The Epistemic Privilege of Measurement: Motivating a Functionalist Account

Abstract

Abstract Philosophers and metrologists have refuted the view that measurement’s epistemic privilege in scientific practice is explained by its theory neutrality. Rather, they now explicitly appeal to the role that theories play in measurement. I formulate a challenge for this view: Scientists sometimes ascribe epistemic privilege to measurements even if they lack a shared theory about their target quantity, which I illustrate through a case study from early geodesy. Drawing on that case, I argue that the epistemic privilege of measurement can precede shared background theory and is better explained by its pretheoretic function in enabling a distinctive kind of inquiry.

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