noun

• A form of positivism which defines scientific concepts in terms of the operations used to determine or prove them.

  ‘Milne's metaphysical views were based in positivism, most especially in operationalism: only those objects whose properties could be directly revealed by some observational procedure, or operation, were to be counted among the real.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘According to operationalism, STR changes the meanings of the concepts of space and time from the classical conception.’
  • ‘Third, Carnap realizes that the principle of operationalism is too restrictive.’
  • ‘Notions like falsification, verification, and operationalism seem like gloves that ill-fit the hand of Nature, however fashionable they may appear on the hands of idealized scientists.’
  • ‘A large number of people said that the real was the measurable, which could be a sign of realism, operationalism, or hermeneutical realism.’