250
process of empirically obtaining one or more values that can reasonably be attributed to a
property of an object
This remains, in essence, a black box characterization of measurement, thus defined
as an empirical process whose input is a property of an object, and whose output is
one or more values.
Read at face value, this definition would equally apply to processes such as
guessing or a statement of a personal opinion (e.g., “I think it will be three degrees
warmer tomorrow than it is today”; “I’m ten percent happier today than I was yesterday”), with the only condition being that some empirical activity was performed
for obtaining the result. In order to avoid the conclusion that such processes are
included in the set of possible measurements, the VIM’s definition critically relies
on the adverb “reasonably”.
However, reasonableness is not a formal condition, and it is plausible that different fields of knowledge and cultural contexts would accept different criteria for
identifying what is reasonable. Rather, the condition of reasonableness could be
considered a means of providing an encompassing definition, acceptable by the
broadest set of researchers and practitioners, independently of their field of activity.
(Indeed, who would refuse to accept that measurement should produce “reasonable” results?) But this condition is not sufficiently specific: it could be that, for
example, some guesses about empirical properties could be considered reasonable,
but nevertheless we might refuse to accept them as measurements. Hence the problem we explore here is, as the conclusion of this book: Can there be one criterion of
reasonableness that is sufficient to characterize measurement processes across the
sciences?
This key problem could be interpreted as related to a descriptive—rather than
normative—characterization: “measurement” is a term for a designed, not a natural,
entity, and in principle everyone is free to use the term for whatever (s)he likes. But
this does not take into account the special epistemic authority commonly afforded
to measurement: Were it the case that measurement and processes such as opinion
making were equally valuable, why should resources be devoted to developing,
buying, maintaining, and operating expensive measuring instruments? Furthermore,
we do not see, a priori, any reason for reasonableness to be restricted to the evaluation of physical properties: it is then a critical condition for the criterion we are
seeking that it be one that applies across the sciences. A specific sufficient condition
could be, in particular, that the process is realized by means of a properly operated
calibrated physical transducer that is sensitive to the property intended to be measured, which is indeed the sufficient condition usually applied to characterize physical measurements, and, in fact, this prompted the initial development of the Hexagon
Framework: it works for physical properties, and, in our view, provides some guidelines for designing measurement systems for psychosocial properties. But treating
this as a general sufficient condition would correspond to an old-fashioned physicalism, which assumes that only physical properties are measurable, thus considering nonphysical properties to be unmeasurable simply by fiat. Hence any such
8 Conclusion
process of empirically obtaining one or more values that can reasonably be attributed to a
property of an object
This remains, in essence, a black box characterization of measurement, thus defined
as an empirical process whose input is a property of an object, and whose output is
one or more values.
Read at face value, this definition would equally apply to processes such as
guessing or a statement of a personal opinion (e.g., “I think it will be three degrees
warmer tomorrow than it is today”; “I’m ten percent happier today than I was yesterday”), with the only condition being that some empirical activity was performed
for obtaining the result. In order to avoid the conclusion that such processes are
included in the set of possible measurements, the VIM’s definition critically relies
on the adverb “reasonably”.
However, reasonableness is not a formal condition, and it is plausible that different fields of knowledge and cultural contexts would accept different criteria for
identifying what is reasonable. Rather, the condition of reasonableness could be
considered a means of providing an encompassing definition, acceptable by the
broadest set of researchers and practitioners, independently of their field of activity.
(Indeed, who would refuse to accept that measurement should produce “reasonable” results?) But this condition is not sufficiently specific: it could be that, for
example, some guesses about empirical properties could be considered reasonable,
but nevertheless we might refuse to accept them as measurements. Hence the problem we explore here is, as the conclusion of this book: Can there be one criterion of
reasonableness that is sufficient to characterize measurement processes across the
sciences?
This key problem could be interpreted as related to a descriptive—rather than
normative—characterization: “measurement” is a term for a designed, not a natural,
entity, and in principle everyone is free to use the term for whatever (s)he likes. But
this does not take into account the special epistemic authority commonly afforded
to measurement: Were it the case that measurement and processes such as opinion
making were equally valuable, why should resources be devoted to developing,
buying, maintaining, and operating expensive measuring instruments? Furthermore,
we do not see, a priori, any reason for reasonableness to be restricted to the evaluation of physical properties: it is then a critical condition for the criterion we are
seeking that it be one that applies across the sciences. A specific sufficient condition
could be, in particular, that the process is realized by means of a properly operated
calibrated physical transducer that is sensitive to the property intended to be measured, which is indeed the sufficient condition usually applied to characterize physical measurements, and, in fact, this prompted the initial development of the Hexagon
Framework: it works for physical properties, and, in our view, provides some guidelines for designing measurement systems for psychosocial properties. But treating
this as a general sufficient condition would correspond to an old-fashioned physicalism, which assumes that only physical properties are measurable, thus considering nonphysical properties to be unmeasurable simply by fiat. Hence any such
8 Conclusion