Willard Van Orman Quine

"We project our categories onto nature, then forget we did so."

"Questions about existence are questions about what to quantify over."

"Coherence is the best test of truth we possess."

"The laws of nature are our most successful theoretical posits."

"Language reform and philosophical clarification are twin enterprises."

"Objects are bundles of properties we have learned to perceive together."

"Science is continuous with everyday reasoning, not discontinuous."

"Our conceptual schemes carve nature at its joints—or fail to do so."

"The indeterminacy of translation undermines naive realism about meaning."

"Accepting a theory commits us to the existence of its entities."

"Understanding requires seeing how beliefs fit into systematic wholes."

"The stimulus is underdetermined by our sensory input."

"Reductionism appeals to us because it offers simplicity."

"Language reflects our best theories about the world."

"Reality constrains but does not determine our theories."

"Empirical equivalence does not imply metaphysical equivalence."

"The criterion of identity is relative to a sortal concept."

"We revise our most cherished beliefs only under pressure."

"Necessary truth may be relative to a conceptual framework."

"Names acquire reference through baptism and historical chains."

"Quantifiers express our deepest ontological commitments."

"The logic of nature is transparent only in mathematics."

"Sensory experience underdetermines the world we construct."

"Simplicity and elegance guide theory choice in science."

"Analytic truth is a matter of convention and linguistic stipulation."

"Metaphor and analogy are seeds of conceptual growth."

"The problem of other minds reveals the limits of observable evidence."

"Classes are useful fictions, not abstract entities."

"Universals puzzle us because we confuse grammar with ontology."

"Scientific progress is measured by explanatory power, not truth."