Can there be one meaning of "measurement" across the sciences?

Abstract

The International Vocabulary of Metrology (VIM) gives the following definition of 'measurement': "process of experimentally obtaining one or more quantity values that can reasonably be attributed to a quantity". In pursuit of a common understanding of measurement, we explore this condition of reasonableness across the sciences, asking in particular whether there are common features of the structure of measurements in different fields of study that could meet this criterion. We propose that a general sufficient condition for measurement is that it is an experimental process of evaluation of empirical properties that produces explicitly justifiable information, which, we argue, is consistent with characterizations of science and epistemology more generally.