 At Indiana, for the first time, I found myself dealing with graduate students and colleagues who had strong scientific backgrounds and a fair degree of scientific sophistication. It became essential for me to treat philosophy of science, not as a discipline looking inward upon other branches of philosophy, but as one which looks outward toward the various scientific disciplines. […] I came to the conviction, which I still hold, that philosophy which remains out of contact with other disciplines runs the great risk of becoming quite sterile. (Salmon 1982c: 282)