How Much Can We Know? -- Decision-making Under Uncertainty, Risk, And Ambiguity -- Attempts To Turn Uncertainty Into Risk -- Knowledge As A Remedy For Uncertainty -- The Hermeneutics Of Knowledge -- Private Ways Of Reducing Uncertainty -- Public Ways Of Reducing Uncertainty -- Outline -- Part I: Principles Of States Of The World -- 2. Informal Institutions -- Informal And Formal Institutions -- From Struggle To Informal Institutions -- The Lifeworld Of Informal Institutions -- Institutionalization How Informal Institutions Show Up -- How Do Institutions Reduce Uncertainty? -- Conclusion -- 3. Formal Institutions -- Decisions For Others In Public -- Setting Laws -- Standards -- Conclusion -- 4. Evaluation -- Evaluations And Their Prevalence -- Evaluation Against Objective Scales -- Evaluation As A Discourse-towards Decisions For Others -- Conclusion -- Part Ii: Forms Producing States Of The World5. Convaluation -- 5. Convaluation -- Convaluations As Forms -- Value Uncertainty -- Mutual Adjustment -- Grown And Decided Forms Of Convaluations Producer Markets As Grown Economic Convaluations -- Convaluations As Result Of Decisions-organization -- Elections As Decided Convaluations -- Exchange Markets As Decided Convaluations -- Conclusion -- 6. Deciding For Others -- Valuation Arising From Decisions For Others -- Valuation As An Evaluation Discourse -- Reviews -- Ratings -- Prizes As Indirect Competition -- Rankings -- Predictions -- Conclusion -- 7. Contest -- Concepts Of Contest -- From Violence To Peaceful Contests -- Indirect Contests And Competition -- The Culture Of Contest -- The Making Of Forms Of Contest -- Conclusion 8. Making And Reducing Uncertainty -- The Making Of Means Of Uncertainty Reduction -- Addressing Uncertainty -- The Opportunity Of Uncertainty -- Existential Uncertainty Reduction -- Private Truth Claims And The Public -- Appendix. A Typology Of Convaluations -- Notes -- References -- Index Patrik Aspers. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Electronic Reproduction. Ann Arbor, Mi Available Via World Wide Web.