The metaphysics of measurement.

The aim of this research is to set up a precise theoretical framework for the notion of "experimental observation", both from the ontological and the logical point of view, and thus to demonstrate the fact that every experimental project entails a non-trivial ontological shift in the part of the world - the "physical system" - observed by means of it. This has implicatons for the notion of "objectivity": one cannot simply take the result of the measurement executed by an experimental set up and reason about the reality that underlies it, because this reality has been transformed in an irreducible way. One can say that a black box mediates the relation between the "real world" and the scientific theory based on "empirical" data obtained from it. Put otherwise, it is my aim to open this black box and to lay bare its content.