Abstract
One of the disturbing consequences of contemporary theory of science is the haze which surrounds its notion of progress. As long as science was held to converge on “truth” or “objective reality” in its path of evolution, successive theories could be defined as constituting progress by being more true, or more conformant to reality, than their predecessors. When the essentially constructed character of all knowledge came to be realized, however, it became clear that we do not see reality independently of our conceptions of it. Observation, to quote Hanson,(1) is theory laden. We do not see “what is there” otherwise than by interpreting the stimuli emerging into our consciousness as sensation in terms of some preestablished conceptual or gestalt scheme.(2) Our gestalts and concepts guide our perception of reality, and there are no ways whereby we could compare our conceptions of reality with reality itself. There are no checks on scientific veridicality through direct inspection of the world “out there.” And if we cannot compare our scientific theories to objective reality, we cannot tell which of them is truly conformant to it. Hence we cannot give meaning to a concept of progress in reference to reality.
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© 1976 Plenum Press, New York
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Laszlo, E. (1976). Nonempirical Criteria in the Development of Science. In: Laszlo, E., Sellon, E.B. (eds) Vistas in Physical Reality. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2202-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2202-3_7
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