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Some Implications of the Logical Calculus for Empirical Classes for Social Science Methodology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

William C. Schutz
William C. Schutz*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Abstract

An exposition of a calculus for empirical classes (CEC), one of the few attempts by logicians to deal with the problem of constructs and indicators, is presented. The CEC provides the groundwork for a formal structure for the situation in which individuals have a degree of membership in various classes rather than having either membership or nonmembership—a situation nearly always true in empirical research. The CEC is presented and its relation to various social science concepts is mentioned. An application of the CEC model to latent structure analysis (LSA) suggests alternatives to the local independence assumption including one called the local scale assumption, which has a close relation to a Guttman scale.

Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 1959 , pp. 69 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © 1959 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

*

This work was done while the author was an S.S.R.C. Fellow at Columbia University working on a project in social science methodology. Much is owed to Professor Paul Lazarsfeld for frequent discussions and suggestions both prior to and during the writing of this paper. Herbert Menzel also contributed valuable critical comments. Professor Abraham Kaplan also aided by reading the manuscript and offering helpful comments.

References

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