Is there anything operationalism got right?

Abstract

Is there anything operationalism got right? Operationalism (operationism) as a position in the philosophy of science is widely regarded as a failure. This dismissive attitude towards operationalism is not shared by researchers in some sciences (notably psychology), however, where operationalist ideas enjoy significant support or at least implicit endorsement. What explains this difference in attitude towards operationalism? Is it that scientists have simply failed to think through the damning consequences of operationalism, perhaps because they are taking a casual, pragmatic attitude towards any kind of philosophical viewpoint? Or is it that philosophers have been too quick in regarding operationalism as doomed? I suggest that the most likely explanation for this difference in attitude is that the position dismissed by philosophers is not identical to the viewpoint (implicitly) endorsed in certain parts of the scientific community. Those aspects of operationalism, which lead philosophers to reject operationalism as a viable position, are unlikely to be the ones that make operationalism attractive to scientists. Perhaps we should suspect, then, that there is something operationalism got right, which leaves the question how to identify and salvage that insight from the admittedly unsatisfactory philosophical position that goes by the name of operationalism. In my paper I pursue the question what, if anything, operationalism got right from two angles. On the one hand, I want to see to what extent philosophy’s dismissal of operationalism is based on a “guilt by association” fallacy. The primary philosophical defenders of operationalism were logical positivists. Operationalism as a semantic thesis about the meaning of theoretical terms was seen as an important special case of verificationism as a thesis about meaning in general. I suggest that many of the arguments against operationalism are really arguments against verificationism. On the other hand, to make sense of the popularity of operationalism among certain scientists, we need to ask what makes operationalism attractive to them. While some of that attraction seems to be connected to a vaguely logical positivist approach to science, which would seem to justify the guilt by association inference described above, the more important reason for operationalism’s appeal is connected to measurement. Operationalism takes measurement to be central to the understanding of quantities. Traditionally understood, operationalism places measurement at the center of our understanding of quantities by making measurement procedures part of the semantics of quantity terms. It is against this semantic claim that most philosophical criticisms of operationalism are directed. I suggest that the real question for friends of operationalism is how separate the centrality of measurement in an account of quantities, while rejecting the semantic thesis. While I do not expect that a full-scale rehabilitation of operationalism is possible, I do suggest that this insight of operationalism might be salvaged, as part of a general metaphysical account of the nature of quantities.