Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-254) and index.

Introduction : Setting out ; The scope of the theory ; What kind of theory? ; Three answers, or pieces of an answer ; Historical interlude: a sketch of the scientific revolution -- Logic plus empiricism : The empiricist tradition ; The Vienna Circle ; Central ideas of logical positivism ; Problems and changes ; Logical empiricism ; On the fall of logical empiricism -- Induction and confirmation : The mother of all problems ; Induction, deduction, confirmation, and explanatory inference ; The ravens problem ; Goodman's "new riddle of induction" -- Popper: conjecture and refutation : Popper's unique place in the philosophy of science ; Popper's theory of science ; Popper on scientific change ; Objections to Popper on falsification ; Objections to Popper on confirmation ; Further comments on the demarcation problem -- Kuhn and normal science : "The paradigm has shifted" ; Paradigms: a closer look ; Normal science ; Anomaly and crisis ; Wrap-up of normal science -- Kuhn and revolutions : Considerable upset ; Revolutions and their aftermath ; Incommensurability, relativism, and progress ; The X-rated "chapter X" ; Final thoughts on Kuhn -- Lakatos, Laudan, Feyerabend, and frameworks : After structure ; Lakatos and research programs ; Laudan and research traditions ; Anything goes ; An argument from history that haunts philosophy ; Pluralism and the ramblings of madmen ; Taking stock: frameworks and two-process theories of science -- The challenge from sociology of science : Beyond philosophy? ; Robert Merton and the "old" sociology of science ; The rise of the strong program ; Leviathan and Latour -- Feminism and science studies : "Science is political"; The man of reason ; The case of primatology ; Feminist epistemology ; Science studies, the science wars, and the Sokal hoax -- Naturalistic philosophy in theory and practice : What is naturalism? ; Quine, Dewey, and others ; The theory-ladenness of observation -- Naturalism and the social structure of science : Science as a process ; Kitcher and the division of scientific labor ; Social structure and empiricism -- Scientific realism : Strange debates ; Approaching scientific realism ; A statement of scientific realism ; Challenges from traditional empiricism ; Metaphysical constructivism ; Van Fraassen's view ; Representation, models, and truth -- Explanation : Knowing why ; The rise and fall of the covering law theory of explanation ; Causation, unification, and more ; Laws and causes -- Bayesianism and modern theories of evidence : New hope ; Understanding evidence with probability ; The subjectivist interpretation of probability ; Assessing Bayesianism ; Scientific realism and theories of evidence ; Procedural naturalism -- Empiricism, naturalism, and scientific realism? ; A muddy paste? ; The apparent tensions ; Empiricism reformed ; A last challenge ; The future -- Glossary. "Theory and Reality covers logical positivism, the problems of induction and confirmation; Karl Popper's theory of science; Thomas Kuhn and "scientific revolutions;" the views of Imre Lakatos, Larry Laudan, and Paul Feyerabend; and challenges to the field from sociology of science, feminism, and science studies. The book then looks in more detail at some specific problems and theories, including scientific realism, the theory-ladeness of observation, scientific explanation, and Bayesianism. Finally, Godfrey-Smith defends a form of philosophical naturalism as the best way to solve the main problems in the field."--Publisher description.