For being one of the most influential philosophers of science, it’s hard to believe that there isn’t a single picture of Norwood Russell Hanson on google, much less a book of is under 200 dollars. Most of his work was centered around the then-(and now)-novel concept that the act and language of observation is loaded with theory and is filtered through those theories. He put is a lot better than I could:

“Seeing is an experience. A retinal reaction is only a physical state… People, not their eyes, see. Cameras, and eye-balls, are blind… there is more to seeing than meets the eyeball.”

Theology was another subject that received a lot of writings from N. R.’s pen. Check out this winning collection of essays edited by every college student’s least favorite rhetorician, Stephen Toulmin. On the hiddenness of god:

“God exists” could in principle be established for all factually — it just happens not to be, certainly not for everyone! Suppose, however, that next Tuesday morning, just after breakfast, all of us in this one world are knocked to our knees by a percussive and ear-shattering thunderclap. Snow swirls; leaves drop from the trees; the earth heaves and buckles; buildings topple and towers tumble; the sky is ablaze with an eerie, silvery light. Just then, as all the people of this world look up, the heavens open — the clouds pull apart ‚ revealing an unbelievably immense and radiant-like Zeus figure, towering above us like a hundred Everests. He frowns darkly as lightening plays across the features of his Michelangeloid face. He then points down — at me! — and explains, for every man and child to hear: “I have had quite enough of your too-clever logic-chopping and word-watching in matters of theology. Be assured, N.R. Hanson, that I most certainly do exist.” … ¶ Please do not dismiss this as a playful, irreverent Disneyoid contrivance. The conceptual point here is that if such a remarkable event were to occur, I for one should certainly be convinced that God does exist. That matter of fact would have been settled once and for all time… That God exists would, though this encounter, have been confirmed for me and for everyone else in a manner every bit as direct as that involved in any non-controversial factual claim.

Read the book online