Underdetermination and decomposition in Kepler's Astronomia Nova |
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Authors: | Teru Miyake |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Athens, University Campus, 157 71 Athens, Greece;2. Department of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 100 Malloy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA |
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Abstract: | This paper examines the underdetermination between the Ptolemaic, Copernican, and the Tychonic theories of planetary motions and its attempted resolution by Kepler. I argue that past philosophical analyses of the problem of the planetary motions have not adequately grasped a method through which the underdetermination might have been resolved. This method involves a procedure of what I characterize as decomposition and identification. I show that this procedure is used by Kepler in the first half of the Astronomia Nova, where he ultimately claims to have refuted the Ptolemaic theory, thus partially overcoming the underdetermination. Finally, I compare this method with other views of scientific inference such as bootstrapping. |
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Keywords: | Underdetermination Kepler Astronomy Methodology Inference Induction |
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