ABSTRACT
We do not live in a world of our making. Our existence and survival depends on our recognizing this fact, and in coming to terms with the world as it actually is, not as we would like it to be. In natural science we have been able to develop a systematic account of many real regularities in the real world. Doing this has involved the correction of more primitive categories and classifications of natural phenomena which were implicit in our perceptual apparatus or explicit in our language, and also of earlier ideas of the nature of things. The pragmatic aspects of science are closely bound up with the correction of incorrect perceptions and theories. The successful prediction and manipulation of nature presupposes that there is at least some truth in our ideas about nature.
