Norwood Russell Hanson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1924-08-17)August 17, 1924 West New York, New Jersey |
| Died | April 18, 1967(1967-04-18) (aged 42) Ripley Hill,Cortland County, New York |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago,Columbia University,University of Oxford,Cambridge University |
| Doctoral advisors | Gilbert Ryle[1] |
| Other advisor | H. H. Price[1] |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy |
| Main interests | Philosophy of science,aeronautics |
| Notable works | Patterns of Discovery (1958),The Concept of the Positron (1963) |
| Notable ideas | Patterns of discovery,distinction between 'seeing as' and 'seeing that' |
Norwood Russell Hanson (August 17, 1924 – April 18, 1967) was an Americanphilosopher of science. Hanson was a pioneer in advancing the argument that observation istheory-laden — that observation language and theory language are deeply interwoven — and that historical and contemporary comprehension are similarly deeply interwoven. His single most central intellectual concern was the comprehension and development of a logic of discovery.
Hanson was born in 1924 in West New York, New Jersey. He studied trumpet with the legendaryWilliam Vacchiano and played atCarnegie Hall, but his musical career was interrupted byWorld War II. He enlisted in theUnited States Coast Guard, later transferring to theUnited States Marine Corps, where he trained as a fighter pilot, developing a reputation as a 'hot pilot' (famously looping the Golden Gate Bridge). He served on the ill-fatedUSSFranklin in theVMF-452 "Skyraiders" Squadron, for which he designed the unit's logo.[2] When theFranklin was bombed and nearly destroyed on 19 March 1945, hisCorsair was described as 'the last plane off Big Ben.'
After flying over 2,000 hours, he returned to civilian life, seeking an education via theG.I. Bill rather than continuing a life in music. He took degrees from theUniversity of Chicago andColumbia University, then proceeded with his new wife Fay to the UK in 1949, under aFulbright Scholarship. He completed multiple degrees at bothOxford andCambridge, and stayed in Britain to continue teaching and writing.
Hanson left the life of a Cambridge don to return to the U.S. in 1957, founding theIndiana University Department of History and Philosophy of Science, the first of its kind, and receiving a Fellowship at theInstitute for Advanced Study inPrinceton, New Jersey. In 1963, Hanson moved toYale University. He also continued to fly – anAT-6 Texan trainer, and later a GrummanF8F-2 Bearcat. His unusual style and personal history, including his aerobatics over theYale Bowl and at airshows as 'The Flying Professor,' were noted by a generation of students – includingJohn Kerry. His time at Yale was strained by campus politics, where he was caught in the midst of an infamous 1964-65 fight over Yale's tenure policies (the "Bernstein Affair").[3]
Hanson died in 1967, when hisBearcat crashed in dense fog en route to Ithaca, New York. He was survived by wife Fay and children Trevor (b. 1955) and Leslie (b. 1958). His rich, complex life – ranging fromGolden Gloves boxing to drawing illustrations forHomer'sIliad; from camping on aHarley-Davidson to testifying before the U.S. Senate; from tough city youth to distinguished scholarship – was cut short at the age of 42, with ten books in progress, including a history of aerodynamic theory.[citation needed]
Hanson's best-known work isPatterns of Discovery (1958), in which he argues that what we see and perceive is not what our senses receive, but is instead filtered sensory information, where the filter is our existing preconceptions – a concept later called a 'thematic framework.' He cited optical illusions such as the famous old Parisienne woman (Patterns of Discovery, p. 11), which can be seen in different ways. FollowingWittgenstein, Hanson drew adistinction between 'seeing as' and 'seeing that' which became a key idea in evolving theories of perception and meaning. He wanted to formulate a logic explaining how scientific discoveries take place. He usedCharles Sanders Peirce's notion ofabduction for this.[4]
Hanson's other books includeThe Concept of the Positron (1963). Hanson was a staunch defender of theCopenhagen interpretation ofquantum mechanics, which regards questions such as"Where was the particle before I measured its position?" as meaningless. The philosophical issues involved were important elements in Hanson's views ofperception andepistemology. He was intrigued byparadoxes, and with the related concepts ofuncertainty,undecidability/unprovability, andincompleteness; he sought models of cognition that could embrace these elements, rather than simply explain them away.
Hanson's posthumous works includeWhat I Do Not Believe and Other Essays (1971) andConstellations and Conjectures (1973). He is also known for the essaysWhat I Do Not Believe andThe Agnostic's Dilemma, among other writings on belief systems.
FromMichael Scriven's preface to Hanson's posthumousPerception and Discovery:
In a general sense Hanson continues the application of the Wittgensteinian approach to the philosophy of science, asWaisman andToulmin have also done. But he goes much further than they, exploring questions about perception and discovery in more detail, and ... tying in the history of science for exemplification and for its own benefit. Hanson was one of the rare thinkers in the tradition ofWhewell – a man he much admired – who could really benefit from and yield benefits for both the history and philosophy of science.
Hanson's 1958 workPatterns of Discovery was followed byThomas Kuhn in Kuhn's 1962 landmark,The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, that challenged prevailing conceptions of science's development, conceptions that ranged from the strictures oflogical empiricism to naive presumptions of objectivescientific realism.[5] Hanson led the move to carryhistory of science intophilosophy of science—two rather divergent fields at the time—as Hanson insisted that proper study of one demanded deep understanding of the other. With Kuhn's contribution, Hanson's interdisciplinary view became generally accepted. However, Hanson's views on science differed from Kuhn's, and Hanson criticized Kuhn's account ofparadigm shift because it was conceptually circular and thus impossible to falsify.[6][1] Similarly,Robert Nozick's 1974 work onpolitical philosophy,Anarchy, State, and Utopia, quotes Norwood to support Nozick's aim to understand the "whole political realm" by "understanding the political realm in terms of the nonpolitical".[7][8]
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