The trouble with the idea of measurement is its seeming clarity, its obviousness, its implicit claim to finality in any inquisotory discourse. Its status in philosophy of science is taken to be utterly primitive; hence the difficulties it embodies, if any, tend to escape detection and scrutiny. Yet it cannot be primitive in the sense of being exempt from analysis; for if it were every measurement would require to be simply accepted as a protocol of truth, and one should never (...) ask which of two conflicting measurements is correct, or preferable. Such questions are continually being asked, and their propriety in science indicates that even measurement, with its implication of simplicity and adroitness, points beyond itself to other matters of importance on which it relies for validation. (shrink)

Recent discussions in the physical literature, designed to clarify the logical position of modern physical theory, have brought to light an amazing divergence of fundamental attitudes which may well bewilder the careful student of physics as well as philosophy. Quantum mechanics, representing an abstract formalism, should be capable of having its logical structure analyzed with great precision like any other mathematical discipline. Its consequences in all problems to which its method can be applied are so unambiguous, consistent, and successful in (...) predicting physical experience as to disperse immediately all thoughts of possible discrepancies in its fundamental texture. Yet it must be said that even the founders of quantum theory are not in harmony in their various expositions of the bases of that theory. However, while this situation seems disquieting on the face of it, there is no cause for serious brow raising, for it is a fact that there exists agreement with regard to the central axioms of the theory, and that the ambiguities affect only their philosophical interpretation, a field in which differences of opinion may at present be honestly entertained. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Prugovečki offered a theory of simultaneous measurements based upon an axiomatic description of the measurement act which excludes certain illustrations of simultaneous measurement previously discussed by the present writers. In this article, the fundamental conceptions of state preparation, state determination, and measurement which underlie our research are compared to Prugovečki's interpretations of the analogous constructs in his theory of measurement.