Preface to the Revised English Edition -- Preface to the First English Edition -- Preface to the Dutch Edition -- Introduction -- PART I   HABERMAS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE -- 1 Habermas’s Philosophy of the Natural Sciences -- 2 Analysis and Critique -- PART II   EXPERIMENTATION AND REFERENTIAL REALISM -- 3 Experimentation in the Natural Sciences -- 4 Verifiability and Reference, Relativism and Realism -- 5 Specification and Application: Two Case Studies from the History and Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics Conclusion -- References -- POSTSCRIPT 2012 -- References to the Postscript -- Index.

The book addresses the topical issue of scientific realism and it proposes a detailed account of a referential realism. This account exploits several fruitful ideas of Jürgen Habermas, it builds on an analysis of scientific experimentation, and it is developed through an in-depth case study of the history of quantum mechanics. The Revised edition, with a new postscript   situates the book within the recent debates on the issues under discussion.