Abstract

Practitioners of science treat evidence as separate and objective body of materials, potentially quite diverse, but importantly “prior to,” or at any rate independent of, all theory. Philosophers of science, by contrast, are increasingly wary about the role of theory in testing and measurement contexts, and hence have problematized the notion of evidence as prior or independent, even in the context of measurement. This paper argues that there is a very real and important sense in which empirical certification of a quantity, via measurement, is indeed prior to theorizing, albeit not necessarily in order of time. The case for this priority distinguishes between the certification of the measurability of a given quantity, as a quantity appropriately measured on a specified scale, and the epistemic warrant due to an assignment of a specific magnitude to that quantity on a given occasion. The result is an account of the certification of a measurable quantity, independent of any theory in which that quantity features. And the effect is to render certification of quantities theory-neutral. The aim of the essay is thus to bolster and re-establish a more nuanced empiricist view, via building a case for quantity certification as the epistemic basis (i.e. foundation) of the scientific enterprise.