Abstract
This article analyzes the complex historical, social and cultural transformations that accompanied the changes of meaning of the term "Statistics" (from object to method): from the comparative study of States, in the eighteenth century, to the quantitative description of society in the nineteenth century, to a set of conceptual and operational instruments for the quantitative analysis of data in the twentieth century. In this framework, three intellectual traditions whose origins date back to mid-seventeenth century - British political arithmetic, German university Statistics and French probability theory - are reconstructed in order to illustrate the deep roots of modern statistical theory in the European scientific thought, and to highlight how the intertwining of such traditions, over time, redefined the meaning of Statistics and its relation to empirical social research.
Keywords
Statistics; Historical development; Scientific thought; Social research; Method