Arguments from underdetermination take two forms, those from global sceptical underdetermination, global scientific underdetermination and local underdetermination. Arguments from global sceptical underdetermination bring into question all knowledge, they develop sceptical scenarios that purport to show that we cannot trust any knowledge that we obtain within the world. Arguments from local underdetermination aim to bring into question the nature of our knowledge and are geared against scientific realism. This thesis is an evaluation of the arguments that claim to do the latter, however it shows that these arguments are not arguments from local underdetermination but are from a type of global underdetermination that I call global scientific underdetermination. Based on this evaluation a new argument from local underdetermination is developed that attempts to show that nevertheless local underdetermination is indeed a problem for scientific realism. However, I argue that this argument also fails to undermine scientific realism. Recently Kyle Stanford has reintroduced an historical argument from underdetermination that he calls the argument from unconceived alternatives. Stanfords argument from unconceived alternatives is an inductive historical argument. It maintains that scientific theories are chosen from a non-exhaustive set of theories; claiming there is always at least one unconceived alternative that would better explain the empirical evidence. Stanfords new induction attempts to undermine scientific realism by arguing that our most successful theories will eventually be shown to be false. Various arguments against this induction will be considered. It will be shown that traditional scientific realism fails to address the argument from unconceived alternatives and the only form of scientific realism that can overcome this problem is structural realism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:SSU.etd-11292010-145557 |
| Date | 25 February 2011 |
| Creators | Sawkins, Corey Edwin |
| Contributors | Hudson, Robert |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-11292010-145557/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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