Note: Intro -- Contents -- Chapter 1: Introduction: Realism and Reason -- 1.1 An Outline of the Argument of the Book -- Chapter 2: The Skeptical Arguments Against Realism I: Inductive Skepticism -- 2.1 Why a Reply to Humean Skepticism About Induction Is Needed -- 2.2 Hume's Argument -- 2.3 Analysis of Hume's Argument -- 2.4 Reliabilism -- 2.5 Synthetic a Priori Reasonable Belief -- 2.6 Examples of Synthetic a Priori Reasonable Beliefs -- 2.7 Is This Acceptable to a Moderate Empiricist? -- 2.8 A Consideration of Some Objections -- 2.9 Induction -- 2.10 The Principle of Indifference -- 2.11 Objection: Other Inductive Inferences Can Be Made from the Data -- 2.12 Another Objection: The Possible Influence of the Observer -- 2.13 Grue-Bleen Type Predicates -- 2.14 Concluding Remarks -- Chapter 3: The Skeptical Arguments - 2 -- 3.1 The Pessimistic Meta-induction on the History of Science -- 3.1.1 The Phlogiston Theory of Combustion -- 3.1.2 The Caloric Theory of Heat -- 3.1.3 The Theory of the "Lumeniferous Ether" -- 3.1.4 Rankine's Thermodynamics -- 3.1.5 Summary of the Historical Cases -- 3.2 The Underdetermination of Theory by Data -- 3.2.1 Laudan and Leplin on Underdetermination -- 3.2.2 Stanford on Realism and Underdetermination -- 3.3 The Problem of Equivalent Descriptions -- 3.4 Bayes' Theorem and the Probability of Theories -- 3.5 The Experimentalists' Regress -- 3.6 The Argument from the Allegedly Unscientific Character of the Hypothesis of Scientific Realism -- 3.7 The Theory Laden-Ness of Observation -- 3.8 The Objection from Unconceived Possibilities -- 3.9 Concluding Remarks -- Chapter 4: Realism and Inference to the Best Explanation -- 4.1 Some Preliminary Issues -- 4.2 The Accessibility of the Fact That a Theory Is "the Best" -- 4.3 Probability -- 4.4 Simplicity -- 4.5 Simplicity and Curve-Fitting. , 4.6 Could Appeal to Simplicity Justify Realism?: Some General Remarks -- 4.7 Criteria Other Than Simplicity -- 4.8 Lipton's Defence of IBE -- 4.9 Kitcher's Galilean Strategy for Defending IBE -- 4.10 Novel Predictive Success -- 4.11 Deployment Realism -- 4.12 Underdetermination Again -- 4.13 Reliabilism and the History of Science -- 4.14 The Argument from Concordance, or the Agreement of Independent Methods -- 4.15 Structural Realism -- 4.16 IBE Contrasted with the View Advocated Here: A Summary -- Chapter 5: On the Inference to Unobservables -- 5.1 Eddington's Fish Net -- 5.2 Eddington's Inference and Induction -- 5.3 Eddington Inferences and Induction: Similarities and Differences -- 5.4 Eddington Inferences More Firmly Based than Induction -- 5.5 Eddington Inferences and Unobservable Entities -- 5.6 Restricted and Unrestricted Eddington Inferences -- 5.7 Eddington Inferences and Partitioning -- 5.8 Eddington Inferences and the Paradoxes of Induction and Confirmation -- 5.9 Inference to Molecules -- 5.10 Identifying the Entities to Which We Are Led by Eddington-Inferences with Those Postulated by Explanatory Theories -- 5.11 Objection One: Couldn't IBE Be Recast in Similar Probabilistic Terms? -- 5.12 Objection Two: The Argument Given Uses an Unnecessarily Weak IBE-Based Argument for Realism -- 5.13 Objection Three: Perhaps the Argument Advocated Here Implicitly Uses IBE -- 5.14 Objection Four: The View Advocated Here Is at Best Just a Variant on or Special Case of the Argument for Realism from the Concordance of Independent Methods -- 5.15 Objection Five: The Argument Uses an Assumption that Is in Fact False -- 5.16 Objection Six: The Argument Fails Because a Crucial Inferential Step Is Based on a False Assumption -- 5.17 A Route to Realism Without IBE -- 5.18 Extending the Scope of Eddington Inferences: Realism about Unobservable Properties. , Chapter 6: Underdetermination and Theory Preference -- 6.1 Illustration: A (Very) Brief Sketch of the History Astronomy -- 6.2 Conformity by Data to a Theory "by Chance" -- 6.3 Replies to Criticisms -- 6.4 Realism and the Notion of Independence -- 6.5 The Independence of Theory from Data and Popperean Boldness -- 6.6 Summary of the Argument for the Preferability of Highly Independent Theories -- 6.7 Applying the Independence of Theory from Data to Actual Science -- 6.8 Concluding Remarks -- Chapter 7: Eddington Inferences in Science - 1: Atoms and Molecules -- 7.1 Summary of Conclusions So Far -- 7.2 Maxwell's Arguments, Newton's Laws and the Gas Laws -- 7.3 Einstein and Brownian Motion -- 7.4 The Experiments of Perrin -- 7.5 Defence of the Above Interpretation of Perrin as an Argument for Realism -- Chapter 8: Eddington Inferences in Science - 2: The Size and Shape of the Universe -- 8.1 Regions of Space and Time Outside the Observable Universe -- 8.2 Can We Make More Specific, Probabilistically Justified, Assertions About What Lies Beyond the Observable Universe? -- 8.3 Empirical Determination of the Curvature of Space -- 8.4 Extending the Inferences from Two Dimensions to Three Dimensions, and to the Actual Universe -- 8.5 Scientific Realism and the Unobservability of the Very Remote -- 8.6 Application to Actual Cosmology -- 8.7 Another Way of Measuring the Curvature of Space -- 8.8 How Good Are the Foregoing Inferences? -- 8.9 Further Uses of Eddington Inferences -- 8.10 Quantum Theory -- 8.11 Is the Method of Eddington Inferences Too Limited?: Eddington Inferences and IBE Again -- 8.12 Concluding Remarks -- Bibliography.