Abstract

Meinong's realist theory of measurement is brought up against the presently dominating positivist and operationalist view. His criticism of 19th century positivist analysis of measurement (J. v. Kries) turns out to be pertinent to modern model-theoretic analysis (Suppes and Zinnes). Meinong's ontology of quantities as well as his view of associative and derived measurement is confronted with the operational analysis. The positivist cannot make sense of measurement error and tries to push it aside. In Meinong's view it is pivotal. This view harmonises with the practice of measurement where error is used as a means of gaining knowledge. Starting from Meinong and his pupil Mally a more adequate theory of measurement could be developed.