Empirical science contains the inductive method which includes the steps of 1) observation, 2) hypothesis, 3) testing the hypothesis through experiment, 4) development of a theory from a successful hypothesis, 5) further experiment testing of the theory with regard to predicted results and prospective invalidations of the theory. 6) Acceptance of the theory by the academy. The inductive method includes the use of the external senses of taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight to make observations. The human reason is then used to develop a hypothesis, make predictions, develop experiments and develop the scientific theory. The combined use of the human senses and the human intellect is an authentically realist approach to men coming to understand nature through science.
Yet when the scientist comes to understand nature through the empirical sciences, he only does so as through analogy. For the observations are always made in the singular, as objects of the human sense powers. The observations are then used with reason, which is always in the abstract and never in the concrete. For reason requires the use of the intellect which always makes logical acts of apprehension, judgement and reason in the universal. Each act of reason in the universal presumes the laws of reason are in accord with the laws of nature.
But the union of reason within the scientific theory and nature is only a union of analogy. For scientific theory is always idealised which presumes the theory is only in some manner an imitation of nature, rather than an exact theoretical copy of nature. As the scientific theory is always abstract, and idealised, the theory is in some manner not natural, but at least in part, an artificial construct of the scientist mind, based upon observations and the known laws of science and logic. By the scientific theory only attaining an idealised and abstract knowledge of nature, the scientist never attains to a comprehensive knowledge of nature, but only an extrinsic and analogous knowledge of the causes within nature that exist, but are beyond direct sense observation.
For example, a scientist may posit a theory of the atom, which is composed of a nucleus and surrounded by electrons. Yet the scientist only has an abstract and idealised understanding of the atom, which is never directly observed. The atomic theory may have many predictions that are experimentally verified, but because the theory is always in the abstract, the theory can never claim to observe the causes within the model which the theory proposes to exist. A scientific theory may be well developed to the point that the theory is well accepted by the academy, so much so that the scientist always thinks of nature in accord with his theory containing abstract and idealised concepts.
But even so, the scientist never directly knows the intrinsic nature of the body he is observing. He only ever knows observations through the senses and the theory through the intellect. As direct human knowledge of the intrinsic nature of bodies is not available to man, the scientist may always be detached from every scientific theory and easily embrace several theories which seek to have some explanatory value with regard to the actions of natural bodies. Moreover, the scientist may also approach science knowing that all scientific theory is open to being invalidated at any time by an observation not yet made which is not accounted for within any theory.
Based upon the limitations of the inductive method, a scientist is prudent to have a moderate detachment from any theory in the empirical sciences. Each theory does offer idealised explanatory value and does permit nature to be opened up to human knowledge. But no theory is a copy of nature, but only an analogy of nature. As analogies always involve differences between the primary analogate (observed nature) and the secondary analogate (scientific theory), the diversity between nature and theory permits the scientist to have a moderate detachment from any particular theory.
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