Preface

Summary

This volume is descended from a paper delivered to the Western Division meetings of the Canadian Philosophical Association in 1971. That paper sketched the argument of chapter 2 and the principal thesis of chapter 5. In the interim, several intermediate versions of that material have been presented on a variety of occasions, and I should like to thank the participants, audiences, and departments involved for their kindness and critical suggestions.

The present essay is addressed simultaneously to two distinct audiences. The first audience consists of my professional colleagues, other academics, students, and lay readers, who are less than intimately familiar with the philosophical position commonly called scientific realism. For them I have here attempted to make available in fairly short compass a coherent and comprehensive account of that position as it bears on the philosophy of perception, on the theory of meaning, on the philosophy of mind, and on systematic epistemology. The view proposed is not merely eclectic, however. The synthesis effected is novel in various respects, and the supporting arguments are for the most part novel as well. It is my earnest hope, therefore, that the discussion will be found entertaining, and valuable as well, to those of my colleagues who already share a familiarity with the philosophy of science in general and with scientific realism in particular.