The Ptolemy-Copernicus transition: Intertheoretic Context

Abstract

The Ptolemy-Copernicus transition is analyzed in the intertheoretic context provided by an analogy between the Copernican revolution and the Einsteinian one. In the case of Einstein’s revolution it was argued that its cause consisted in the clash between the main research programmes of classical physics: Newtonian mechanics, Maxwellian electrodynamics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. In the present paper it is demonstrated that the Ptolemy-Copernicus transition is similar to the Lorentz-Einstein one with Lorentz playing the Ptolemy role and Einstein - the role of Copernicus. Just as Lorentz’s “theory of electrons” of the second half of the 19th century can be evaluated as a dual theoretical scheme mixing Newtonian mechanics with maxwellian electrodynamics, one can evaluate Ptolemaic cosmology as a dual theoretical scheme mixing the principles of “Platonic mathematics” with those of “Aristotelian physics”. Analogously to the Einsteinian revolution, it is argued that the Copernican one can be cons...