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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
This article introduces the notion of a kind of inference called black box measurement and argues that it is both historically and philosophically significant. Thinking about certain classic cases of underdetermination using this notion can give us a better understanding of how these cases are resolved. I take the main philosophical problem of black box measurement to be the justification of assumptions that are needed in order to make these measurements. I sketch some ways in which such enabling assumptions might be justified.
Much of the material in this article comes from my dissertation. I want to thank Michael Friedman, George Smith, Pat Suppes, Helen Longino, and Tom Ryckman for advice and support during the writing of the dissertation. Financial support for the dissertation was provided by a Whiting Fellowship. The Stanford Philosophy Department provided a great place for developing my ideas, and I want to thank Quayshawn Spencer, Angela Potochnik, Alistair Isaac, Johanna Wolff, Sally Riordan, Ehud Lamm, and Joel Velasco for numerous enlightening discussions. A six-month stay at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin gave me time to write up my dissertation, and I thank Lorraine Daston for welcoming me into her department there. Finally, I want to thank Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and the colleagues who made my first year in Singapore an easy one: Chenyang Li, Andres Luco, Lina Jansson, and Winnie Sung. Research in my first year there was supported by a Start-Up Grant (SUG) from NTU.
