Abstract

We study the notion of measure and how it can help us understand the relationships between science and philosophy. After a historical introduction where we indicate how measure has been used by the pre-Socratic, ancient, medieval and modern thinkers, we proceed to define this notion. Measure conveys more than a quantitative meaning; measure can be used in several different, albeit interconnected, senses. Analogy, then, is presented as the fundamental characteristic of the notion of measure. ;We proceed to relate the different meanings of measure to the main ways in which science has been understood throughout history. We consider realist, rationalist, empiricist and technological versions of science, and the role that analogy and measure play in them. The study of the sciences is completed with a chapter on the human sciences and the function that measure has been given in them. We conclude this part with a summary where key conclusions are drawn. Among them, perhaps the most important is that measure is an essential component of science; the operations of science have measure as an indispensable constituent. ;In the last part we first consider reality as a measure of the intellect and claim that this will allow us to examine the speculative sciences from the viewpoint of their operations. A metaphysics of these operations based on the analogy of measure leads us to conclude that philosophical and scientific realism is the best choice among the different 'modes' of science. The notion of philosophical regulation of science and a classification of the sciences is also proposed in terms of analogy of measure. ;Secondly we consider reality as measured by the intellect and claim that this measuring originates the practical disciplines. We distinguish between the production of artifacts and the production of moral acts as two analogically related forms of measuring that depend on the acts of an 'expert'. And finally, it is also in the expert that we find the criterion by which we integrate the operations of the speculative and the practical disciplines. We conclude with some theological considerations about the ultimate origin of every measuring, moral or otherwise