180
6.5.3 Property Evaluation Types
Given this broad characterization of what values of properties are, it is now clear
that the four conditions that in Chap. 2 we have proposed as necessary for a process
to be considered a measurement can also be fulfilled by the evaluation of a nonquantitative property: it may be a process that is empirical (Sect. 2.2.1) and designed on
purpose (Sect. 2.2.2), whose input is a property of an object (Sect. 2.2.3), and that
produces information in the form of values of that property (Sect. 2.2.4).
However, as previously noted, such conditions are not claimed to be also sufficient. In other words, since measurement is a property evaluation but not all property evaluations are measurement, the fact that conditions that are necessary for
measurement apply to the evaluation of nonquantitative properties is still not sufficient to conclude that nonquantitative properties are measurable. While Chap. 7 is
devoted to proposing our account of the structural conditions that characterize measurement, it is time now to come back to the issue of whether NOIR is about ways
of evaluating properties or about properties as such.
The question of the scope of NOIR, as elaborated in Sect. 6.5.1, is in fact about
the alternative between a more modest instrumentalist, epistemological position,
which assumes that we can only characterize evaluations (and more specifically
measurements) rather than properties as such, and a stronger realist, ontological
position, according to which we can instead say something about properties themselves, plausibly also on the basis of what we learn in the process of evaluating
them. Of course, the more modest position is also safer, and seems to be more consistent with falsificationism (Popper, 1959) and better able to take into account the
fact that scientific revolutions (Kuhn, 1969) can annihilate bodies of knowledge that
were deemed to be established: Given the always revisable status of our hypotheses
about the empirical world—as illustrated, for example, by the historically wellknown cases of phlogiston and the caloric—wouldn’t it be wiser to renounce any
ontological claim about the structure of properties as such?
Let us explore the issue in the light of the assumption of two conditions of information consistency for an evaluation (Giordani & Mari, 2012: p. 446):
(C1) For each relation among properties of objects there is a relation among values
such that the evaluation preserves all property relations: this guarantees that the
information empirically acquired is maintained by the evaluation.
(C2) Only relations among values that correspond to relations among properties of
objects are exploited while dealing with values: this guarantees that the information conveyed by values is actually about the evaluated properties.
In summary, values should convey all and only the information available on the
evaluated properties. This is plausible, to say the least: given that values are what an
evaluation produces, they should report everything that was produced, and that otherwise would be lost (C1), but nothing more than that, to prevent unjustified inferences (C2). These two conditions deserve some more consideration.
6 Values, scales, and the existence of properties
6.5.3 Property Evaluation Types
Given this broad characterization of what values of properties are, it is now clear
that the four conditions that in Chap. 2 we have proposed as necessary for a process
to be considered a measurement can also be fulfilled by the evaluation of a nonquantitative property: it may be a process that is empirical (Sect. 2.2.1) and designed on
purpose (Sect. 2.2.2), whose input is a property of an object (Sect. 2.2.3), and that
produces information in the form of values of that property (Sect. 2.2.4).
However, as previously noted, such conditions are not claimed to be also sufficient. In other words, since measurement is a property evaluation but not all property evaluations are measurement, the fact that conditions that are necessary for
measurement apply to the evaluation of nonquantitative properties is still not sufficient to conclude that nonquantitative properties are measurable. While Chap. 7 is
devoted to proposing our account of the structural conditions that characterize measurement, it is time now to come back to the issue of whether NOIR is about ways
of evaluating properties or about properties as such.
The question of the scope of NOIR, as elaborated in Sect. 6.5.1, is in fact about
the alternative between a more modest instrumentalist, epistemological position,
which assumes that we can only characterize evaluations (and more specifically
measurements) rather than properties as such, and a stronger realist, ontological
position, according to which we can instead say something about properties themselves, plausibly also on the basis of what we learn in the process of evaluating
them. Of course, the more modest position is also safer, and seems to be more consistent with falsificationism (Popper, 1959) and better able to take into account the
fact that scientific revolutions (Kuhn, 1969) can annihilate bodies of knowledge that
were deemed to be established: Given the always revisable status of our hypotheses
about the empirical world—as illustrated, for example, by the historically wellknown cases of phlogiston and the caloric—wouldn’t it be wiser to renounce any
ontological claim about the structure of properties as such?
Let us explore the issue in the light of the assumption of two conditions of information consistency for an evaluation (Giordani & Mari, 2012: p. 446):
(C1) For each relation among properties of objects there is a relation among values
such that the evaluation preserves all property relations: this guarantees that the
information empirically acquired is maintained by the evaluation.
(C2) Only relations among values that correspond to relations among properties of
objects are exploited while dealing with values: this guarantees that the information conveyed by values is actually about the evaluated properties.
In summary, values should convey all and only the information available on the
evaluated properties. This is plausible, to say the least: given that values are what an
evaluation produces, they should report everything that was produced, and that otherwise would be lost (C1), but nothing more than that, to prevent unjustified inferences (C2). These two conditions deserve some more consideration.
6 Values, scales, and the existence of properties