Philosophy Of Science Essay

The topic of essay is â€Å"There is more to seeing than meets the eyeball†. These are words of N. R. Hanson, and I’ll try to show here my point of view. In his work â€Å"Observation† Hanson says that if two different people (for example, microbiologists), look at prepared slide, they give different answers for question what did they see there. It means, they see the same object, but their feelings and understanding of object, as well their definitions regarding it are different. Hanson gives the following answer:† ‘These are different interpretations of what all observers see in common. Retinal reactions to figure are virtually identical; so too are our visual sense-data, since our drawings of what we see will have the same content. There is no place in the seeing for these differences, so they must lie in the interpretations put on what we see. † (Hanson, p. 9) So, everything depends on interpretations of the object – the characteristics are given by us, while seeing the same by different people. Let’s take a picture and will try to find out what can be seen there. Again, some people can see only birds – they see an opened bick of some big bird, the others see horns and antelope. Another question: do the people, who have never seen antelope, see an antelope in this picture? We can see the picture as one shape, then as of another. We interpret it and see it as we interpret it. (Hanson, p. 7) Another idea which Hanson gives is that this kind of interpretation depends on experience. So let’s take as example the picture of an X-ray tube viewed from the cathode. Some experienced physicist will recognize here an X-ray tube, but a small baby and a driver, for example, will have another interpretation based on their visual experience. They see the same object, but have different interpretations. Hanson says:† Seeing is not only the having of a visual experience; it is also the way in which the visual experience is had†. (Hanson, p. 8). A physicist saw this object in school, but from his visual experience he saw only an instrument made of metal and glass. When he studied at the university, he learned about this instrument and saw the construction in the book and had completely another interpretation. The object didn’t change, but the visual experience did. So, in order for driver to see the same what physicist sees, he needs to learn physics. The baby is blind to what driver sees, although he is not blind and sees the same object. Seeing means also some kind â€Å"to have knowledge of certain sorts† (Hanson, p. 11). Let’s take another scientist, Hacking, with his article â€Å"Do we see through a microscope? † He speaks about the ways we get new kinds of perception when we use different objects to manipulate a world we cannot see by our normal eye-sight. Hacking says that â€Å"we don’t see through a microscope, we see with a microscope†. For example, we can use electrons in order to get other results, and by doing this, we are convinced of their existence with their stable properties. It doesn’t mean that we have an entire knowledge regarding those electrons, but we have those properties as known because of our experience. Here comes the slogan:† If you can manipulate them, they must be real. † (I. Hacking, p. 150). So, really, we can make a conclusion that â€Å"There is more to seeing than meets the eyeball†.