It is well known that heliocentrism was proposed in ancient times, at least by Aristarchus of Samos. Given that ancient astronomers were perfectly capable of understanding the great advantages of heliocentrism over geocentrism—i.e., to offer a non-ad hoc explanation of the retrograde motion of the planets and to order unequivocally all the planets while even allowing one to know their relative distances—it seems difficult to explain why heliocentrism did not triumph over geocentrism or even compete significantly with it before Copernicus. (...) Usually, scholars refer to explanations of sociological character. In this paper, I offer a different explanation: that the pre-Copernican heliocentrism was essentially different from the Copernican heliocentrism, in such a way that the adduced advantages of heliocentrism can only be attributed to Copernican heliocentrism, but not to pre-Copernican heliocentrism proposals. (shrink)

Neuroscience made major progress in unravelling the neural basis of mental features like self, consciousness, affect, etc. However, we nevertheless lack what recently has been described as “missing ingredient” or “common currency” in the relationship between neuronal and mental activity. Rather than putting forward yet another theory of the neural basis of mental features, I here suggest a change in our methodological strategy how to approach the brain, that is, our view or vantage point of the brain. Learning from (...) class='Hi'>astronomy (Copernicus) and biology (Darwin), I suggest that we may want to change our currently pre-Copernican vantage point from within brain to a post-Copernican vantage point from beyond brain. Such post-Copernican vantage point from beyond brain allows us taking into view that what happens beyond the brain itself, e.g., the world, and how that shapes the brain and its neural activity, e.g., world-brain relation. We then lend empirical support to the world-brain relation by converging it with Karl Friston’s free energy principle that, as we see it, provides a neuro-ecological and therefore post-Copernican view of the brain. That, in turn, allows us taking into view that mental features are shaped by both world and brain and are therefore truly neuro-ecological rather than merely neuronal. This raises the question for the link, e.g., the “missing ingredient” or “common currency” of world brain relation and mental features. Recent empirical evidence suggests that temporo-spatial dynamics may provide such link as it characterizes both the world-brain relation’s free energy and mental features, e.g., their spatiotemporality as described in philosophy. Taken together, I here advocate a change in our methodological strategy on how to approach the brain, that is, a shift from a pre-Copernican vantage point from within brain to a post-Copernican vantage point from beyond brain. The latter allows us taking into view that what happens beyond the brain in the world and how that shapes the brain in such a way that it can yield mental features. This amounts to nothing less than a Copernican turn or revolution in neuroscience akin to the ones in astronomy (Copernicus) and biology (Darwin). (shrink)

Antonino Saliba, a sixteenth century cartographer hailing from the Maltese island of Gozo, published a map in 1582 espousing his cosmology. Its popularity at the time is attested via the multiple editions and copies that were produced in Europe. Numerous sky phenomena, amongst them comets, are portrayed in the map. This study presents a detailed analysis of Saliba's treatment of these phenomena, following the first comprehensive translation of the map's text to English. It elucidates the sources that Saliba used, clarifying (...) and shedding further light on the views he held. Where possible, the comets mentioned by Saliba are identified and explained. Besides showing how Saliba wholly conformed to the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic representation of the world, in which respect he was quite orthodox, it is also shown for the first time that his work is significantly derived from previous and contemporary sources. (shrink)

Copernicus’ work was for long considered a turning point in astronomy; some historians even consider it a turning point in science in general. But numerous recent studies have turned this image upside-down. It was revealed that Copernicus’ work was firmly rooted in the traditional conceptual apparatus. The aim of the article is to show that Copernicus’ work, in spite of everything, does indeed represent a radical epistemological shift regarding a certain point, which can be appropriately illuminated by the analysis (...) of the Copernicus’ introduction of the concept of Earth’s motion in astronomy. Copernicus, in contrast to the pre-Copernican tradition, finds mathematical-astronomical reasons that transcend the field of sensory perceptions to be decisive, and rejects the physical or cosmological reasons given by the traditional natural sciences, which are eventually all based on direct or indirect “evidence immediate”. (shrink)

The significance of the plurality of the Copernican Revolution is the main thrust of this undergraduate text In this study of the Copernican Revolution, the ...

