There are also a fair number of specific topics from the philosophy of science that are spelled out in terms of statistics or that are located in close proximity to it. One of these topics is the process of measurement, in particular the measurement of latent variables on the basis of statistical facts about manifest variables.  The so-called representational theory of measurement (Kranz et al 1971) relies on statistics, in particular on factor analysis, to provide a conceptual clarification of how mathematical structures represent empirical phenomena. Another important topic form the philosophy of science is causation (see the entries on  probabilistic causation and  Reichenbach's common cause principle).  Philosophers have employed probability theory to capture causal relations ever since Reichenbach (1956), but more recent work in causality and statistics (e.g., Spirtes et al 2001) has given the theory of probabilistic causality an enormous impulse. Here again, statistics provides a basis for the conceptual analysis of causal relations.