Bestimmbarkeit

Bestimmbarkeit is a German term that roughly translates to determinability or the ability to determine. In scholarly usage it denotes the property that a quantity, proposition, or state can be identified, specified, or estimated under defined conditions. The concept is used across philosophy of science, logic, mathematics, and statistics to distinguish what can be known or derived from given information or rules from what cannot.

In philosophy and logic, Bestimmbarkeit concerns the determinability of entities or truths under a theory or framework. It relates to questions about reference, definability, and decidability: whether a term or statement can be uniquely specified or settled within a formal system or conceptual scheme.

In statistics and measurement theory, Bestimmbarkeit is closely linked to identifiability. A model parameter is identifiable if different parameter values imply distinct probability distributions of observed data, so that the parameter can be uniquely determined from data in principle. Practical identifiability also depends on data quality and experimental design. Models that are not identifiable require additional constraints, priors, or reparameterizations to allow reliable estimation.

In physics, and particularly in quantum mechanics, determinability is influenced by fundamental limits on measurement. The precision with which certain pairs of quantities can be known simultaneously (such as position and momentum) affects the practical determinability of those quantities.

Overall, Bestimmbarkeit in German-language discourse covers both theoretical possibility (whether something can in principle be determined) and practical attainability (whether it can be determined with available methods and data). See also definability, identifiability, decidability.