Indícios empíricos de indeterminação da tradução em estudos etnográficos brasileiros

Rogério Passos Severo; Gilson Olegario da Silva

doi:10.32334/oqnfp.2025n57a1009

PDF (Português (Brasil))

Published: Dec 30, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32334/oqnfp.2025n57a1009

Keywords:

Quine, Indeterminacy, Translation, Ethnography, Amerindian

Rogério Passos Severo

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5556-4706

Gilson Olegario da Silva

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4810-2893

Abstract

Willard Quine never quite managed to find empirical cases of indeterminacy of translation. His reasons for affirming it remained abstract and theoretical, having to do with how language in general is used and how it relates to observations. He did come up with a few illustrations, but they were all contrived — which brings up doubts regarding the empirical standing of the thesis. This paper responds to those doubts by exhibiting actual cases of translations that meet Quine’s criteria for indeterminacy. They come from the ethnography of Amerindian peoples.

Issue

Vol. 33 No. 57 (2025): Beyond Dualism: Configurations of the Body in Modernity

Section

Other Themes

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Author Biographies

Rogério Passos Severo, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)

Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Member of the Philosophy of Science Association, the American Philosophical Association (Central Division), the Brazilian Society for Analytic Philosophy, and the Brazilian Association for the Philosophy of Religion. Contributor to the Forum for Quine and the History of Analytic Philosophy (University of Glasgow) and the Laboratory of Epistemology of Religion (University of Brasília). He was a Research Fellow in 2020–21 for the LATAM Bridges in the Epistemology of Religion project at the University of Houston. He coordinates the outreach projects “Arquipélago Filosófico” and “Janelas Filosóficas” (UFRGS). His research focuses on the philosophy of science, theory of knowledge, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion.

Gilson Olegario da Silva, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)

He is a postdoctoral researcher at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). He holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate Program in Philosophy at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp); a master’s degree in Philosophy from the Graduate Program in Philosophy (PPGF-UFSM) at the Federal University of Santa Maria; and a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy with a full teaching license from the same university. His interests and research focus on issues related to the philosophy of science, logical positivism, and the reevaluation of Rudolf Carnap’s philosophy—particularly the foundations of scientific theories and their formal structuring.

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