Concept
Underdetermination
Overview
In the philosophy of science, underdetermination or the underdetermination of theory by data (sometimes abbreviated UTD) is the idea that evidence available to us at a given time may be insufficient to determine what beliefs we should hold in response to it. The underdetermination thesis states that all evidence necessarily underdetermines any scientific theory.
Underdetermination exists when available evidence is insufficient to identify which belief one should hold about that evidence. For example, if all that was known was that exactly $10 were spent on apples and oranges, and that apples cost $1 and oranges $2, then one would know enough to eliminate some possibilities (e.g., 6 oranges could not have been purchased), but one would not have enough evidence to know which specific combination of apples and oranges were purchased. In this example, one would say that belief in what combination was purchased is underdetermined by the available evidence.
In contrast, overdetermination in philosophy of science means that more evidence is available than is necessary to justify a conclusion.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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It can, as philosophy, prove them on _a priori_ grounds, but it cannot demonstrate them; unless we wish to depart entirely from the proper meaning of this word, according to which _to demonstrate_ (_ostendere_, _exhibere_) is equivalent to presenting a concept in intuition (whether in proof or merely in definition). If the intuition is _a priori_ this is called construction; but if it is empirical, then the Object…
Immanuel Kant, Kant's Critique of Judgement
States what Underdetermination is; the author is tied to Underdetermination in the knowledge graph.
They are always real, because they concern the existence of substance (negations are only determinations, which express the non-existence of something in the substance). Now, if to this real in the substance we ascribe a particular existence (for example, to motion as an accident of matter), this existence is called inherence, in contradistinction to the existence of substance, which we call subsistence. But hence…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
States what Underdetermination is; the author is tied to Underdetermination in the knowledge graph.
All these kinds of probability are received by philosophers, and allowed to be reasonable foundations of belief and opinion. But there are others, that are derived from the same principles, though they have not had the good fortune to obtain the same sanction. The first probability of this kind may be accounted for thus.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
The author is tied to Underdetermination in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Underdetermination
Related ideas
- Noumenon
- Falsifiability
- General relativity
- Immanuel Kant
- Theory of Colours
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Classical mechanics
- Anti-realism
- Explanatory power
- Simplicity
- Knowledge
- Quantum mechanics
- René Descartes
- Skepticism
- Solar System
- Scientific realism
- The Matrix
- Justification (epistemology)
- Duhem–Quine thesis
- Willard Van Orman Quine
- Occam's razor
- Philosophy of science
- Overdetermination
- Theory-ladenness
Place in the tradition
Part of Analytic philosophy.