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.
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