MEANING, TRANSLATION AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES IN W.V.O. QUINE

Abstract

The problems and the views about translation between languages are at the heart of the debate concerning the science and the epistemic value of scientific theories. Are scientific theories representations of truth and do they express true facts (phenomena) of the world or are they simply instruments and “hypotheses” which can be more or less useful in the interpretation of phenomena and in the technological applications? (Cf. Popper, 1956). The epistemology of W.V.O. Quine is an extreme form of empiricism. His view on knowledge as a way “from stimulus to science”, without reference to a determined and univocal world of objects, is bound to an ontological relativity where theory is undetermined with respect to experience. In my opinion, Quine’s conception of science, as well as that of his followers, is something like a “black box” view, because his absolute empiricism denies the possibility of true descriptions of phenomena. Moreover, the instrumentalism proposed by Kuhn and Quine is self-contradictory because better or worse “instruments” can exist, in a technical sense, with respect to reality.