Underdetermination An Essay on Evidence and the Limits of Natural Knowledge [Hardcover]

This timely book offers a wide-ranging study of the thesis that scientific theories are systematically underdetermined by the data they account for. After analyzing the epistemological and ontological aspects of the topic in detail, and reviewing pertinent logical facts and selected scientific cases, the author carefully examines the merits of arguments for and against the thesis. Along the way, he investigates methodological proposals and recent theories of confirmation.

1 A Humean Predicament?1.1. Aspects of Underdetermination1.2. Significance of the Thesis1.3. Quine, Realism, and Underdetermination1.4. No quick solutions1.5. Three responses and strategies2 Underdetermination Issues in the Exact Sciences2.1. Logical Equivalence, Interdefinability, and Isomorphism2.2. Theorems of Ramsey and Craig2.3. From Denotational Vagueness to Ontological Relativity2.4. Semantic Arguments2.5. Physical Equivalence2.6. Underdetermination of Geometry3 Rationality, Method, and Evidence3.1. Deductivism Revisited3.2. Quine on Method and Evidence3.3. Instance Confirmation and Bootstrapping3.4. Demonstrative Induction3.5. Underdetermination and Inter-theory Relations4 Competing Truths4.1. Constructivism4.2. Things versus Numbers4.3. Squares, Balls, Lines, and Points4.4. Algorithms5 Problems of Representation5.1. Ambiguity5.2. Conventionalism: Local5.3. Conventionalism: Global5.4. Verificationism and Fictionalism6 Underdetermination and Indeterminacy6.1. Underdetermination of Translation6.2. Indeterminacy versus Underdetermination6.3. Empirical Investigation of Cognitive Meaning6.4. Indeterminacy and the Absence of Fact6.5. Quines Pragmatic Interpretation of UnderdeterminationBibliographyIndex

From the reviews:

The essay makes a useful reading not only for advanced students of analytical philosophy but also for philosophically minded scientists. & provides an impressively comprehensive coverage of an enduring philosophical conundrum. & Bonlã+