Measuring the Intentional World : Realism, Naturalism, and Quantitative Methods in the Behavioral Sciences

Scientific realism has been advanced as an interpretation of the natural sciences but never as an interpretation of the behavioural sciences. This book introduces a novel version of scientific realism Measured Realism that characterizes the kind of theoretical progress in the social and psychological sciences that is uneven but indisputable. Measuring the Intentional World proposes a theory of measurement Population-Guided Estimation that connects natural, psychological, and social scientific inquiry.