"The final paradox of the search for purity is that it is an attempt to force experience into logical categories of non-contradiction. But experience is not amenable and those who make the attempt find themselves led into contradiction." - Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger

Marcel Boumans is historian and philosopher of science at Utrecht University. His main research focus is on understanding empirical research practices in economics from a philosophy of science-in-practice perspective. He is particularly interested in the practices of measurement and modelling and the role of mathematics in social science. The first step in these practices is to make sense of the available data. Visualisations play an important role in this. His current research project 'Vision and Visualisation' focuses on how phenomena are shaped.

Inaugural adress: Historicism and its Monsters

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