Making Time: A Study in the Epistemology of Measurement

This article develops a model-based account of the standardization of physical measurement, taking the contemporary standardization of time as its central case study. To standardize the measurement of a quantity, I argue, is to legislate the mode of application of a quantity concept to a collection of exemplary artefacts. Legislation involves an iterative exchange between top-down adjustments to theoretical and statistical models regulating the application of a concept, and bottom-up adjustments to material artefacts in light of remaining gaps. The model-based account clarifies the cognitive role of ad hoc corrections, arbitrary rules, and seemingly circular inferences involved in contemporary timekeeping, and explains the stability of networks of standards better than its conventionalist and constructivist counterparts. 1 Introduction2 Making Time Universal 2.1 Stability and accuracy 2.2 Multiple realizability 2.3 The challenges of synchronicity 2.4 Divergent standards 2.5 The leap second3 The Two Faces of Stability 3.1 An explanatory challenge 3.2 Conventionalist explanations 3.3 Constructivist explanations4 Models and Standardization 4.1 A third alternative 4.2 Stability reconceived 4.3 Legislative freedom 4.4 Discovering gaps 4.5 Nature and society entangled 4.6 Remark on scope5 Conclusions