In 1637 a Frenchman named Noël Duret published a book in Paris that referred to the heliocentric Copernican system. In 1660 an Ottoman scholar named Ibrahim Efendi al-Zigetvari Tezkireci translated the book into Arabic. For more than three centuries this manuscript was buried in an Ottoman archive in Istanbul until it resurfaced at the beginning of the 1990s. The discovery of the Arabic text has necessitated a re-evaluation of the history of early modern Arabic natural philosophy, one that takes (...) into account the intellectual context of Ibrahim Efendi and the overarching trends in the world of Sufi mysticism. These trends were reflected in art, literature, philosophy and natural philosophy. Using philological and cultural clues, as well as Ibrahim Efendi's own words, we can attempt deductions about why, how and for what purposes Ibrahim Efendi chose Duret's book for his project. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Transitions to a Modern Cosmology: Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa on the Intensive InfiniteElizabeth BrientThe Epochal Transition from the late medieval to the early modern world has long been thought in terms of the gradual “infinitization” of the cosmos. Traditionally this process has been studied by focusing on the pre-history and the aftermath of the Copernican revolution, that is, by describing the transition from the finite, hierarchically (...) ordered medieval cosmos to the infinite and homogeneous universe of the new astronomy. I would like to situate this paper within the context of a more general reading of the process of the infinitization of the medieval cosmos. That is, I want to argue that this process of “infinitization” must be understood intensively as well as extensively. Nature, in the modern age, is thought of not only as infinitely extended in space, but also as exhibiting an infinite richness in all of its parts. Each particular, each individual being is grasped as utterly unique, as infinitely rich and consequently as conceptually inexponable. Thus the infinitization of the real leads to an infinitization of the knowable—the radical shift in ontology grounds a corresponding shift in epistemology, so that the progress of human knowledge is understood as an unending project infinitely extended over time. In order to underscore both aspects of the infinitization of the medieval cosmos (intensive as well as extensive) I will focus on the way in which a single metaphor (that of the infinite sphere) is unfolded historically in the thought of Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa.1 This paper may thus be viewed as a case study of [End Page 575] the way in which the modern notion of “intensive infinity” may be traced back to late medieval speculation on the nature of God’s omnipresence in the world.1. EARLY SOURCES OF THE INFINITE SPHERE METAPHORThe metaphor of the infinite sphere makes its first appearance in the pseudo-Hermetic Liber XXIV philosophorum, a small book in the literary form of an “opus propositionum” which, in twenty-four propositions, describes the ineffable essence of God in the mystical language of Neoplatonic theology. It is in the second proposition of this book that we find for the first time the formulation, “God is an infinite sphere, whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.”2 This formulation represents a significant development in the history of the Neoplatonic conception of intensive unity, and in the Christian understanding of divine infinity. The Neoplatonic One is here identified with God as infinite being. As a result the relationship between the One and the many, between God and the world, comes to be viewed in a new light, through the lens of “infinite unity.” The metaphor of the infinite sphere is a paradoxical formulation which pictures the coincidence of divine immanence with divine transcendence. That is, it expresses a double infinity: both intensive and extensive. God’s center is located at every point, as it were, indicating the plenitude and infinite richness of God’s being, while there is no limit, no boundary to the extent of God’s all-encompassing reach. The infinite sphere figures the divine nature as an intensive plenitude without end or bounds. The third and next proposition in this same work goes on to strengthen this sense of divine intensity, by asserting that God in his entirety is present in every part (Deus est totus in quolibet sui). The divine nature is not spread out compositionally, as it were, but is wholly present throughout. Proposition 18 describes God as a sphere which has just as many circumferences as points (Deus est sphaera cuius tot sunt circumferentiae, quot sunt puncta), once again, an exploding image which can only make sense in the case of an infinite sphere. These three propositions taken together provide us with a springboard for considering the nature of infinite unity. The exploding paradox of the infinite sphere [End Page 576] provides a rubric for thinking the coincidence of transcendence and immanence, a way of conceptualizing infinite unity, which cannot be “grasped” with finite concepts or through discursive reasoning. The metaphor of the infinite sphere finds its meaning precisely in the way... (shrink)

