The Triumph of Numbers: Knowledges and the Mismeasure of Management

In: Administration & society, Band 38, Heft 1, S. 58-78

Abstract

We live in a world of numbers, but numbers have become so dominant that we consider nothing to be real unless it can be measured and mathematized. How did we come to live by the numbers? An answer is offered by Edmund Husserl. By constructing a history of mathematics rooted in the geometry of land surveying, it is possible to point to breaking points showing how it came to be that man is no longer the measure of all things. This provides indicators of typical misuses of measurement to be avoided in management.