List, I'd like to ask another question about the topic of chapter 6. This question is not about the "Fixation of Belief." Rather, it is about a part of the philosophy of science that does not figure prominently in Kees's discussion.
In the first half of the 20th century, a methodological dispute arose between those who were engaged in the special sciences of physics and psychology. At the time, physics was considered a "hard" science because it was based on observations involving exact measurements. The second was considered a "soft" science because it appeared to be based on observations that did not seem to be amenable to such an exact treatment. In time, as the debate came to a head, a expert panel of experts in measurement was asked to take a closer look at the issues. See, for instance, Stanley Smith Stevens, "On the theory of scales of measurement" (1946).. In order to sort out a number of the contested issues, Suppes, Luce, Krantz and Tversky engaged in an ambitious attempt to examine the foundations of measurement in a more systematic and thorough manner. Let's state the question in general terms. What position does Peirce take with respect to the foundations of measurement? If we look at Peirce's work in mathematics generally and on measurement theory in particular, we see him trying to provide a coherent framework for understanding foundations of key conceptions, such as quantity, order, magnitude. How does his position compare to the accounts that have been developed in the 20th century by the likes of Stevens, or by Suppes, Luce, Krantz and Tversky? --Jeff
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