9.7 Michele Marsonet, Scienza e opacità ontologica

To what extent are we entitled to draw a border line between ontology and epistemology? To many contemporary thinkers a positive answer to this question looks attractive, mainly because it reflects convictions deeply entrenched in our common sense view of the world. However, anyone wishing to clarify the distinction between the ontological and the epistemological dimensions should recognize that such a positive answer poses more problems than it is meant to solve. This is due to the fact that the separation between factual and conceptual is not clean, but rather fuzzy.

Our science is bound to be imperfect because we, human beings who construct it, are imperfect creatures. In order to obtain final and metaphysically strong answers we should detach ourselves from contingency, but we will never be able to do this. We get to know the natural environment by using scientific instruments and formulating scientific theories, but the history of the natural world with which we are acquainted always is a history that refers to human beings, because we develop it by having recourse to our conceptual apparatus.