  Quine takes seriously the idea that “it is within science itself, and not in some prior philosophy, that reality is to be identified and described” (1981, 21). It follows from this idea, as he construes it, that our best scientific theory of the world tells us as much as we know about reality. (Our best theory at given time tells us as much as we know at that time; no doubt our views will progress.) So setting out the broad outlines of that theory is the Quinean version or analogue of metaphysics, though he does not much use the word. This subject interacts with that of the last section: Quine’s account of the world both lays down the constraints within which an account of knowledge must proceed, and is, in outline, the knowledge that must be accounted for.