this volume brings together ten original, thematically-related papers, written by prominent figures in the philosophy of science in australasia and elsewhere. the contributed papers are focused on two fundamental issues in contemporary philosophy of science, the status of scientific realism and the relationship between science and commonsense. the contemporary scientific realism debate turns on the viability of the claims that science aims at truth and that we can justifiably believe that science has achieved or approximated this aim. several papers in the collection constitute original contributions to this debate. other papers explore what appears to be an increasingly divergent relationship between the scientific and commonsense images of the world. this volume is a valuable resource for all who are interested in and engaged by contemporary philosophy of science.