6.2 REFLECTIONS UPON THE STRUCTURE OF MODERN SCIENCE
In this section we wish to reflect upon three questions raised by the structure of modern science which we described above. The first question concerns the ontological difference between the two types of objects participating in that structure. Although we have extensively discoursed throughout the essay about the manner in which the two types of objects are respectively what they are, it is important that we ask this question again because the scientific community, missing as it does a proper ontological understanding of what underlies the structure, remains truly vexed by the issue: some believe that objects of explanation, though somehow different from them, are nevertheless just as real as objects of experience are; others believe they are mere mathematical concepts; while most believe the question to be largely irrelevant. We suggest however that the answer to such a fundamental question should not really be a matter of belief or disbelief but rather it should already be contained within the very structure of the science itself.
The second question concerns the proper role that man should play within the structure of modern science. Because modern scientific comportment objectifies things, it would seem that the scientific community has generally agreed to eliminate him from that structure altogether. On our understanding, however, man and objects of explanation appear to have similar ontologies and therefore we shall suggest that man, originally exiled from his own construct, has managed to return to it through the way in which he structured his science.
The final question concerns the degree to which scientific theory fits the world whose behavior it is trying to explain. The main feature of the scientific project which has generally encouraged the community to think that their creation is a true representation of laws which govern the natural world is the ability of modern physics to have successfully wrapped together mechanics, thermodynamics, chemistry, electromagnetism, and quantum mechanics into a unified structure; after all, if nature is governed by laws, science must reflect that in the unity of its theory. We shall suggest however, that even if this unifying tendency were to eventually succeed in gathering together gravitation and quantum theories, the resulting final theory would not necessarily increase the degree of truth contained therein; it would merely further elucidate the meaning of the various objects of explanation that modern science uses to attain its explanatory success.