Shedding the Quantitative Imperative
Journal Title: Social Behavior Research and Practice – Open Journal - Year 2016, Vol 1, Issue 1
Abstract
I am, unfortunately, trained in the quantitative imperative associated with pythagoreanism and adopted by scientists during the development of common scales for length, mass, temperature, and time. While interested in complex and social behaviors, I have found myself at odds within my chosen field of psychology due to what is considered a requirement of science: true quantitative measurement. My background in physics impressed upon me a different definition of measurement than what I have become accustomed to within psychology, especially within the social and cognitive subfields. The quantitative imperative holds knowledge requires measurement, and measurement of an attribute requires a discovery of continuous ratios of real numbers (i.e. a=r*b where r is a unit and b is a magnitude). From this perspective, knowledge requires quantification, and quantification requires units that describe continuous scales.
Authors and Affiliations
David Philip Arthur Craig
Keywords
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- EP ID EP541703
- DOI 10.17140/SBRPOJ-1-102
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