrams, Kenneth; Biémont, Émile; Tiggelen, Brigitte Van; Vanpaemel, Geert; (2007)
Introduction (/isis/citation/CBB001024459/)

Article Kaat Louckx; Raf Vanderstraeten; (2015)
Household and State-istics: Cornerstones of Society in Population Censuses (Belgium, 1846–1947) (/isis/citation/CBB247423523/)

Book Orth, Karin; Oberkrome, Willi; (2010)
Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 1920--1970: Forschungsförderung im Spannungsfeld von Wissenschaft und Politik (/isis/citation/CBB001023723/)

Book Joris Vandendriessche; (2018)
Medical societies and scientific culture in nineteenth-century Belgium (/isis/citation/CBB449730912/)

Article Vandendriessche, Joris; (2014)
Wetenschapsbeoefening en belangenbehartiging: naar een nieuwe geschiedschrijving van negentiende-eeuwse medische genootschappen in de Lage Landen (/isis/citation/CBB001321076/)

Article Droesbeke, Jean-Jacques; (2010)
La statistique belge jusqu'en 1860 et ses relations avec les fondateurs de la Société de Statistique de Paris (/isis/citation/CBB001024454/)

Article Vandendriessche, Joris; (2014)
Setting Scientific Standards: Publishing in Medical Societies in Nineteenth-Century Belgium (/isis/citation/CBB001202353/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}