Article ID: CBB468717595

From Harmony to eHarmony: Charles Fourier, Social Science, and the Management of Love (2021)

unapi

This essay examines techniques of amorous matching in the work of the “utopian socialist” Charles Fourier (1772–1837), recovering the practices and the institutions he proposed for the management of love, as well as his political arguments for their centrality in a perfected society. In doing so, it argues more broadly for the need to position the management of love at the origin of early social science. Much as early defenses of capitalism had at their core a discourse of the passions, so too was Fourier’s socialism invested in exploring how problems of political economy were those of passional economy. To rectify the latter, Fourier attempted to articulate both a mathematical system—a calcul des passions—and a centralized information system for the gathering and sorting of personal data. The recovery of his vision thus has the potential to inform critically a radical politics of algorithmic matching through Big Data—the province today not of utopian socialism but of online dating apps.

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Article Hansun Hsiung; Elena Serrano (2021) Introduction: Epistemologies of the Match. Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 760-765). unapi

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB468717595/

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Authors & Contributors
Serrano, Elena
Hsiung, Hansun
Autumn Womack
Jacqueline Anne Taylor
Antonella Tropeano
Lalevee, Thomas
Concepts
Social sciences
Love
Applied mathematics
Emotions; passions
Socialism
Dating; romantic relationships
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
Early modern
20th century, early
17th century
Modern
Places
France
Great Britain
England
Americas
Spain
Italy
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