Edmund Husserl’s Nachlass includes a text enclosed in an envelope on which is written: “Overthrow of the Copernican theory in usual interpretation of a world view. The original ark, earth, does not move.” This text was chosen to be one of the first posthumous publications of Husserl. The editor, however, chose to use a less controversial title: “Foundational Investigations of the Phenomenological Origin of the Spatiality of Nature.” The title nevertheless does not change the radicality of the text itself; (...) it boldly claims that the earth does not move. Husserl knew that with such a statement he risked becoming a laughing stock. For the Western scientific community the Copernican view of the earth’s movement is the symbol of the victory of science over common sense views and religion. (shrink)

A history of the development and significance of the Copernican hypothesis, starting from the fundamental problems of astronomy in ancient thought. The author discusses the involvements of philosophy and religion with this development. -- C. L.

In his article “La verdad y el éxito de la ciencia: A propósito de un artículo de P. Kyle Stanford” (2002), Manuel Comesaña addresses fundamental questions about the nature and success of science, taking P. Kyle Stanford’s article as a reference for his critical analysis. Although the central focus of both works is not specifically on the Copernican Revolution, it is relevant to analyse how both authors use this historical example from astronomy to illustrate their metaphysical commitments. Rigorous (...) analysis of this historiographical episode will provide better foundations for the broader discussion of the realism-anti-realism debate. It is for this reason that we will undertake a critical study and subsequent correction of the way in which both authors set up their accounts to exemplify their positions. What we have come to contribute with our commentary is not a position that attempts to account for the success of the anti-realist proposals that the authors are interested in debating, but rather we intend to shed light on the treatment given to the historical case in order to clarify certain obscure points in the debate. (shrink)

In this paper I revisit Adam Smith’s treatment of Copernicanism and Newtonianism in his essay, “The History of Astronomy” (hereafter: “Astronomy”), in light of a surprisingly ignored context: David Hume. This remark will strike most scholars of Adam Smith as unfounded—David Hume’s philosophy is often invoked as a source of Smith’s approach in the “Astronomy” or as its target. Yet, Hume’s occasional remarks on Copernicanism nor his treatment of the history of science in the History of England (...) (1754-62, but revised throughout Hume’s life) have not been carefully analyzed in light of the “Astronomy.” In the first five sections of this paper I offer a detailed analysis of all of Hume’s remarks on the Copernican system in his oeuvre. I show that David Hume believed that Copernicus achieved a “revolution” in philosophy. Moreover, I argue that Hume increasingly treats Galileo as the hero of the Copernican revolution. In doing so, Hume appears surprisingly blind to the importance of post-Galilean natural philosophy, especially the (dynamical) arguments that Huygens and Newton provided for the rotation of the Earth. In the last section of the paper, I argue that Adam Smith does show appreciation of dynamic views. I show that Smith and the mature Hume agree on the importance of Galileo, even describing his method in strikingly similar language, but that they evaluate the evidence differently in light of two conflicting commitments: i) Hume is committed to the “true philosophy”—-a certain kind of scepticism which Smith does not share; ii) Hume never seems to have assimilated the way Newton changed the evidential standards within science. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * The Copernican Controversy * The Trial of Galileo * The Subsequent Galileo Affair * Lessons, Problems, Conjectures * Note * References.

