Copernicanism Research Articles

Kepler's invention of the second planetary law

Kepler saw it as one of the chief advantages of the Copernican system that it put order into the planetary motions. Although Copernicus had indeed noted that the planetary periods increase with their distance from the sun, he did not, as far as we know, attempt to find a relationship between the two. Believing that God would not have failed to establish some mathematically precise ratio, Kepler sought from the very first to find it. Thus we see, in some of his earliest surviving letters, his attempts to relate planetary periods to the radii of their orbits using circular quadrants intersected by straight lines. Right from the beginning, Kepler gave the sun that dynamic role that was to characterize his ‘new astronomy based upon physics’. Immediately after describing the nested polyhedra that he believed determined the number and distances of the planets, he wrote:Next, there is a moving soul and an infinite motion in the sun, and a double decrement of motion in the movables. In the first place, there is the inequality of their circuits, caused by the unequal amplitude of the orbs, which would occur even were the moving power the same in all orbs. But (2) actually this moving power (like light, in optics) is weaker the further it is from the source.

DOPO IL SIDEREUS NUNCIUS: IL COPERNICANESIMO IN ITALIA TRA GALILEO E KEPLERO*

SUMMARY After the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo and Kepler continued to investigate some main scientific and philosophical problems.They considered the debates about sun-spots and comets, the philosophical problems arising from Copernicus' condemnation and the discussion originated by F. Ingoli's and S. Chiaromonti's works.This paper examines the circulation of Kepler's works in Italy, and focuses on the following two themes: Federico Cesi's discussion of the Copernican system; Galileo's and Kepler's research on sun-spots.

Novelties in the heavens: rhetoric and science in the Copernican controversy

In this fascinating work, Jean Dietz Moss shows how the scientific revolution begun by Copernicus brought about another revolution as well one in which rhetoric, previously used simply to explain scientific thought, became a tool for persuading a skeptical public of the superiority of the Copernican system. Moss describes the nature of dialectical and rhetorical discourse in the period of the Copernican debate to shed new light on the argumentative strategies used by the participants. Against the background of Ptolemy's Almagest, she analyzes the gradual increase of rhetoric beginning with Copernicus's De Revolutionibus and Galileo's Siderius nuncius, through Galileo's debates with the Jesuits Scheiner and Grassi, to the most persuasive work of all, Galileo's Dialogue. The arguments of the Dominicans Bruno and Campanella, the testimony of Johannes Kepler, and the pleas of Scriptural exegetes and the speculations of John Wilkins furnish a counterpoint to the writings of Galileo, the centerpiece of this study. The author places the controversy within its historical frame, creating a coherent narrative movement. She illuminates the reactions of key ecclesiastical and academic figures figures and the general public to the issues. Blending history and rhetorical analysis, this first study to look at rhetoric as defined by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century participants is an original contribution to our understanding of the use of persuasion as an instrument of scientific debate.

The Appreciation of Technology in Campanella’s “The City of the Sun”

