Conceptual engineering and operationalism in psychology

Synthese 199 (3-4):10615-10637 (2021)
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Abstract

This paper applies conceptual engineering to deal with four objections that have been levelled against operationalism in psychology. These objections are: operationalism leads to harmful proliferation of concepts, operationalism goes hand-in-hand with untenable antirealism, operationalism leads to arbitrariness in scientific concept formation, and operationalism is incompatible with the usual conception of scientific measurement. Relying on a formulation of three principles of conceptual engineering, I will argue that there is a useful form of operationalism that does not fall prey to these four objections.

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Citations of this work

Conceptual Engineering is Old News.Krzysztof Sękowski & Ethan Landes - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
Democratising Measurement: or Why Thick Concepts Call for Coproduction.Anna Alexandrova & Mark Fabian - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (1):1-23.
Deweyan conceptual engineering: reconstruction, concepts, and philosophical inquiry.Oscar Westerblad - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
Patchworks and operations.Rose Novick & Philipp Haueis - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-21.

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