Critical realism, social relations and arguing for socialism -- Realism in the natural sciences -- Feyerabend and Bachelard: Two philosophies of science -- Philosophies as ideologies of science: A contribution to the critique of positivism -- On the possibility of social scientific knowledge and the limits of naturalism -- Scientific explanation and human emancipation -- Dialectics, materialism and theory of knowledge -- Rorty, realism and the idea of freedom -- What is critical realism?