What were the reasons of the Copernican Revolution ? How did modern science (created by a bunch of ambitious intellectuals) manage to force out the old one created by Aristotle and Ptolemy, rooted in millennial traditions and strongly supported by the Church? What deep internal causes and strong social movements took part in the genesis, development and victory of modern science? The author comes to a new picture of Copernican Revolution on the basis of the elaborated model of (...) scientific revolutions that takes into account some recent advances in philosophy, sociology and history of science. The model was initially invented to describe Einstein’s Revolution of the XX century beginning. The model considers the growth of knowledge as interaction, interpenetration and unification of the research programmes, springing out of different cultural traditions. Thus, Copernican Revolution appears as a result of revealation and (partial) resolution of the dualism , of the gap between Ptolemy’s mathematical astronomy and Aristotelian qualitative physics. The works of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton were all the stages of mathematics descendance from skies to earth and reciprocal extrapolation of earth physics on skies. The model elaborated enables to reassess the role of some social factors crucial for the scientific revolution. It is argued that initially modern science was a result of the development of Christian Weltanschaugung . Later the main support came from the absolute monarchies. In the long run the creators of modern science appeared to be the “apparatchics” of the “regime of truth” built-in state machine. Natural science became a part of ideological state apparatus providing not only scientific education but the internalization of values crucial for the functioning of state. -/- . (shrink)

We have to distinguish between the scientific revolution which was bound on the work of Copernicus and the cultural-ideological changes that have accompanied and framed this revolution. The "Copernican" revolution was in the beginning a constituent of cultural and ideological changes at the end of Renaissance but it became a scientific revolution only with Galilei and Kepler. This was the first scientific revolution which inagurated the internal dynamics of the scientific development. A necessary condition of that revolution was the (...) incorporation of a consistent physical dynamics into astronomy. This happened with the formulation of Kepler's laws and the Galilei's postulates of relative movements, the law of inertia and of free fall, which are valid for all physical cosmos. (shrink)

Heracleides Ponticus, a pupil of the schools of Plato and Aristotle, who lived from about 390 to 310 B.C., shared the wide interests of many of his pre-Platonic predecessors. Diogenes Laertius gives a long list of his works, many of them now known only by their titles, which he divided into writings on ethics, physics, grammar, music, rhetoric, and history. Like most of his predecessors he gave some attention to the heavens and speculated about the nature of the moon , (...) comets , the infinity of the cosmos ; he was best known in antiquity, in this field, for his suggestion that the phenomena could be saved if the heavens were at rest and the earth revolved about the central axis .2 One of two pieces of evidence for his involvement in anything more than this general, inexact speculation in the field of astronomy is contained in the commentary on Plato's Timaeus written in Latin by Chalcidius somewhere at the beginning of the fourth century A.D.; it is this passage which this paper will discuss. (shrink)

This paper argues that the famous passage that compares Kant’s efforts to reform metaphysics with his transcendental idealism to the earlier Copernican revolution in astronomy has a more systematic significance than many recognize. By examining the totality of Kant’s references to Copernicus, one can see that Kant’s analogy points to more than just a similar reversal of perspective. By situating Kant’s comments about Copernicus in relation to his understanding of the logic implicit in the great revolutions in mathematics (...) and natural science, this paper argues that Kant’s appeal to the Copernican revolution in astronomy as a forebear to his own transcendental project indicates that his attempt to revolutionize metaphysics by setting it on the secure path of the sciences demands a shift in how we think of the proper object of metaphysics. (shrink)

In this paper we want to show how far the early, pre-critical Kant develops a theory of the constitution of space that not only anticipates insights usually attributed to the phenomenological theory of lived space with its emphasis on the constitutively central role of the human lived-body, but which also establishes the foundation for Kant’s Copernican turn according to which space is understood as ‘form of intuition’, implied in the activity of the transcendental subject. The key to understand this (...) role of the body lies in Kant’s understanding of the asymmetrical nature of a pair of hands, which despite being equal in size and structure, remain incongruent counterparts, and thus evade integration into a homogenous and purely self-referential form of space. (shrink)

