ABSTRACT
The initial intuition was that this task can be accomplished by engaging in a detailed analysis of the role of holistic concepts in our understanding of science. This chapter offers some arguments in favour of the claim that science can be viewed, in some respects, as a single whole. An account of the purpose of scientific activity was first formulated. This allowed the claim that scientific practice is best seen as the set of actions grouped together because they are geared towards the achievement of this unifying purpose, and because they are performed in ways that involve habits or skills. The scientific discourse associated with this practice is constrained by conventional constraints and also by non-conventional constraints, the latter ones being of special significance for scientific objectivity. Discussions concerning scientific realism often involve investigations about how a specific statement in a theory can tell us something about the external world.
