Hey, McEvoy called me the or a king of references, so I thought I'd share!
I earlier said that Hanson's genius showed in the popularisation, as I
would now put it, of 'theory-laden' as applied to observation. I always loved
the use of '-laden' so used. I see the pedigree of the collocation,
'theory-laden' is quite pre-Hansonian.
In 1886, in the Medical & Surgery Reporter (issue of 25 Sept., p. 404/2,
one reads -- if one is into that kind of thing:
"It is in strong and favourable contrast
to the ponderous, theory-laden tomes of
Ziemmsen's Cyclopœdia."
This is curious since the existence of Ziemmsen's Cyclopoedia makes Geary
wonder.
In 1958, N. R. Hanson "Patterns of Discovery" (a term, 'discovery', he uses
possibly to amuse Popper -- cfr. "Popper's essay may mislead: it is called
the logic of discovery but in spite of its title, Popper does not believe
there is a logic of discovery") i. 19
Hanson writes:
"There is a sense [or way as I'd prefer -- Speranza] in which seeing is a ‘
theory-laden’ undertaking. Observation of x is shaped by prior knowledge of
x."
Note that Hanson, avant la lettre, uses scare quotes, so this is not really
a use, but a mention, as Grice would have it. But suppose we get rid of
the scare quotes:
There is a way in which seeing is a theory-laden undertaking.
Why does Hanson use scare quotes?
Scare quotes are usually employed to invite the conversational implicature
of a figure such as metaphor.
Hanson is into this Witters paradox of seeing as -- "seeing a horse as a
horse" is the example Grice selects to show how Witters ignores implicature.
For Witters, to say that Geary saw a horse as a horse would be false; for
Grice, 'true, if slightly misleading'. For Hanson, 'theory-laden' since it
presupposes that Geary has a theory about horses -- hippology.
In 2000, post-Hanson, one reads in Economy & Philosophy, vol. 16:
"It is nowadays fashionable to claim that observation reports in science
are no less ‘theory-laden’ than high level explanations."
Indeed, talking of fashion, 'theory-laden' is one of Anna Wintour's
favourite phrases.
In 2008, in M. Glantz's & J. Mun's The Banker's Handbook on Credit Risk",
one reads:
"There are a plethora of mathematical modeling and theory-laden books
without any real hands-on applicability."
Glantz's and Mun's co-implicate that their handbook is no such thing! --
and it ain't, it has (real) hands -- at least the reference to one of them --
in the very title: HANDbook!
Cheers,
Speranza
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