Reddit mentions of Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Science and Its Conceptual Foundations series)

I think you will learn the most by reading five textbooks, such as A History of Philosophy, volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; or something like Metaphysics: The Fundamentals, The Fundamentals of Ethics, Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, and An Introduction to Political Philosophy.

If what you have in mind is more of a "Great Books" program to get your feet wet with some classic works that are not too difficult, you could do a lot worse than:

• Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, often published together under the title The Trial and Death of Socrates. Socrates is so important that we lump together all Greek philosophers before him as "the Presocratics," and this cycle of dialogues is a great window on who he was and what he is famous for.
  
• The Basic Works of Aristotle. "The philosopher of common sense" is not a particularly easy read. Cicero compared his writing style to "a flowing river of gold," but all the works he prepared for publication are gone, and what we have is an unauthorised collection of lecture notes written in a terse, cramped style that admits of multiple interpretations. Even so, one can find in Aristotle a very attractive system of metaphysics and ethics which played a major role in the history of philosophy, and holds up well even today.
  
• René Descartes, Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes is called the father of modern philosophy, not so much because modern philosophers have widely followed his particular positions (they haven't) but because he set the agenda, in a way, with his introduction of methodological scepticism.
  
• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. I think Elizabeth Anscombe had it right in judging Hume a "mere brilliant sophist", in that his arguments are ultimately flawed, but there is great insight to be derived from teasing out why they are wrong.
  
• If I can cheat just a little more, I will lump together three short, important treatises on ethics: Immanuel Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and Anscombe's paper "Modern Moral Philosophy".

As for your main question, Theory and Reality by Peter Godfrey-Smith is definitely something you want to read. Godfrey-Smith's general work focuses on philosophy of biology as a subset of philosophy of science which may be particularly interesting to you. Theory and Reality itself deals with a wide range of issues. From epistemic, to methodological, to historical, to sociological. The only stuff it doesn't really touch on are the metaphysical issues in philosophy of science. But even if that's what you're looking for, the book's content will be indispensable to you in developing a baseline knowledge about philosophy of science which you can bring to the table when reading more specific literature that you're interested in. It's broad approach is also just a good way to discover said interests.

As for your bonus question, the answer really turns somewhat on what you mean by "testable" but especially on what you mean by "useless". Useless in terms of what? Forming justified beliefs? Or for instrumental applications? Or something else?

Given this uncertainty, two positions come to mind: verificationism about meaning and Popper's falsificationism. But I might be able to give you something better if you could answer my above questions.

Hope that's helpful!

I highly recommend "Theory and Reality" by Peter Godfrey-Smith. Another great text is "What is This Thing Called Science?" by A.F. Chalmers. As a book with primary readings my favorite thus far is "Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues" edited by Martin Curd and J.A. Cover. The Curd & Cover book is a tad expensive, but it is worth every penny. There are about 50 primary texts with commentary, and introductions to each main section.

Some other books that may be of help and/or of interest after a basic foundation is set are: "Philosophy of Biology" by Elliot Sober; "Quantum Reality" by Nick Herbert; "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn; "Sex and Death" by Kim Sterelny and Paul E. Griffiths; "Progress and It's Problems" by Larry Laudan; "The Empirical Stance" by Bas C. Van Fraassen; and "The Rise of Scientific Philosophy" by Hans Reichenbach. I welcome others to suggest more or to critique the ones I chose to highlight as too difficult or not worth the time.

Edit: Formatting and a comma.

This is my favorite book.

And why studying philosophy of science? Because science is the way you know things (or perhaps less rudely it's the best practice to do so)

And knowing things, how to say.. it is the key to everything? There's so much to it that any example would seem reductive.

Peter Godfrey-Smith's Theory and Reality is a classic introductory text to every major issue in contemporary philosophy of science, including scientific realism.

Of course, you can always check out the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on scientific realism, and then look at the bibliography!

Theory and Reality : An Introduction to Philosophy of Science by Peter Godfrey-Smith at Harvard. Small and readable. Recommended by PoS academics I have met. PGS is a youngish guy and writes in an understandable fashion. Here is his Harvard website. Awesome reference in my view. Covers all the main issues. Podcast with him about PoS at Philosophy Talk.

As /u/as-well notes, there are a number of possible interpretations of your question.

There's a bunch of work on whether philosophical methods can get you closer to the truth in the way that science does. This section from the SEP article on Naturalism will be helpful for you in that regard.

You might also be wondering about philosophers who attempt to use "scientific" methodologies in pursuing philosophical questions. There's a whole boatload of that sort of work, from Bayesians in epistemology to certain philosophers who work on semantics to "experimental philosophy" (which is, so far as I can tell, psychology done by philosophers). I'm not sure what a good introduction to this sort of work would be, but perhaps someone else can suggest some.

It seems like a number of other commentators have read you to be looking for "philosophy of science" broadly construed. That's a giant discipline, but it mostly deals with the nature of science and various issues surrounding it. If you're interested in that, I'd suggest starting out with a textbook like those by Peter Godfrey-Smith or Alan Chalmers. Under no circumstances would I recommend beginning with famous past philosophers of science like Kuhn, Popper, Carnap, or Lakatos: their discussions are both subtle and extremely opinionated, and are therefore likely to give you a really misleading picture of the discipline.

I usually use Peter Godfrey-Smith's Theory and Reality for intro classes, and recommend it highly.

For refresh your knowledge, the basic:

• "Theory and Reality" by Goodfrey-Smith.
  
  
  And check too /r/neurophilosophy.
  

I've read only Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science and it was good.

Curd and Cover is pretty much standard undergraduate textbook for philosophy of science courses. It has a ton of very good articles and a ton of very well put together commentary on each article. If you are interested in getting into the philosophy of science it is literally your best choice.

The Rosenberg and this book, which I have read and would definitely recommend, are very good supplements to help you understand the general themes in the philosophy of science, but the Curd and Cover is your best bet. If you have to choose one choose that one. It it such a good compilation of the most important essays in the philosophy of science.

Yeah. Don't know how much harder I can stress: Curd and Cover is great.

>This second one is from what seems like a very well respected and legit publishing company that has a gigantic list of books, which all seem excellent after reading descriptions:

You'd be surprised how little this means in academia, especially philosophy. Essentially if you have a good cv and can write a coherent statement of purpose you can get a book published, probably even on a big name academic publisher. Books aren't referee'd the way articles are, and if you get a book deal the chances of them pulling the plug is very small (you'd have to fuck up big). Articles by contrast have to go through a rigorous process of peer review, and only the best (hopefully) make it to the pages of a journal. Curd and Cover is a compilation of the best articles in the philosophy of science.