On under-determination in cosmology

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 46 (1):57-69 (2014)
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Abstract

I discuss how modern cosmology illustrates under-determination of theoretical hypotheses by data, in ways that are different from most philosophical discussions. I emphasise cosmology's concern with what data could in principle be collected by a single observer ; and I give a broadly sceptical discussion of cosmology's appeal to the cosmological principle as a way of breaking the under-determination.I confine most of the discussion to the history of the observable universe from about one second after the Big Bang, as described by the mainstream cosmological model: in effect, what cosmologists in the early 1970s dubbed the ‘standard model’, as elaborated since then. But in the closing Section 4, I broach some questions about times earlier than one second.

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Jeremy Butterfield
Cambridge University

Citations of this work

Time in Cosmology.C. D. McCoy & Craig Callender - 2022 - In Eleanor Knox & Alastair Wilson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 707–718.
Epistemic Justification and Methodological Luck in Inflationary Cosmology.C. D. McCoy - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (4):1003-1028.
Cosmic Topology, Underdetermination, and Spatial Infinity.Patrick James Ryan - 2024 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 14 (17):1-28.

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References found in this work

Quantum Gravity.Carlo Rovelli - 2004 - Cambridge University Press.
Galilean Idealization.Ernan McMullin - 1985 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 16 (3):247.
Philosophy of Cosmology.Chris Smeenk - 2013 - In Robert W. Batterman (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics. Oxford University Press USA. pp. 607-652.

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