Underdetermination and indirect measurement [electronic resource]
Keywords: Philosophy

We have been astonishingly successful in gathering knowledge about certain objects or systems to which we seemingly have extremely limited access. Perhaps the most difficult problem in the investigation of such systems is that they are extremely underdetermined. What are the methods through which these cases of underdetermination are resolved? I argue in chapter 1 that these methods are best understood by thinking of what scientists are doing as gaining access to the previously inaccessible parts of these systems through a series of indirect measurements. I then discuss two central problems with such indirect measurements, theory mediation and the combining of effects, and ways in which these difficulties can be dealt with. In chapter 2, I examine the indirect measurement of planetary distances in the solar system in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Copernicus and Kepler. In this case, there was an underdetermination between three different theories about the motions of the planets, which can be partly resolved by the measurement of distances between the planets. The measurement of these distances was enabled by making certain assumptions about the motions of the planets. I argue that part of the justification for making these assumptions comes from decompositional success in playing off measurements of the earth's orbit and the Mars orbit against each other. In chapter 3, I examine the indirect measurement of mechanical properties such as mass and forces in the solar system by Newton. In this case, there were two underdeterminations, the first an underdetermination between two theories about the true motion of the sun and the earth, and the second an underdetermination between various theories for calculating planetary orbits. Newton resolves these two problems of underdetermination through a research program where the various sources of force are identified and accounted for. This program crucially requires the third law of motion to apply between celestial objects, an issue about which Newton was criticized by his contemporaries. I examine the justification for the application of the third law of motion through its successful use for decomposition of forces in the solar system in a long-term research program. I further discuss comments by Kant on the role of the third law of motion for Newton, in which Kant recognizes its indispensability for a long-term program for determining the center of mass of the solar system and thus defining a reference point relative to which forces can be identified. Chapter 4 covers the indirect measurement of density in the earth's interior using observations of seismic waves. One of the difficult problems in this case is that we can think of the interior density of the earth as a continuous function of radius--in order to determine this radius function, you are in effect making a measurement of an infinite number of points. The natural question to ask here is how much resolution the observations give you. I focus on the work of geophysicists who were concerned with this problem, out of which a standard model for the earth's density was developed.