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Author:   Norwood Russell Hanson ,  Willard C. Humphreys, Jr. ,  Matthew D. Lund
Publisher:   Springer
Imprint:   Springer
Edition:   Second Edition 2026
Volume:   48
ISBN:  

9789402423198

ISBN 10:   9402423192
Pages:   258
Publication Date:   14 January 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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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.

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Author Information

Norwood Russell Hanson was an American philosopher who was active in the 1950s and 1960s. His principal works are Patterns of Discovery (1958) and The Concept of the Positron (1963). Hanson is most famous for having argued that scientific observation is theory-laden and that scientific discovery is rationally appraisable. Hanson was also one of the founders of the integrated study of philosophy of science and history of science (HPS). Willard C. Humphreys, Jr. was an American philosopher, and a student of Norwood Russell Hanson. Humphreys was the author of many books and articles, and edited two of Hanson’s posthumously published books, Perception and Discovery and Constellations and Conjectures. Matthew D. Lund is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and World Religions at Rowan University. He is the author of N.R. Hanson: Observation, Discovery, and Scientific Change (Humanity Books, 2010), the only book-length study of Hanson’s philosophy. He is also editor of N.R. Hanson’s Perception and Discovery: An Introduction to Scientific Inquiry, Second Edition (Springer, 2018) and What I Do Not Believe, and Other Essays, Second Edition (Springer, 2020).

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