ABSTRACT
Science assimilates the complexity of appearances to relatively simple models. The theorist may thus leave to philosophers of science the task of challenging shared assumptions. Yet the more basic and widely shared these assumptions are, the more likely they are to escape critical notice. Scientific thought attempts to account for the details in terms of the generalities: to express the found in terms of the made, the real in terms of the ideal, the natural in terms of mathematical constructs. To idealize is to remake the world according to taste—which, of course, means someone's taste. Idealization follows naturally from the ability to generalize, abstract, and extrapolate. Natural idealism is the complementary intuition that the true essence of the world consists in ideas, thoughts, or perceptions rather than material things. While appearing to be its opposite, natural idealism extends natural realism through processes of abstraction, reification, and projection.
