Fundamental And Refined Principles: The Core Of Modern Science

Abstract

The debate over empiricism and realism concerns the very nature of modern science: what it is, or what it ought to be. Empiricism, in its extreme form, claims that there is no reality behind appearances, and that it is the task of science to determine what the appearances are and what the formal relations are that obtain among them. In its weaker form, in which the existence of a trans-empirical reality is admitted, empiricism claims that due to the transcendent nature of this reality no knowledge can be had of it, and it suggests essentially the same methodology as does the stronger form.