<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 5.5.2448.0"> <TITLE>RE: definitions</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> > Then I have to revert to my fall back position and say that > your use of > the word 'ideological' is unintelligible. If all is ideology, then > nothing is. The concept ideology does not stand alone. It > only works in > relation to its opposite, science. If you collapse the latter into the > former then both become meaningless. I'm using "ideology" in the sense that Webster's defines it:  "a systematic body of concepts, esp. about human life or culture."  Science isn't just an objective fact-gathering mechanism; it purports to establish a rational basis for ordering human existence and serving *all* the needs of communities, and it is inadequate to that task.   My criticism is rooted in the view that (if I recall the author and title correctly) Yale historian Carl Becker argued in "The Heavenly City of 18th Century Philosophers" -- that science ultimately presents a spiritually unsatisfying view of the world because its knowledge is so fractionated and accessible only to specialists, whose work becomes more and more unintelligible to one another, not to mention to the lay public. Carl  </BODY> </HTML>