Rolland "Rollie" Smith
1 min readSep 26, 2023

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Yes, I too am enough of a realist to agree with his conclusion, but enough of an idealist to understand that my and our world is/are not just the outside-there-now of realism. And that is why science tries to get to reality that unites and understands our worlds through the method of experimentation, theory that can be falsified and therefore limited, revised, and put out to other scientists. Yet, that of course objectifies the things we sense in the universe by using the artifacts of words, formulas, art forms, symbols. And so we struggle with the ambiguity and tension between consciousness confronting natural environment. I too think that there is an invisible or not-sensible experience in our objective visible or sensed one. I see both the traditions of pragmatism and phenomenology wrestling with this. And so I refuse both realism and idealism and suggest relationalism—which is what science aided by philosophy (and vice versa) does without end—knowledge through relationships, inner and outer.

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Rolland "Rollie" Smith
Rolland "Rollie" Smith

Written by Rolland "Rollie" Smith

Social Ethics U Chicago. Community organizer Chicago, Toronto, San Jose, ED nonprofits in California, Hawaii, Ohio, HUD Field Office Director, California.

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