Talk:Underdetermination

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[edit] Requests for claification requested

This page was written rather quickly and I (the author) fear that it might rely on too much jargon. I'm really immersed in the philosophical discussion of this problem (in the philosophy of science) and it would help me, if you found places where this article digresses into jargon or just over-technicality, if you would point them out to me here. I'm usually pretty good at making things clear once I know what to clarify, and I'll do my best. philosofool

I don't think the problem is one of jargon, but of a somewhat wide view of the problem itself. There seems to be no difference, in your view, between underdetermination and indetermination. Underdetermination ought to signify those situations were evidence limits the range of acceptable ("true", "good", take your pick) theories, but not to a single theory. If there is no limitation at all (Cartesian dreams/demons, the Matrix) then it's not strictly speaking underdetermination, but indetermination.

Examples of true underdetermination arguments are David Hume's (which only limits theory acceptance with regards to past observations, but not to future predictions, hence the underdetermination) and especially Pierre Duhem's holistic argument against "crucial experiments." (Quine had a similar idea a half-century later.) In fact, pretty much all of the contemporary philosophical debate on underdetermination problems takes its cue from Duhem, so he ought to be mentioned. I might have time to add something later.

Other relevant figures are Nelson Goodman (the Grue argument) and Kripke's Wittgenstein's skeptical argument about rule-following. Even more peripheral is Harry Collin's "Experimenter's Regress." For people who have written extensively about underteremination problems, see for example Larry Laudan, Donald Gillies, and Imre Lakatos. Kronocide 19:35, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I will second Kronocide in his assesment. Also, it could be considered jargony everywhere, but probably inextricably so. The solution, rather than trying to find the best synonyms in the thesaurus would be to give more examples, wherever possible. AnandaTree 02:44, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

That a theory is underdetermined is a premise upon which skepticism often rests. Since skepticism is a view that challenges beliefs about knowing and people value knowledge, people often speak of "the underdetermination problem."

This makes sense. Yet, underdetermination is not mentioned at skepticism?

He rejects all such arguments but they have been very influential in epistemology.)

What does this mean?

Skepticism, and consequently underdetermination, has a history at least as old as the ancient Greeks. This issue has continued to be one in philosophy ever since.

Does this add anything? Not sure.

It actually adds an error. Scepticism and underdetermination are not the same thing. There can be scepticism without underdetermination, so it's not a consequence of that there were scepticism in ancient Greece that there were also underdetermination (arguments. Note that if theories are underdetermined by evidence, then this has always been the case, but the sentence above seems to want to be about what types of arguments existed, not if underdetermination existed.) There is, as I've mentioned above, generally a confusion between underdetermination arguments and general scepticism in this article. Descartes's demon, for example, has nothing to do with underdetermination. Kronocide 14:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[Descartes], who attempted to argue from a skeptical position to a position in which he had significant knowledge.

Does this mean anything? I think it needs to be spelled out to add value.

I've reworked the examples, and trimmed. Possibly too much.

A question I have is, are the example theories provided really inconsistent?

David Hume is another source of an important underdetermination argument, the problem of induction.

Is he 'the' source or 'a' source? I'll punt on 'the'. Please fix if I've guessed wrong.

A set of beliefs that has been shown to be false by new evidence can adapt via ad hoc hypotheses, replacing the hypotheses that have been contradicted with new ones that are consistent with the new evidence, while retaining the core content of the theory. In addition to claiming that for a particular theory there is at least one rival theory consistent with all evidence for the theory, it is often claimed that there are infinitely many such theories.

I love this paragraph, but I don't think it belongs where it was. Any suggestions?

This is the holistic underdetermination argument, the most widely discussed today, so it should be described somewhere. Kronocide 14:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Lastly, am I right that faith could be defined as accepting one of two+ contradictory theories in the presence of underdetermination? And that skepticism is the refusal to accept an accepted theory on the grounds of underdetermination?

I think the important question is if it is defined that way, and it isn't, so that should not go into the article. Scepticism could be described as the refusal to accept a generally accepted theory, for some reason. Not necessarily for reasons of underdetermination. (Descartes's scepticism, for example, was not based on underdetermination.) Kronocide 14:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I think there's still some work needed, but at the least, it's a bit more readable?

Regards, Ben Aveling 06:30, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion this page needs more or less a complete rewrite. There is already a page about scepticism, so this page should be about underdetermination, properly so called. Underdetermination means that there is a determination deficit, not that nothing at all is determined by evidence. That would be indetermination (not a standard philosophical term, I should add) and general scepticism. To wit: inductive arguments exclude all theories that disagree with already observed events, but does not choose between the ones that don't, hence there is underdetermination with regard to what a theory says about the future; in holistic underdetermination, the set of beliefs consisting of theory and background assumptions is actually deductively falsified, but different theories compatible with the evidence can be constructed by properly changing one of the beliefs in that set. This is underdetermination. Something is determined, but not one unique theory. Kronocide 14:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)