Measuring the Intentional World

Scientific realism has been advanced as an interpretation of the natural sciences but never the behavioral sciences. Using as evidence the advances in the psychological and social sciences over the last 100 years, J. D. Trout develops a novel version of realism - Measured Realism - required to characterize a form of theoretical progress in the behavioral sciences that is uneven but indisputable. Assimilating estimation to a familiar epistemic category, Measuring the Intentional World proposes an innovative theory of measurement - Population-Guided Estimation - that connects natural, psychological, and social scientific inquiry. The philosophical defense of this naturalism requires a pattern of reasoning no stronger or more controversial than that used by scientists themselves. The role of Population-Guided Estimation is then illustrated in disputes about the methodological reliability of narrative psychoanalysis, narrative history, significance testing, triangulation, and deference to experts. Presenting quantitative methods in the behavioral sciences as at once successful and regulated by the world, Measuring the Intentional World will engage philosophers of science, and scientists interested in the foundations of their own disciplines.