ABSTRACT
This chapter looks closely at the philosophical arguments made to support the customary conventional view of measurement, particularly with regard to constants. It argues that these historic accounts provide only a partial understanding of the nature of constants, and that the conventionalism that arises relates only to the numerical representations used to quantify the measurement of quantities. The story of conventional numerical representation needs to be supplemented by an account of the empirical foundations of constants. One of the great goals of fundamental physics is to find the reason for the precise numerical values of the constants that appear in the equations that prescribe the laws of Nature. A particular feature of the empirical grounding of primitive derived constants is the possibility of interesting cases of underdetermination arising from the different alternative fundamental measurement systems used to anchor the constant concerned.
