ABSTRACT
Before considering in some depth the question of what quantity and measurement really are, I want to consider two conceptions of measurement now widely accepted within psychology: operationalism and representationalism. The preceding chapter traced the emergence of these two theories of measurement from the older, classical theory. It is important to recognize that the history of a theory is logically independent of the issue of its truth. Even granting that these later conceptions of measurement were accepted within psychology simply to save the preconception that psychology had to be quantitative, it still may be the case that one or the other of them is true. Other arguments must be presented in order to show them to be false. That is the aim of this chapter.