The early dissemination of Copernicus' work and theories is an intricate and multilayered history. The reception of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, which was the first early modern work in mathematical astronomy introducing a heliocentric planetary theory, was not purely technical. Rather, the cultural debates surrounding it were affected by physical, philosophical, ethical, and theological concerns from its inception. Georg Joachim Rheticus, who authored the first report on Copernicus' achievement, deemed it appropriate to put a call for independence of spirit (...) on the title page of the Narratio... (shrink)

A characteristic hallmark of medieval astronomy is the replacement of Ptolemy’s linear precession with so-called models of trepidation, which were deemed necessary to account for divergences between parameters and data transmitted by Ptolemy and those found by later astronomers. Trepidation is commonly thought to have dominated European astronomy from the twelfth century to the Copernican Revolution, meeting its demise only in the last quarter of the sixteenth century thanks to the observational work of Tycho Brahe. The present (...) article seeks to challenge this picture by surveying the extent to which Latin astronomers of the late Middle Ages expressed criticisms of trepidation models or rejected their validity in favour of linear precession. It argues that a readiness to abandon trepidation was more widespread prior to Brahe than hitherto realized and that it frequently came as the result of empirical considerations. This critical attitude towards trepidation reached an early culmination point with the work of Agostino Ricci, who demonstrated the theory’s redundancy with a penetrating analysis of the role of observational error in Ptolemy’s Almagest. (shrink)

This paper employs the revised conception of Leibniz emerging from recent research to reassess critically the 'radical spiritual revolution' which, according to Alexandre Koyre's landmark book, From the closed world to the infinite universe (1957) was precipitated in the seventeenth century by the revolutions in physics, astronomy, and cosmology. While conceding that the cosmological revolution necessitated a reassessment of the place of value-concepts within cosmology, it argues that this reassessment did not entail a spiritual revolution of the kind assumed (...) by Koyre, in which 'value-concepts, such as perfection, harmony, meaning and aim' were shed from the conception of the structure of the universe altogether. On the contrary, thanks to his pioneering intuition of the distinction between physical and metaphysical levels of explanation, Leibniz saw with great clarity that a scientific explanation of the universe which rejected the 'closed world' typical of Aristotelian cosmology did not necessarily require the abandonment of key metaphysical doctrines underlying the Aristotelian conception of the universe. Indeed the canon of value-concepts mentioned by Koyre-meaning, aim, perfection and harmony-reads like a list of the most important concepts underlying the Leibnizian conception of the metaphysical structure of the universe. Moreover, Leibniz's universe, far from being a universe without God-because, as Clarke insinuated, it does not need intervention from God-is a universe which in its deepest ontological fabric is interwoven with the presence of God. (shrink)

In a somewhat polemical article on ‘Solstices, Equinoxes, and the Presocratics’ D. R. Dicks has recently challenged the usual view that the Presocratics in general, and the Milesians in particular, made significant contributions to the development of scientific astronomy in Greece. According to Dicks, mathematical astronomy begins with the work of Meton and Euctemon about 430 B.C. What passes for astronomy in the earlier period ‘was still in the pre-scientific stage’ of ‘rough-and-ready observations, unsystematically recorded and imperfectly (...) understood, of practical men’ whose chief concern was to fix the seasons for ploughing, seed-time, sailing voyages and religious festivals. Ionian speculation, says Dicks, took very little note of such observation: ‘some of its wilder flights of fancy might have been avoided, if it had taken more’. In this account of the rise of Greek astronomy, the natural philosophers have no part to play. Their theories represent a speculative enterprise without a scientific future, a philosophic sideline with no impact on the development of observational science from Hesiod to Meton or the development of mathematical astronomy from Meton to Ptolemy.I believe that such a dichotomy between early philosophy and early science in Greece is misguided in principle, and that it seriously distorts our picture of the initial phases of each discipline. It also imposes a considerable strain upon our credulity. Take the case of Anaxagoras who, according to Plato and Theophrastus, had given a causal explanation of eclipses of the moon a generation before Meton. (shrink)

