Norwood Russell Hanson (1924-1967) was of the same generation as Salmon and Putnam but died relatively young (when a plane he was flying crashed). These selections from the first chapter of his Patterns of Discovery address some of the same issues as Putnam but in a particularly striking and very influential way.
Hanson’s topic is commonly known via terms he used immediately following the end of the selection you have read when he said, “There is a sense, then, in which seeing is a ‘theory-laden’ undertaking. Observation of x is shaped by prior knowledge of x” (Patterns of Discovery, p. 19). Most of the selection is devoted to arguing against the view that what is theory-laden is not seeing or observation but something that comes after it.
• In section A, Hanson argues that what is seen should not be identified with an image on the retina (which is clearly not theory-laden). The example of Tycho Brahe and Kepler will be relevant not only to Hanson’s argument here but also to a broader argument along similar lines you will encounter in Kuhn. (The odd phrase ‘sket ceterah’ on p. 342 is merely a typo; the original has the word ‘sketch’.)
• Section B is devoted to attacking the idea that theory-ladenness is the result of an act of interpretation that is applied to what is seen. Particularly, important is the point he makes on pp. 343-344 when he notes occasions when we do interpret what we see but argues that the word interpretation “does not apply to everything.”
Hanson’s footnotes include a number of untranslated quotations. Most are from Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), whose thought strongly influenced Hanson, but one is from Goethe. Here are some translations.
n. 6: “But this isn’t seeing!” — “But this is seeing!” — It must be possible to give both remarks a conceptual justification.
n. 12: I can only see, not hear, red and green.
n. 18: What processes am I alluding to?
n. 28: Each hears only what he understands.