Table Of ContentCONSTELLA TIONS AND CONJECTURES
SYNTHESE LIBRARY
MONOGRAPHS ON EPISTEMOLOGY,
LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE,
SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND OF KNOWLEDGE,
AND ON THE MATHEMATICAL METHODS OF
SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Editors:
DONALD DAVIDSON, Rockefeller University and Princeton University
JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Academy of Finland and Stanford University
GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University of Leyden
WESLEY C. SALMON, Indiana University
NORWOOD RUSSELL HANSON
CONSTELLATIONS
AND CONJECTURES
Edited by
WILLARD C. HUMPHREYS, JR.
Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
DORDRECHT-HOLLAND / BOSTON-U.S.A.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 70-159654
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-2500-3 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-0 I 0-2498-3
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-2498-3
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico
by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc.
306 Dartmouth Street, Boston,
Mass. 02116, U.S.A.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1973 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm,
or any other means, without written permission from the publisher
Dare sound Authority confess
That one may err his way to riches
Win glory by mistake, his dear
Through sheer wrong-headedness?
W. H. AUDEN
The History of Science
PREFATORY NOTE
This is the final volume of Norwood Russell Hanson's posthumous
works to reach publication, and it forms a companion to the collection
of papers, What I do not Believe, and other Essays, prepared for the
Synthese Library by Harry Woolf and myself.
A word of explanation is necessary about the date and condition of
the MSS from which this text has been prepared. Originally, Hanson
planned a substantially longer book, which would have brought the
story he tells here at least up to the late 19th century, and would have
incorporated (e.g.) his well-known paper on the theories of Leverrier.
The preliminary work on this larger book was largely completed by 1964,
but it was then set aside. Between 1964 and the time of his death in 1967,
Hanson worked over the material from the Greeks up to Kepler, and
cast it into the new shape it has here. This involved a great deal of
revision, and the typescript on which he was working bears very exten
sive manuscript amendations throughout all but the last few pages. So
far as it is possible to tell, accordingly, the book in its present form
represents Hanson's final views.
None the less, it is important to point out that the historical material
on which the present text was based is substantially that available to the
author in the early 1960's. Since the central argument of the book is a
philosophical one about the nature of explanation, Professor Humphreys
and I decided that it was preferable to leave the text as it stands, with
occasional Editor's footnotes (see, e.g., page 5), rather than chop and
change Hanson's work in order to bring it into line with the results of
the most recent historical scholarship.
The original MS lacked any definitive title, and we have taken the
liberty of inventing one, with the concurrence of the General Editor of
the Synthese Library, Professor Hintikka.
In conclusion, let me add a personal word of appreciation about the
vast amount of patient hard work that Professor Willard C. Humphreys
Jr., who was formerly one of Hanson's own students, has devoted to the
task of preparing this complex manuscript for the publisher.
Santa Cruz, California STEPHEN E. TOULMIN
October, 1972
CONTENTS
PREFATORY NOTE VII
BOOK ONE - PART I
COSMOLOGICAL EXPLANATION, B.C.
T-HE CONCEPTUAL CONTENT OF BOOK ONE, PART I 3
INTRODUCTION 5
THE HISTORICAL CONTENT OF BOOK ONE, PART I 7
PLATO 33
EUDOXOS AND 'PLATO'S PROBLEM' 41
ARISTOTLE 61
BOOK ONE - PART II
PTOLEMY AND PREDICTION 89
PRE-PTOLEMAIC ANTICIPATIONS 99
APPENDIX 113
THREE DIMENSIONAL VARIA TIONS OF PTOLEMY'S
135
TECHNIQUE
BOOK TWO - PART I
THE MEDIEVAL REDISCOVER Y OF PTOLEMY'S TOOL BOX 141
'THE PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM' 143
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL FOR BOOK TWO, SECTION A 166
x CONTENTS
BOOK TWO - PART II
COPERNICUS' SYSTEMATIC ASTRONOMY 173
FURTHER ASPECTS OF COPERNICAN ASTRONOMY IN
CONTRAST TO ALL THA T HAD GONE BEFORE 200
SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION ON COPERNICAN THEOR Y 236
BOOK THREE - PART I
KEPLER AND THE 'CLEAN' IDEA 251
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL FOR BOOK THREE, PART I 277
BOOK ONE
PART I
Cosmological Explanation, B.C.
THE CONCEPTUAL CONTENT
OF BOOK ONE, PART I
'Hempel's Hypothesis' Concerning Explanation and Prediction
Prediction of x is explaining x before it happens
Explanation of x is predicting x after it happens:
there is a special logical symmetry between the concepts of
explanation and prediction
Objections:
There are predictions without corresponding explanations
There are explanations without corresponding predictions
The History of Planetary Theory is an Interplay Between
Predictions sans Explanation and Explanations
sans Prediction
Hempel's hypothesis is realized only briefly in the 17th
century