This paper employs the revised conception of Leibniz emerging from recent research to reassess critically the ‘radical spiritual revolution’ which, according to Alexandre Koyré’s landmark book, From the closed world to the infinite universe was precipitated in the seventeenth century by the revolutions in physics, astronomy, and cosmology. While conceding that the cosmological revolution necessitated a reassessment of the place of value-concepts within cosmology, it argues that this reassessment did not entail a spiritual revolution of the kind assumed by (...) Koyré, in which ‘value-concepts, such as perfection, harmony, meaning and aim’ were shed from the conception of the structure of the universe altogether. On the contrary, thanks to his pioneering intuition of the distinction between physical and metaphysical levels of explanation, Leibniz saw with great clarity that a scientific explanation of the universe which rejected the ‘closed world’ typical of Aristotelian cosmology did not necessarily require the abandonment of key metaphysical doctrines underlying the Aristotelian conception of the universe. Indeed the canon of value-concepts mentioned by Koyré—meaning, aim, perfection and harmony—reads like a list of the most important concepts underlying the Leibnizian conception of the metaphysical structure of the universe. Moreover, Leibniz’s universe, far from being a universe without God—because, as Clarke insinuated, it does not need intervention from God—is a universe which in its deepest ontological fabric is interwoven with the presence of God.Author Keywords: Leibniz; Koyré; Clarke; Universe; Cosmology; Harmony. (shrink)

In 1616, the Holy Congregation for the Index prohibited the printing and reading of Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres on the grounds that heliocentrism contradicted the Holy Scriptures. According to Johannes Kepler, “To study the heavens is to know God as creator.” Moreover, “Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it befits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above else, of the (...) glory of God.” There is some precedent for such claims in John Calvin’s conception of the creation as a “Theatre of God’s glory” with its corollary of the so-called “two books”. Kepler’s defence of Copernican heliocentrism relies upon the distinction between the Book of Nature from the Book of Scripture. Building upon the soteriological foundations laid by Martin Luther, Kepler the astronomer-theologian also seeks to sharpen the distinction between a “visible” and an “invisible” heaven, with significant consequences for astronomical physics. The new astronomy is profoundly implicated in sixteenth-century theological controversies. (shrink)

This paper highlights the significance of popular astronomy lectures in British theatres during the first half of the nineteenth century. The popular astronomy lecturing trade inherited from Enlightenment natural philosophy discourses. A ‘theatrical turn’ developed in the late eighteenth century and became extensive by the 1820s. Lecturers moved astronomy displays into theatres and used theatrical facilities, which resulted in a distinct type of show blending scientific instruction with sensational amusement. Lent was especially high season for this business (...) in a metropolitan entertainment market. Pre–eminent cases of private entrepreneurs in this trade included William Walker, Deane Franklin Walker, George Bartley, and C. H. Adams. By exploring astronomy lectures in theatres, this paper also shows the spatial influence of the site on the format and style of the performance: the benefits and constraints of a theatre made a theatrical astronomy lecture distinct from others at a formal institution. (shrink)

The article presents an in-depth analysis of epistemic cultures in conflict by exemplifying the epistemic conflict between high energy physics and astronomy which emerged after the discovery of “dark energy” and the accelerating expansion of the universe. It suggests a theoretical framework combining Knorr-Cetina’s concept of epistemic cultures with Whitley’s theory of dependencies in the sciences system, which explains that epistemic conflicts occur, if the strategic and functional dependency of two incommensurable epistemic cultures is suddenly growing. The pre-history of (...) the conflict is discussed on a micro-level for the two research groups involved in the breakthrough. The analysis of the consequent epistemic conflict on a macro-level reveals that it embraces the preferred epistemic strategy, the collaboration style, the instrumental concepts and the question how social legitimacy can be generated. (shrink)

