Measurement and Meaning

This book provides a critical survey of measurement theories and a clear exposition of the concerning philosophical questions. The author offers a new, constructive interpretation for measurement in both physics and the social sciences, arguing for a constructivist approach.

Measurement and Meaning takes stock of the most important projects in the conceptual grounding of measurement, from early representational theories through the axiomatic approach to operationalism. Ferenc Csatári thoroughly analyzes the main philosophical issues and identifies problems with each of these accounts. In addition, he observes the peculiarities of measurement in social sciences. Ultimately, he argues for a constructivist approach to measurement. As long as measurement is conceived as an assignment of numerical structures to represent properties (as traditionally done), one might feel obliged to account for continuum, errors, and truth. The author puts these key concepts under scrutiny and arrives at a non-trivial, constructive interpretation for each. On these new conceptual grounds, the active quest for congruence in phenomena will be the key to establishing meaningful measurement procedures.