Research Note THE APPRECIATION OF TECHNOLOGY IN CAMPANELLA’S “THE CITY OF THE SUN” PHYLLIS A. HALL Under the hardships of prison and even torture, Renaissance philosopher Tommaso Campanella penned more than one hundred works. His most widely read book is a utopia, The City of the Sun (1623).' Scholars have studied Campanella’s utopia to understand his thought, but there are two facets that have not drawn the attention they merit. The first is the value of the book as one of the earliest utopias to include ideas on technology as part of an ideal common­ wealth. This is significant because it heralds the direction of utopian thought in succeeding centuries. By the 19th century, many utopian thinkers regarded technological progress, along with economic ratio­ nalization, as the cure for society’s ills. Much utopian thought of the 20th century views technology optimistically and focuses on scientific utopias in advanced technological societies.2 The second facet of Campanella’s utopia that merits attention is the evidence it presents on the contemporary state oftechnology. An analysis of The City of the Sun reveals Campanella’s great interest in technical matters ranging from new inventions and discoveries to water and road systems. The book represents the changing emphasis on technology in European society during the early years of the 17th century. * * * Dr. Hall lives at Williamsburg, Virginia. ‘All references to Campanella’s utopia are from the most recent translation of The City of the Sun, a bilingual edition: Tommaso Campanella, La Citta del Sole: Dialogo Poetico/The City of the Sun: A Poetical Dialogue (hereafter City), trans. Daniel J. Dunno (Berkeley, Calif., 1981). Dunno has provided an introduction on pp. 1-21 and notes on pp. 129-41. Luigi Firpo’s critical edition of La Citta del Sole in his Scntti scelti di Bruno e di Campanella, Classici italiani (Turin, 1965), contains useful notes. “Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 801-14; Krishan Kumar, Utopia and Anti-utopia in Modem Times (Oxford, 1987), pp. 380-424; Arthur O. Lewis, “Utopia, Technology, and the Evolu­ tion of Society,” Journal of General Education 37 (1985): 163, 175.© 1993 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/93/3403-0005$01.00 613 614 Phyllis A. Hall Tommaso Campanella (1568—1639) was an Italian Dominican monk.3 He was a disciple of Bernardino Telesio, an anti-Aristotelian and experimental philosopher. Two of Campanella’s early works, De sensitiva rerum (ca. 1590) and De investigatione rerum (ca. 1590), contend that man understands the world through his senses and that philo­ sophical knowledge must be based on sensation and the study of nature. His defense of Telesio’s ideas led to a collision with the Church, and Campanella spent more than twenty-seven years in prison, including eight years in a dungeon and torture on three occasions. From prison Campanella courageously defended Galileo, the Copernican system, and man’s freedom to investigate natural phenomena in his Apologia pro Galileo (1616).4 His writings include works on philosophy, politics, religion, medicine, mathematics, phys­ iology, fortification, rhetoric and poetry, and interpretations of dreams and astrology.5 In published works and unpublished manu­ scripts, he encompassed almost every area of human knowledge and sought to reform both secular and spiritual institutions.6 Italy was in need of reform during Campanella’s lifetime. Spain dominated Italy, and Spanish secular authorities often worked with the Inquisition to control the Italian provinces. In his writings, Campanella called for an end to secular and ecclesiastical exploitation. He became actively involved in a revolt in Calabria in 1599, the aim of which seems to have been to set up a theocracy like the one Campanella later developed in The City of the Sun. He was arrested, ’For more information on Campanella, see Nicola Badoloni, Tommaso Campanella (Milan, 1965); Bernardino M. Bonansea, Tommaso Campanella: Renaissance Pioneer of Modern Thought (Washington, D.C., 1969); D. P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magicfrom Ficino to Campanella (London, 1958); Joan Kelly-Gadol, “Tommaso Campanella: The Agony of Political Theory in the Counter Reformation,” in Philosophy and Humanism: Renaissance Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar...

:Galileo, Bellarmino and the Bible: Including a Translation of Foscarini's "Letter on the Motion of the Earth."

Described as the paradigm case of the troubled interaction between science and religion, the conflict between Galileo and the Church continues to generate new research and debate. Richard J.Blackwell here offers his own approach to the Galileo case using as his primary focus the biblical and ecclesiastical issues that were the battleground for the confrontation. Blackwell's research in the Vatican manuscript collection and the Jesuit archives in Rome enables him to recreate a picture of the trends and countertrends that influenced leading Catholic thinkers of the period: the conservative reaction to the Reformation, the role of the authority in biblical exegesis and in guarding orthodoxy from the inroads of unbridled spirits and the position taken by Cardinal Bellarmine and the Jesuits in attempting to weigh the discoveries of the new science in the context of traditional philosophy and theology. A centrepiece of Blackwell's investigation is his reading of the brief treatise Letter on the Motion of the Earth by Paolo Antonio Foscarini, a Carmelite scholar, arguing for the compatability of the Copernican system with the Bible. Blackwell appends the first modern translation in English of this relatively neglected document, which was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1616. Though there were differing and competing theories of biblical interpretation advocated in Galileo's time, the legacy of the Council of Trent, the views of Cardinal Bellarmine, one of the most influential churchmen of his time, and, finally, the claims of authority and obedience that weakened the ability of Jesuit scientists to support the new science, all contributed to the eventual condemnation of Galileo in 1633. Blackwell argues that the maintenance of ecclesiastical authority, not the scientific issues themselves, led to that trial.

