Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

I'm reviewing this book as an instructor using it for an introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Godfrey-Smith is going for a general overview of the last one hundred or so years of debate in the philosophy of science, and it works well as a secondary source for that kind of course.

One thing that Godfrey-Smith is able to do quite well in this volume is write in a conversational style that appeals to students. In a number of ways, it comes off as the written form of a good lecture. It contains moments of quick analysis, an informal tone and even a few jokes.

It is also a strength of the book that Godfrey-Smith is clear about his own views and the ways in which they shape his analysis of the various views considered here. Students show more should recognize that these positions are not sacred or beyond the reach of their own criticism. Works like this which demonstrate a philosopher working with the ideas in addition to presenting them is a good model for the students to have.

I think there are two main weaknesses with the book, both of which call for supplementation in course readings (indeed, I'd imagine both weaknesses are the results of design decisions by the author). First, the book is short and moves fast. Complex ideas are often left underdeveloped, and some ideas are presented a bit too quickly for the students (for example, the discussion of Quine's "Two Dogmas" is understandably quick given its place in the book, but does not provide enough space to explain what his arguments are). Pairing it with a set of primary source readings alleviates this rather nicely, since students will be expected to work out the details in their own reading, but can use Godfrey-Smith as some help and guidance for the big picture issues.

The second of the weaknesses is that it does not provide sufficient historical context to debates about the scientific method in philosophy. At least an extra chapter discussing deductivism and inductivism and how they lead into Hypothetico-Deductivism (which does make an appearance) would be very helpful. This material lays the groundwork for some of the more complex ideas discussed later, and in some ways serves as an easier example to introduce the notion of a syntactic theory.

I recommend this book as a supplementary reading for an introduction to philosophy of science course. It is probably too thin to use as a main text, but its clear presentation makes it ideal for giving students a leg up on more complex primary readings. show less