ABSTRACT
Scaling stands alongside indicator selection techniques as the other major method of measurement in current social research. Unlike the family of variable analysis methods, scaling, perhaps because of its technical complexity, has received little critical attention within sociology. This chapter aims to remedy the situation but not, I hope, in the form of another dire anti-positivist tract of which the discipline has had a bellyfull already. An assessment of scaling techniques is in fact particularly pertinent to this study because its very objectives are formulated in relation to, or one might even say as a defence against, certain of the phenomenological objections to measurement. Thus again the second, though not secondary, purpose of this chapter will be an evaluation of these very criticisms. Since I am going to be involved in deciphering another complicated round of critique and counter-critique, I should begin by informing the reader of the basic argument and the order of proceedings.
