Quine, Willard Van Orman

"The aims of science are predictive and explanatory, not metaphysically revelatory."

"Every belief we hold is part of a system that must be judged as a whole."

"Language is governed by convention and pragmatic necessity, not by a pre-existing reality."

"Objects do not come already packaged in nature; we decide how to individuate them."

"The choice between theories rests ultimately on aesthetic and pragmatic grounds."

"All language is shaped by our interests and purposes."

"There is no access to reality unmediated by our conceptual scheme."

"We do not learn language by ostensive definition but through complex networks of associations."

"Epistemology is naturalized when we treat knowledge as a natural phenomenon."

"The unity of science is achieved through reduction and unification of concepts."

"Words are meaningless in isolation; they derive meaning from their role in a system."

"To adopt a theory is to adopt an ontology."

"Scientific explanation reduces the unfamiliar to the familiar."

"The search for truth is inseparable from the construction of theories."

"Our understanding of the world is always tentative and subject to revision."

"Necessity and possibility are features of our language, not of the world itself."

"Science differs from speculation in being responsive to experience."

"The most abstract principles of logic may themselves be revisable."

"Identity is not an intrinsic feature of objects but a feature of how we conceptualize."

"Every statement has meaning only in relation to a web of other statements."

"The progress of science is measured by increased predictive power and simplification."

"We can never step outside our conceptual scheme to compare it to the world itself."

"Stimulus and response are connected through learned dispositions, not innate essences."

"The question of what exists is inseparable from questions about language and meaning."

"Empirical science is our best guide to reality precisely because it is revisable."

"Coherence is the primary test of truth within a system of beliefs."

"Language is pragmatically motivated but not determined by the world."

"The ontology of a theory is what one must posit to make the theory true."

"All our beliefs hang together in a network of mutual support and correction."

"Beauty in science comes from simplicity and generality of principles."