A Persistent Myth. Comparing Geocentrism to Anthropocentrism and how this Vain Illusion Was Shattered by Heliocentrism — Demonstrating the Importance of Scientific Historiography by Way of a Discussion between a Student and one of His Professors

Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science 13:01-22 (2022)
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Abstract

According to the Copernican myth, geocentrism was a form of anthropocentrism because it showcased humankind as being both the centre and the purpose of the Cosmos, whereas heliocentrism, in dethroning humankind from this privileged position, luckily provided a means to quash this point of view, which was illusory and vain, and that even went against scientific progress. According to the anthropocentric myth, which is a part of it, geocentrism is a form of anthropocentrism, while heliocentrism is really an anti-anthropocentrism and not simply a non-anthropocentrism. This article, in the form of a dialogue, questions these two myths, looking in particular for the causes of their appearance, among which is a guilty anachronism.

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Jean-François Stoffel
Haute école Louvain En Hainaut

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References found in this work

Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.Michael Polanyi - 1958 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Mary Jo Nye.
The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea.Arthur O. Lovejoy - 1936 - Cambridge, Mass.,: Transaction Publishers.
From the closed world to the infinite universe.A. Koyré - 1957 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 148:101-102.

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