Underdetermination and Theoretical Virtues
Publication Title:
Underdetermination and Theoretical Virtues
Author:
Dana Tulodziecki
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Publication Date:
June 9, 2025
About the Book (from the publisher): In Underdetermination and Theoretical Virtues, Associate Professor of Philosophy Dana Tulodziecki examines the long-standing problem that scientific evidence often supports multiple, competing theories, raising questions about how scientists can rationally choose among them. Tulodziecki proposes the “epistemic labour view of theoretical virtues", which is grounded in a permissive pluralism about the epistemic goals of science. Her core claim is that theoretical virtues—properties such as explanatory and predictive power, lack of ad hoc features, coherence with other scientific theories, and so on—play an epistemic role in our scientific theories just in case they work to promote a theory’s scientific epistemic goals. The result is a nuanced account of how scientific knowledge can remain reliable even when evidence alone does not fully determine the best theory.
About the Author: Dana Tulodziecki is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University and Affiliate Faculty in the Purdue Policy Research Institute (PPRI). She holds degrees in Philosophy and History and Philosophy of Science from the LSE and Columbia University. Her current work falls into two main areas: first, questions related to scientific progress, theory-choice, and the question of what factors, besides the empirical evidence, make epistemic contributions to our scientific theories and hypotheses; second, the Philosophy of Space Science and Space Ethics and Policy. She has written on these topics in journals such as The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, Synthese, and Nature Communications.
Dana is Chair of the Executive Board for the Committee for Integrated History and Philosophy of Science, an Associate Editor for the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and on the Editorial Board for Studies in History and Philosophy of Science and Purdue University Press. She is also a member of several space-related ELSI (Ethical, Legal, and Societal Implications) Advisory Groups for DARPA. Her work has been featured on Science News, CNN, Washington Post, History Channel, Popular Mechanics, How Stuff Works, and other venues. Her outreach also includes speaking for podcasts and radio, such as NPR and Radio France.