operationalism
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˌɒpəˈreɪʃənəlɪzəm/
- Formal
- One thing does seem clear, however, and that is that operationalism, fully as much as (if not more so than) Dewey's artisan conception of science, underwrites the exclusive conception of "knowledge as power," and it tends further to encourage confounding science and technology.
Examples
-
In the debate on theory and measurement, operationalism provides clarity by stating that a concept's meaning lies in its measurement methods.
-
What needs to be pointed out further, however, is that this embrace of operationalism brought some of the unresolved ambiguities of modern science itself directly into Dewey's scheme of things.
Academic text (1991) -
After all, pure operationalism, in the strict sense, says nothing about anything; it only operates.
Academic text (1991) -
Operationalism, from its beginning, has not been an uncontroversial interpretation of what science is about.
Academic text (1991) -
Operationalism in its extreme form, as represented by Bridgman, is science at its most formal.
Academic text (1991) -
There is abstract operationalism.
Academic text (1991) -
Perhaps, only half tongue-in-cheek, we should describe Einstein as a modern patent engineer of physics, his theory of space and time not just a philosophical brand of neo-Machian operationalism, but a patent officer's simple but brilliant intervention.
Academic text (1997) -
Yet we must ask, did Dewey himself in the end really hold resolutely to his own explicit and narrow definition of cognition as exclusively the controlled inquiry of pure operationalism?
Academic text (1991) -
But none of what I would consider to be the most insightful works of contemporary international relations theory seem to have resulted from commitments to epistemologies of logical positivism, operationalism, or empirical verifiability that rest at the philosophical core of behavioralism.
Academic text (1990) -
The study emphasized operationalism, asserting that understanding a concept relies solely on the processes used to evaluate it.
Surface Forms
Morphology
operationalism = operational (semi-transparent) = operation + al + ism
Formed by adding the doctrinal suffix '-ism' to the adjective 'operational'; structure is clear but the resulting term denotes a specialized philosophical doctrine.
Etymology
Operationalism comes from the words operation and operate, which mean 'to do' or 'a set of actions', plus the ending -ism, meaning 'belief' or 'system'. So operationalism is the idea that a concept's meaning should be given by the real operations or steps used to measure or test it.