In the controversial Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant claims to “complete the critical work of pure reason” [A670/b698] by providing a transcendental deduction of the ideas of pure reason. In order to analyse the role that this Appendix plays in the first Critique, this paper will read the Appendix alongside Kant’s comments in the B-Preface concerning the astronomy of Copernicus. Through an analysis of the nature of Kant and Copernicus’ respective use of presuppositions, and by looking at their (...) respective attempts to unify a science around a single systematic conception of the object of that science, this paper will offer a defence of the fundamental role that Kant’s transcendental deduction of the ideas of pure reason plays in the text. (shrink)

This introduction to physical science combines a rigorous discussion of scientific principles with sufficient historical background and philosophic interpretation to add a new dimension of interest to the accounts given in more conventional textbooks. It brings out the twofold character of physical science as an expanding body of verifiable knowledge and as an organized human activity whose goals and values are major factors in the revolutionary changes sweeping over the world today.Professor Kemble insists that to understand science one must understand (...) not only what the scientists have discovered, but how the discoveries were made, why the growth of scientific knowledge had to begin slowly, and what it has done to our habits of thought. He has written neither a history of science nor an introduction to the philosophy of science but an introduction to scientific concepts and principles that supplies as much of their historical and philosophical context as limits of space permit.The volume takes up in turn the story of the astronomy of ancient Greece, the Copernican revolution, the idea of the expanding sidereal universe, the rise of Newton's classical mechanics with its many astronomical applications, the concept of energy and its relation to heat, to steam engines, and to thermodynamics. The volume ends with an account of the successes and failures of classical kinetic-molecular theory of heat. (shrink)

Anaximenes famously taught that the sun and other ‘stars’ do not move under the flat earth but around it and explained the night thereby. What he had in mind remains conjectural; the testifying fragments are ambiguous and apparently contradictory. The past 200-odd years have seen a plethora of dissenting interpretations. The bulk of these are here categorised into three groups: that the sun circles at a fixed height above sea level; that it follows the familiar inclined path by day and (...) clings to the northern horizon by night; and that it revolves in a circular orbit inclined relative to the earth. The first two scenarios are repudiated, while the third is fortified with several suggestions. It is argued that Anaximenes’ terms for ‘above’, ‘below’ and ‘around’ did not differentiate the altitudes of celestial bodies relative to the horizon, but the sizes of their orbits – as indicated by their projections on the earth’s plane. The point would have been that bodies in space are far enough from the earth to stay away from anyone’s zenith or nadir – perhaps with exceptions, following pseudo-Plutarch. This approach reconciles the variant readings in the fragments and obviates the need for emendations. The sun would still move through the north at night, but in an arc below the horizon – not horizontally over the Ocean or behind mountains, as some had it. Thus, Anaximenes would have enhanced Anaximander’s discovery that space facilitates inclined circular orbits by surrounding the earth on all sides. Awareness of the far-northern midnight twilight and the aurora borealis may have fed into all of these worldviews, the former legitimately and the latter fallaciously. (shrink)

Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953) was a leading philosopher of science, teacher and proponent of logical empiricism. Reichenbach is best known for founding the Berlin Circle, who were a group that maintained logical empiricist views about philosophy. From Copernicus to Einstein is one of the most highly regarded popular accounts of Einstein’s theory of relativity. This book traces the consequences of Copernican astronomy and the advances in the study of light and electricity, then precisely describes the development of the Special (...) and General Theories of Relativity. (shrink)

In this volume of conference papers originally presented at the University of Oklahoma, a distinguished group of scholars examines episodes in the transmission of premodern science and provides new insights into its cultural, philosophical and historical significance.

