The World of Parmenides by Scott Austin

Author:Scott Austin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781136320743
Publisher: Routledge

6 REALISM

Like Parmenides I am a realist: I am interested in problems and theories about the world. If, in addition to critical rationalism, I may confess to a second faith, it is realism.

My faith in realism and my faith in critical rationalism are not, however, commitments, but merely conjectures, since I am quite ready to give them up under the pressure of serious criticism. Yet with respect to realism I feel very near to Parmenides. For should I have to give up realism I think I should lose all interest in ideas, since the only reason for my interest is my desire to learn something about the world, and for this we need ideas, especially theories about the world. It seems to me almost miraculous that we have learnt so much about the world, even though all this knowledge is conjectural, and beset with unsolved problems, which constantly remind us how little we know. Next to art, or even equal to it, science – that is, producing and testing theories about the world, about reality – seems to me to be the greatest creative enterprise of which men are capable.

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