Underdetermination An Essay on Evidence and the Limits of Natural Kn
Underdetermination. An Essay on Evidence and the Limits of Natural Knowledge is a wide-ranging study of the thesis that scientific theories are systematically "underdetermined" by the data they account for. This much-debated thesis is a thorn in the side
- PDF / 1,582,687 Bytes
- 11 Pages / 448.316 x 654.684 pts Page_size
- 69 Downloads / 165 Views
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Underdetermination An Essay on Evidence and the Limits of Natural Knowledge
Thomas Bonk
UNDERDETERMINATION
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editors ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University ¨ JURGEN RENN, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science KOSTAS GAVROGLU, University of Athens
Editorial Advisory Board
THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University ¨ ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University MARX W. WARTOFSKY†, (Editor 1960–1997)
VOLUME 261
UNDERDETERMINATION An Essay on Evidence and the Limits of Natural Knowledge by THOMAS BONK Ludwig-Maximilians-Universita¨t Mu¨nchen, Ger many
ABC
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008921235
ISBN 978-1-4020-6898-0 (HB) ISBN 978-1-4020-6899-7 (e-book)
Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. www.springer.com
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved © 2008 Springer Science + Business Media B.V. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
Preface Any set of phenomena admits of more than one theoretical explanation. In the short or long run testing and experimentation and basic methodological maxims tend to reduce a set of competing explanations to one. But occasionally this trusted procedure appears to fail spectacularly: competing theories are observationally equivalent, matching prediction by prediction. A well-tested explanation of phenomena turns out to have an observationally equivalent theoretical rival. Since collecting more data appears to be useless, and simplicity is not an infallible guide, one is left to wonder: which of the rival theories ought one to believe, or should one suspend judgement perhaps indefinitely? The ‘underdetermination’ of scientific theories by the data they explain has been given wider epistemological and ontological significance. W. V. Quine, in particular, suspected an “omnipresent under-determination of natural knowledge generally”. Suggestive examples from physics, methodological and semantic arguments all have been advanced to show that underdetermination runs deep and pervades our knowledge of the world. If rival theories can meet ideal methodological requirements for justified belief in equal degree, and still differ radically in what they claim about reality, is it not better then to adjust our ideas about reality, reject scientific realism, and radically revise our concept of justification and knowledge? These ideas have met with stiff resistance and increasing skepticism. Many philosophers of science today find the examples provided too limited and the systematic arguments somehow unconvincing. The preferred ap
Data Loading...
