Reply to symposiasts

AS A PHYSICIST, FIRST AND FOREMOST, I approach philosophy like all empirical sciences, that is, as proposing models of the domain addressed. This means that each theory abstracts from the complexities of the domain under study and proceeds through idealizations of the “reality” it purports to describe. For this reason, every account has flaws that arise not only from the inevitable occasional errors in analysis, but also from the fact that by design each account, being a model, omits certain aspects of reality that may prove to be important in understanding the issue under examination. The commentaries on my book bring to the fore concerns related to both sorts of problems described above. I am grateful to the commentators for their critical notes and I hope that my replies will promote debate and shed some light on the problem of cognitive penetrability.