The Nexus Misconceived

Certainly, the issues raised by Wittgenstein's account of measurement deserve serious debate. However, for such dialogue to produce a satisfying scholarly yield, an accurate depiction of his philosophy is required. Unfortunately, the commentaries of Jost and Gustafson (1998) and Chow (1998) carry on a dubious tradition in the social sciences of misunderstanding Wittgenstein's most essential insights. The most crippling of these is a failure to grasp Wittgenstein's remarks on the autonomy of the conceptual (rules) with respect to the empirical, and the implication of this autonomy for the treatment of conceptual and empirical issues in science.