They are not
to be seen as a representation of a reality "out there," but
as tools for capturing and dealing with what is perceived to
be "out there." The scientist on this score, like others in
everyday life, draws upon symbolic constructs to make concrete
the relationships between subjective and objective
worlds, in a process which captures only a pale and abbreviated
view of either. For science, like other modes of
symbolic activity, is built upon the use of imperfect epistemological
tools, harboring what Cassirer (1946) described
as the "curse of mediacy," and providing what Whitehead
(1925) described as "useful fictions" for dealing with the world.