This book has grown out of eight years of close collaboration among its authors. From the very beginning we decided that its content should come out as the result of a truly common effort. That is, we did not "distribute" parts of the text planned to each one of us. On the contrary, we made a point that each single paragraph be the product of a common reflection. Genuine team-work is not as usual in philosophy as it is in other academic disciplines. We think, however, that this is more due to the idiosyncrasy of philosophers than to the nature of their subject. Close collaboration with positive results is as rewarding as anything can be, but it may also prove to be quite difficult to implement. In our case, part of the difficulties came from purely geographic separation. This caused unsuspected delays in coordinating the work. But more than this, as time passed, the accumulation of particular results and ideas outran our ability to fit them into an organic unity. Different styles of exposition, different ways of formalization, different levels of complexity were simultaneously present in a voluminous manuscript that had become completely unmanageable. In particular, a portion of the text had been conceived in the language of category theory and employed ideas of a rather abstract nature, while another part was expounded in the more conventional set-theoretic style, stressing intui tivity and concreteness.

Inhalt
I: Models and Structures.- I.0 Introduction.- I.1 Models and Potential Models.- I.2 Types and Structure Species.- I.3 Set-Theoretic Predicates and Lawlikeness.- I.4 Plausible Interpretations.- I.5 Example: Decision Theory.- I.6 Example: Collision Mechanics.- I.7 Example: Classical Particle Mechanics.- II: Theory-Elements.- II.0 Introduction.- II.1 Cores and Intended Applications.- II.2 Constraints.- II.3 Theoreticity, Partial Potential Models, and Links.- II.4 Theory-Cores Expanded.- II.5 Application Operators.- II.6 Intended Applications.- II.7 Idealized Theory-Elements and Empirical Claims.- III: Some Basic Theory-Elements.- III.0 Introduction.- III.1 Classical Collision Mechanics.- III.2 Relativistic Collision Mechanics.- III.3 Classical Particle Mechanics.- III.4 Daltonian Stoichiometry.- III.5 Simple Equilibrium Thermodynamics.- III.6 Lagrangian Mechanics.- III.7 Pure Exchange Economics.- IV: Theory-Nets.- IV.0 Introduction.- IV.1 Specializations.- IV.2 Theory-Nets.- IV.3 Theory-Net Content and Empirical Claim.- IV.4 The Theory-Net of Classical Particle Mechanics.- IV.5 The Theory-Net of Simple Equilibrium Thermodynamics.- V. The Diachronic Structure of Theories.- V.0 Introduction.- V.1 Pragmatic Primitive Concepts.- V.2 Theory-Evolutions.- V.3 The Evolution of CPM.- V.4 The Evolution of SETH.- VI: Intertheoretical Relations.- VI.0 Introduction.- VI.1 Global Intertheoretical Relations.- VI.2 Specialization and Theoretization.- VI.3 Types of Reduction.- VI.4 A General Concept of Reduction.- VI.5 Empirical Equivalence.- VI.6 Equivalence.- VI.7 Reduction, Language, and Incommensurability.- VII: Approximation.- VII.0 Introduction.- VII.1 Types of Approximation.- VII.2 Intratheoretical Approximation.- VII.3 Intertheoretical Approximation.- VIII: The Global Structure ofScience.- VIII.0 Introduction.- VIII.1 Theory-Holons.- VIII.2 Theoreticity Reconsidered.- VIII.3 Graphs and Paths.- VIII.4 Local Empirical Claims in Global Theory-Holons.- VIII.5 Intended Applications Reconsidered.- VIII.6 Foundationalism Versus Coherentism.- Name Index.