. The shift from a pre‐Copernican to a Copernican world view has caused an ever increasing sense of homelessness for the idea of a theistically conceived God. This paper first traces the historical development of this problem and its implications for the Christian faith. Next it presents some historically evolved “rescue” attempts and examines them critically. Then follows an inquiry concerning the biblical understanding of God's relation to space and a critical presentation of some contemporary proposals to make (...) God's presence intelligible. In conclusion we propose a dimensional model of relating God and the world, a model which allows for a reasonable discourse of God's immanence and transcendence. (shrink)

This paper raises the question – based on the works of Marc Richir and Dominique Pradelle – if and how phenomenology deals with an “anti-Copernican” revolution, considering that the motif of a “Copernican” revolution seems to have gone through some modifications that reflect a certain deposition of the constitutive role of the subject. Its fundamental thesis is that a certain dimension “beyond” the Copernican revolution does not reestablish a “Ptolemaic” realism but rather opens a dimension “beneath”: beneath (...) the subject and the object where can take place a mutual relationship between an a-subjective constitutive power and a pre-empirical foundational being. This dimension “beneath” means that the alternative does not concern a “pre-Copernican” realism on the one hand and an “idealism” leaving in the shadows the relationship between the transcendental method and an ontological perspective on the other, but rather puts forward a constructive circularity between the transcendental constitution and an ontological foundation. It follows that “normativity” is not achieved on the basis of pre-given objectivity – because it would mean a petition principia – but draws upon the “pre-immanent generativity”. (shrink)

This article presents evidence that an anonymous publication of 1573, aLetter sent by a gentleman of England [concerning …] the myraculous starre nowe shyning, was written by Thomas Digges, England's first Copernican. It tells the story of how it arose out of research commissioned by Elizabeth I's privy counsellors in response to the conventional argument of Jean Gosselin, librarian to Henri III of France, that the star was a comet which presaged wars. The text is significant because it seems (...) to contain the observations and opinions that Digges held before he completed his other astronomical treatise, the groundbreakingAlae seu scalae mathematicae. It also casts some light on the development of Digges's radical and puritan views about the star, Copernican astronomy, the infinity of the universe and a belief that the ‘latter days’ of the world had arrived. (shrink)

1.—Some years ago we were indebted to Mr Kuhn for a refreshing work on the philosophical interpretation of Copernican astronomy. Now he has launched into a more ambitious programme: he has sketched the ground-work for a veritable aggiornamento in our appraisal of the physico-mathematical sciences. The author works in historical depth but on a very narrow front. This latter contraction is responsible for much of the force and clarity of the thesis. But the reader should be sensible from (...) the start of this restriction in the field of acute attention. Although the author tends to use the term ‘science’ without qualification, in truth what he has to say is of only minor relevance to the descriptive or classificatory sciences. The persuasive power of his thesis is virtually confined to the exact operations of the physicist, the astronomer, and the chemist. Kuhn and Canon Raven, in his biologically oriented Gifford Lectures, are both concerned with the appraisal of the history of the natural sciences. Yet their treatments are bewilderingly different, until we understand how each has restricted his canvas. (shrink)

I argue that Copernicus accepted the reality of celestial spheres on the grounds that the equant problem is unintelligible except as a problem about real spheres. The same considerations point to a number of generally unnoticed liabilities of Copernican astronomy, especially gaps between the spheres, and the failure of some spheres to obey the principle that their natural motion is to rotate. These difficulties may be additional reasons for Copernicus's reluctance to publish, and also stand in the way (...) of strict realism as applied to De Revolutionibus, although a realistic astronomy may be envisioned as a goal for Copernicus's research program. (shrink)

A main area of Hans Blumenberg’s works, the history of science, has received little attention, in particular Blumenberg’s history of astronomy. Since 1955 Blumenberg [1920-1996] had undertaken a research on Copernican astronomy, and published many papers during the 50’s and 60’s, later put together in Die kopernikanische Wende [1965]. Blumenberg had also prepared preliminary studies on Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus Nuncius and Cusa’s De coniecturis. All this work will culminate in Blumenberg’s monumental Die genesis der kopernikanischen Welt [1975] (...) and his posthumous book Die Vollzähligkeit der Sterne [1997]. The aim of this paper is to undertake a review on this neglected area of Blumenberg’s works. We will focus on the Heideggerian background in Blumenberg’s history of astronomy. Our thesis is that in Blumenberg’s history of astronomy we can find a metaphysics of existence in a Heideggerian way, as astronomical existential paradigms. (shrink)