Constellations and Conjectures by Hanson, Norwood Russell; Lund, Matthew D.;

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This second edition of Norwood Russell Hanson’s Constellations and Conjectures, a philosophical history of astronomy originally published in 1973, provides significant updates and corrections to the original text. The new edition also features an introduction by Matthew D. Lund, author of N.R. Hanson: Observation, Discovery, and Scientific Change (Humanity Books, 2010), that contextualizes the book and Hanson’s legacy.

Hanson, a driving force behind the creation of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) as a new subject of study in the post-war period, saw history and philosophy of science as mutually interdependent and illuminating. Hanson brought Wittgensteinian ordinary language philosophy to bear on the concepts of science, and his treatments of observation, discovery, and the theory-ladenness of scientific facts remain central to the philosophy of science. Additionally, Hanson was one of philosophy’s great personalities, and his charm and sense of humor come through clearly in the pages of Constellations and Conjectures.

Hanson’s vivid writing and drawings bring to life humanity’s perennial fascination for the heavens. While some might view the history of science as a repository of error and confusion, Hanson argues that intelligibility emerges incrementally and, in the end, triumphantly, as history unfolds. Astronomy’s history is viewed as a sort of grand romance where the ideals of prediction and explanation continually elude and evade each other, until their destined union. This book is of interest to scholars of philosophy and the history of astronomy.

Table of Contents:

Quote by W. H. Auden.- Prefatory Note for the First Edition.- Acknowledgments for the Second Edition.- Table of Contents.- Editor’s Introduction to the Second Edition.- The Conceptual Content of the Book.- Introduction to the Conceptual Content of the Book.- BOOK ONE – PART I: Cosmological Explanation, B.C.- The Great Facts of the Heavens.- Plato.- Eudoxus and ‘Plato’s Problem’.- Aristotle.- BOOK ONE – PART II: Ptolemy and Prediction.- Pre-Ptolemaic Anticipations.- The Power of the Epicycle-on-Deferent Technique.- Three-Dimensional Variations of Ptolemy’s Technique.- Ptolemy’s Ancient Legacy.- BOOK TWO – PART I: The Medieval Rediscovery of Ptolemy’s Tool Box.- ‘The Ptolemaic System’.- Supplementary Material for Book Two, Part I.- BOOK TWO – PART II: Copernicus’ Systematic Astronomy.- The Copernican System.- Further Aspects of Copernican Astronomy in Contrast to All that had Gone Before.- Tycho and Copernicus.- BOOK THREE – PART I: Kepler.- Kepler and the ‘Clean’ Idea.- Supplementary Material for Book Three, Part I.- Index.