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Social Science Information
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Les Origines Philosophiques et Scientifiques de la Théorie Représentationnelle de la Mesure (1930-50)

Olivier Martin

CERLIS (Centre de Recherche sur les Liens Sociaux, Université Paris V), Olivier.martin{at}paris5.sorbonne.fr

There has been much controversy regarding the possibility of measuring human facts. In particular, the recourse to quantification and measurement in psychological research into human sensory capacities has been greatly criticized. In the 1940s, the American psychophysicist Stanley S. Stevens proposed a new conception of measurement that extended the field of measurable phenomena and justified the use of measurement in human and social sciences. His measurement theory is based on physicist Percy Bridgman's ideas of representation, on an operationalist epistemology, and also on a philosophy of numbers marked by logicism. This theory, which affirms that to measure is to assign numbers to objects in order to represent their empirical properties, makes it possible for Stevens to propose four levels of measurement, according to the nature of the empirical properties of the objects measured. The article describes in detail the philosophical and scientific origins of this representational theory of measurement.

Key Words: Bertrand Russell • Logicism • Norman Campbell • Ooperationism • Percy Bridgman • Psychological measurement • Psychophysics • Representational theory of measurement • Stanley S. Stevens

Social Science Information, Vol. 42, No. 4, 485-513 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0539018403424003
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