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Underdetermination and the Problem of Identical Rivals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

P. D. Magnus
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Abstract

If two theory formulations are merely different expressions of the same theory, then any problem of choosing between them cannot be due to the underdetermination of theories by data. So one might suspect that we need to be able to tell distinct theories from mere alternate formulations before we can say anything substantive about underdetermination, that we need to solve the problem of identical rivals before addressing the problem of underdetermination. Here I consider two possible solutions: Quine proposes that we call two theories identical if they are equivalent under a reconstrual of predicates, but this would mishandle important cases. Another proposal is to defer to the particular judgements of actual scientists. Consideration of an historical episode—the alleged equivalence of wave and matrix mechanics—shows that this second proposal also fails. Nevertheless, I suggest, the original suspicion is wrong; there are ways to enquire into underdetermination without having solved the problem of identical rivals.

Type
Confirmation and Statistical Inference
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 70 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers , December 2003 , pp. 1256 - 1264
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

In writing and revising this paper, I benefitted from helpful conversations with Craig Callender, Jonathan Cohen, and a number of fellow graduate students. Part of the work was done with the support of a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship. A version of this paper was presented to the Southern California Philosophy Conference in October 2001.

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