DEFINITION
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 UNDERDETERMINATION
EXAMPLE
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.
WHEN UNDERDETERMINATION
EXIST Underdetermination exists when
available evidence is insufficient to
identify which belief one should
hold about that evidence.
In the philosophy of science, underdetermination is often
presented as a problem for scientific realism, which holds
that we have reason to believe in entities that are not
directly observable talked about by scientific theories. One
such argument proceeds as follows (to be compared to the
previous one):
1. All the available observational evidence for such entities
underdetermines the claims of a scientific theory about
such entities.
2. Only the observational evidence is relevant to believing a
scientific theory.
3. Therefore, there is no evidence for believing what
scientific theories say about such entities.