Statisztika-e az útleírás?

Abstract

In the French philosophical works devoted to the theme of travel during the second half of the 18th century, we note the persistence of reflection on the questions to be asked of the inhabitants of the countries visited. Several times, models accompany him. This phenomenon is inseparable from the development of French statistical thought and the perceptible „exploratory fever” of the last years of the Ancien Régime. The study reconstructs the process going from Diderot’s propositions to Volney’s Statistical Questions and to the descriptive statistics initiatives of the Napoleonian era. As it turns out, lists of questions form the basis of observation and description each time. This provides us with a very important detail to understand the recognition processes of the turn of the 18th-19th centuries.