Philosophical fictions and the French Renaissance (review)

216 Reviews Kenny, Neil, ed., Philosophicalfictionsand the French Renaissance (Warburg Institute surveys and texts, No. 19), London, Warburg Institute, 1991, paper, pp. 137; 8 plates; R.R.P. £10. The ten essays which compromise this collection deal with aspects of the relationship between philosophy andfictionin writings in the French vernacular in the sixteenth century. Philosophy in this context is taken to embrace all investigations into human and natural phenomena, allowing that attention is restricted to inquiries infictionalform in contrast to the systematic investigation of phenomena characteristic of Aristotelian phdosophy, which was in any case normally pursued in Latin. While the broad sweep of philosophy as fiction in this period runs across most areas of philosophy, there is a particular emphasis on neoplatonist themes, and especially on alchemy and other forms of hermetic inquiry as ways to hidden truth and secret wisdom. The association of phdosophy andfictionwas not, of course an invention of the Renaissance, being as old as philosophy itself and as fully developed in some of Plato's dialogues as human genius is ever likely to achieve. More directly, Renaissance practice grew out of the medieval love of allegory and the conviction that myth and fable could be proper vehicles of philosophical truth. Ann Moss brings out this connection very clearly in her essay 'Fabulous narrations in the Concorde des deux languages of Jean Lemaire des Beiges'. This is an essay of considerable interest since Lemaire presents a mythological story of a journey to the Temples of Venus and Minerva precisely as a vehicle for considering the reception of the Italian Renaissance in France and exploring the possibility of harmony between different cultures and moral visions. Lemaire was attracted by both the platonist and neoplatonist theme of the unity of all forms of beauty and troubled by the idea of inevitable conflict between its 'higher' and 'lower' forms. Neoplatonist and platonist ideas also figure in Philip Ford's paper 'Neoplatonicfictionsin the Hymnes of Ronsard', on this occasion in the domain of cosmology. Ronsard, it is generally considered, subscribedtoa fundamentally Aristotelian view of the universe. Ford examines Les TV Saisons de Van (1563) and argues, without a great deal of conviction, that there are traces of neoplatonism in Ronsard's images which suggest that he was drawn to a more mystical conception of the cosmos than was provided by Aristotle. For discussion of a writer who was unambiguously anti-Aristotelian, one should turn to Michel Jeanneret's essay on Giordano Bruno's La cena de la ceneri (The Ash Wednesday supper, 1584): 'La Tete et l'estomac: Giordano Bruno, les banquets et le detournement de la philosophic'. Bruno's concern, in this wild suppersymposium dialogue composed during his London sojourn, was to defend his version of Copernican theory, which was essentially hermetic and non- Reviews 217 mathematical, against the Aristotelian pedants of Oxford. Jeanneret provides a lively guide to the literary and philosophical character of the dialogue, but his reading, which wdl appeal to post-modernists, exaggerates Bruno's success in elaborating a new epistemology or changing the course of philosophy. In an informative essay 'The philosophical phoenix', Richard Cooper explores the extensive imagery associated with 'the bird of wonder' in the Renaissance period with particular reference to French and Itatian poetry. The discussion ranges across the image of the phoenix in love poetry, its role as symbol of virtue in the moral order, of continuity in the social and political order, of rebirth, eternity, Christ the soul and martyrdom in the religious domain, and finally its association with science and medicine, and specifically with alchemy and the idea of its embodiment of everything longed for in the quest for the philosophers' stone. Cosmography had a special place in the Renaissance, with its burgeoning desire for a new understanding of the cosmos. In the concluding essay of the collection, entided 'Fictions cosmographiques a la Renaissance', Frank Lestringant examines two cosmographies in the sphere of mid-sixteenth century religious controversy. One is the 'Geographie infernale' (1552), developed by an early Calvinist theologian Piene Viret which can be set against the picture of underworld favoured by Dante and medieval Catholicism. The second example, also Calvinist and even more combative in character, is...

