Description: Preface for Instructors Preface for Students Chapter One: Copernican Questions What Was Copernicus's Revolution? What Happens When Your World Changes? Copernican Questions: Rationality and Realism Further Readings for Chapter One Chapter Two: Is Science Really Rational? The Problem of Incommensurability Incommensurability of Standards Incommensurability of Values Incommensurability of Meaning Evaluating Meaning Incommensurability Conversion: A Concluding Case Study Further Readings for Chapter Two Chapter Three: A Walk on the Wild Side: Social Constructivism, Postmodernism, Feminism, and that Old-Time Religion The Constructivist Challenge Postmodernism Attacks! Is "Objectivity" What a Man Calls His Subjectivity? Is Science Godless? Further Readings for Chapter Three Chapter Four: Ascending the Slippery Slope: Scientific Progress and Truth The Evils of Whig History Social Constructivist History Does Science Converge towards Truth? Assessing Laudan's Critique of Convergent Realism Scientists' Own Realism Could We Be Wrong about Everything? Further Readings for Chapter Four Chapter Five: Truth or Consequences? Electrons: Real Particles or Convenient Fictions? Van Fraassen's Constructive Empiricism Do We Observe through Microscopes? But What about Things that AreReallyUnobservable? So, What Really Is the Goal of Science? Further Readings for Chapter Five

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