Abstract
Underdetermination of theory choice claims that empirical evidence fails to provide sufficient grounds for choosing a theory over its rivals. We explore the epistemological and methodological significance of this thesis by utilising a classificatory scheme to situate three arguments that purport to establish its plausibility. Proponents of these three arguments, W.V.O Quine, John Earman, and Kyle Stanford, use different premises to arrive at the conclusion that theory choice is empirically underdetermined and their classification along the proposed schema brings out the variety in underdetermination arguments and the historical trajectory of the thesis. Although the epistemological significance of underdetermination—it is seen as undermining the doctrine of scientific realism—is widely discussed in the literature, Quine understood the acceptance of the thesis as interrogating the attitude one is justified in adopting towards rival theories. We argue that sticking with one’s own theory in the face of underdetermination leads to a distinct type of disagreement, which we present as the methodological significance of underdetermination. The examination of the methodological significance of underdetermination allows us to propose weak underdetermination as a philosophically interesting variant of underdetermination.
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Notes
For a distinction between holism and the Duhem–Quine problem, cf. Kashyap and Sirola (2018).
For Quine, observation is the private sensory expression afforded to an observer. Inter-subjectivity is due to its behavioural manifestation—the agreement of competent language users in assenting to the observation sentence when presented with the observation. Further, observation sentences are open to revisions, are spatio-temporally localised, and can be learned, in principle, ostensively. For more on observation sentences, cf. Quine (1969, 1975, 1993, 1995: Chap. 2).
Theoretical formulations are true (or false) irrespective of the context of their utterance—Quine calls such sentences standing sentences. Observation sentences, on the other hand, are true (or false) depending on the context of their utterance—Quine calls them occasion sentence—and cannot be implied by the theories. Observation categoricals are formed by compounding observation sentences. Being standing sentences, they can be implied by theories.
In (1975), Quine uses the term ‘observation conditionals’ for such expressions. We use the term that Quine came to employ in his later writings (1992a, b, 1995). The movement from observation conditionals to observation categoricals is an ascent to generality—while the former are pegged to time and place and hence presuppose an ontology of times and places, the latter restricts both the clauses to the same time and place. For more on how terms share empirical content, cf. Quine (1981: 26–28).
Quine understands theories being empirically equivalent if there is no crucial test available; “whatever observation would be counted for or against the one theory counts equally for or against the other” (1992a, b: 95). A more rigorous account of empirical equivalence that applies only to testable theories, where testability is understood in the sense of directly implying synthetic observation categoricals, is discussed in (1992a, b: 17). However, the more rigorous account is not very interesting as much science fails his testability criteria.
For Quine, the existence of irreducible empirically equivalent theories is an ‘open question,’ and what he asserts finally is more conjectural, ‘modest and vague’: “our system of the world is bound to have empirically equivalent alternatives which, if we were to discover them, we would see no way of reconciling by reconstrual of predicates” (1975: 327, italics added).
In (1992a, b: 97–98) Quine discusses three variants of empirical equivalence involving: (a) logically compatible theories with theoretical terms of one reducible to the other; (b) logically compatible terms with irreducible theoretical terms; (c) logically incompatible theories. Cases of type (c), Quine suggests following Donald Davidson, can be reduced to cases of type (b) by expressing the incompatible sentences in terms of alternative (empirically equivalent) theories, making the theories logically compatible. The emphasis for underdetermination is thus on the (ontological) irreducibility of theories, and not on their (logical) incompatibility.
The connection between Quinean underdetermination and the Lowenheim–Skolem theorem is noted by Leplin (1997: 135). The theorem also forms the basis of Putnam’s model-theoretic argument against metaphysical realism (Putnam 1980). For a technical discussion on how indeterminacy of reference follows from the Lowenheim–Skolem Theorem, also see Sher (2000).
The theorem implies that for a set of sentences T in a first-order language L having a cardinality \(\kappa \ge \aleph\)0, if T has an infinite model, T has a model of cardinality \(\lambda\) for every \(\lambda \ge \kappa\). This means that no countable first-order theory that has an infinite domain will have a unique model up to isomorphism.
Earman prefers to employ the term ‘empirical indistinguishability’ over ‘empirical equivalence’ as he does not limit the empirical significance of a theory to its consequences.
Earman does not operate within a strict observation–theoretical distinction and allows membership of E to any statement that is regarded as empirical evidence in the context of investigation (1993: 21).
Note the similarity between EI1, EI2, and Quine’s understanding of empirical equivalence.
Contrast this with Quine’s extensional, hypothetico-deductive framework in which truth identification and preservation is a corollary of the scientific method.
By conceptual determinism, Earman means that if two worlds agree on the truth values of all the empirical statements, they would also agree on the truth value of all the theoretical hypotheses.
The obvious reference here is to Laudan’s ‘Pessimistic Meta-Induction’. Stanford’s proposal differs from Laudan’s account as it “asserts a historical continuity between theorists rather than theories” Cf. Stanford (2015a: 867).
That the two doctrines are intertwined can be gauged by Leplin’s characterisation of scientific realism as the negation of underdetermination.
Earman cites Laudan and Leplin (1991) as advancing this position.
According to Earman, Poincare, Reichenbach, and Kripke, in his reading of Philosophical Investigations, back down on semantic realism. Van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism and Earman’s own position are examples of holding on to semantic realism while denying epistemic realism.
This challenge is specifically directed to such defences of scientific realism which claim continuity in scientific theories even when they are radically altered, by distinguishing aspects of a theory that map on to the world in some sense from those which are our contributions. For such a defence of scientific realism, cf. Kitcher (1993: Chap. 5), Psillos (1999: Chaps. 5, 6).
Stanford cites Ernst Mach’s ‘reductive’ instrumentalism as an example of the former, and counts Henri Poincare and Pierre Duhem as proponents of the latter view of ‘eliminative’ instrumentalism (2006: 189–192).
This accounting, as noted by Lars Bergstrom, has more to do with which theory we declare to be true, and not with whether they are true, or our knowledge of such a truth. Cf. Bergstrom (1993: 341).
Cf. Quine (1975: 326–327).
The agnostic position is not discussed by Quine, but is seen by Bergstrom (1993: 343) as more defensible.
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Kashyap, A., Sirola, V.S. The Plausibility and Significance of Underdetermination Arguments. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 36, 339–356 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-018-0167-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-018-0167-5