Modeling and Measurement: The Criterion of Empirical Grounding

Philosophy of Science 79 (5):773-784 (2012)
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Abstract

A scientific theory offers models for the phenomena in its domain; these models involve theoretical quantities, and a model's structure is the set of relations it imposes on these quantities. A fundamental demand in scientific practice is for those quantities to be clearly and feasibly related to measurement. This demand for empirical grounding can be articulated by displaying the theory-dependent criteria for a procedure to count as a measurement and for identifying the quantity it measures.

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10.1086/667847

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Author's Profile

Bas C. Van Fraassen
San Francisco State University

Citations of this work

Old and New Problems in Philosophy of Measurement.Eran Tal - 2013 - Philosophy Compass 8 (12):1159-1173.
Making Time: A Study in the Epistemology of Measurement.Eran Tal - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (1):297-335.
Measurement in Science.Eran Tal - 2015 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
On Theory Dependence of Truth in Measurement.Alessandro Giordani & Luca Mari - 2021 - Perspectives on Science 29 (6):757-781.

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