Conteúdo Empírico de Teorias e Subdeterminação em Willard Quine

• Main Author: Sofia Inês Albornoz Stein
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 1998-12-01
• Series: Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology
• Subjects: Willard V. O. Quine; underdetermination; observacional sentences
• Online Access: http://www.periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/principia/article/view/18550/17295

This paper deals with Quine's several attempts to define the concept of underdetermination of scientifics theories in some of his articles and with the dependence of this definition on other concepts of Quine's semantic holism. To define "underdetermination", Quine needs to explain the relationship between theory and observation. His position concerning this subject can be criticized, on the one hand, by saying that it gives an insufficient criterion for "underdetermination", and, on the other hand, by asserting that it is still too close to the reductionist's conception of truth.