Neusa Teresinha Massoni

Ilya Prigogine: uma contribuição à filosofia da ciência

The objective of this paper is to bring to the epistemological debate some of the major philosophical ideas of Ilya Prigogine as a scientist and a short summary of his scientific theories as a philosopher. We believe that he, a well known physicist-chemist, 1977 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, did not consider himself a philosopher of science. However, his new interpretation of time, of chaos and instability, sources of disorder as well as of order, takes us to an excursion through a science in evolution, according to Prigogines words, and it leaves no doubts about his deep contributions to a renewed view of the interrelationship between science and philosophy. The ideas summarized in this paper should not be taken as undue generalizations, since studies in this area are still underway, but just as an stimulating contribution to contemporary epistemological views.