Could Lakatos, Even With Zahar's Criterion for Novel Fact, Evaluate the Copernican Research Programme?

In ‘Why did Copernicus's research programme supersede Ptolemy's?’, Lakatos and Zahar argued that, on Zahar's criterion for ‘novel fact’, Copernican theory was objectively scientifically superior to Ptolemaic theory. They are mistaken, Lakatos and Zahar applied Zahar's criterion to ‘a historical thought-experiment’—fictional rather than real history. Further, in their fictional history, they compared Copernicus to Eudoxus rather than Ptolemy, ignored Tycho Brahe, and did not consider facts that would be novel for geostatic theories. When Zahar's criterion is applied to real history, the results are distinctly different. Finally, most of the historical and conceptual problems in applying Zahar's criterion to the Copernican Revolution primarily arise from a deep difficulty in Lakatos's programme: the necessity of individuating research programmes and identifying their originators.

The tower experiment and the Copernican revolution

Abstract During the Copernican revolution the supporters of the Ptolemaic theory argued that the tower experiment refuted the Copernican hypothesis of the (diurnal) motion of the earth, but was in agreement with the Ptolemaic theory. In his defence of the Copernican theory Galileo argued that the experiment was in agreement both with Copernican and Ptolemaic theory. The reason for these different views of the same experiment was not that the two theories were incommensurable, as Paul Feyerabend argues, but that Galileo introduced a new theory of motion which he used as an auxiliary hypothesis in his discussion of the tower experiment, while those defending the Ptolemaic theory used the old Aristotelian theory of motion. Already before the Copernican revolution the Aristotelian theory of motion was criticized by philosophers in Paris, who suggested the impetus theory of motion. The later versions of this theory had the consequence that the tower experiment no longer refuted the hypothesis of the (diurnal) ...

Probable age of Autolycus and calibration of lunar stratigraphy

Ar-39 - Ar-40 analyses of three petrographically distinct, shocked Apollo 15 KREEP (i.e., high K, rare earth element, P, and other trace element contents) basalt samples demonstrate that a major impact event affected all three samples at about 2.1 Ga. The Copernican System craters Aristillus and Autolycus are to the north. Autolycus, the older of the two, is in a particularly appropriate terrain and is the most likely source of the 2.1 Ga heating and delivery event. With this calibration point, and if Autolycus really is a Copernican crater, the Copernican System lasted twice as long as has previously been suggested. Furthermore, the moon was not subjected to a constant cratering rate over the past 3 billion years; the average rate in the preceding Eratosthenian must have been twice that in the Copernican.

Tycho Brahe's Critique of Copernicus and the Copernican System

For Luther he was the fool who wanted to turn the art of astronomy on its head'; for Frangois Viete he was the paraphraser of Ptolemy and more a master of the dice than of the (mathematical) profession2; for nearly every intellectual in the century following De revolutionibus Copernicus was a figure to be evaluated and criticized, if not always understood. Tycho Brahe's critique of Copernicus is not summed up in any pithy statement but rather spread throughout his life's work. Yet it reveals the constant importance of Copernicus and his shortcomings as the point of departure for Tycho's own model and observations. Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) was not unusual in combining a certain admiration for Copernicus with a consistent rejection of heliocentrism. Beyond the rather commonplace criticisms of the Copernican system based on physical, scriptural, and cosmological arguments, Tycho's published works and astronomical correspondence reveal countless attempts to disprove or discredit the Copernican hypothesis on empirical grounds. This criticism of Copernicus's parameters and observational practice, although less well known,3 is an integral part of, perhaps even a source for, Tycho's influential new agenda of restoring astronomy through greater

Dynamic Human (Astronomical) Models

Many educators have found that models can add a lot to the understanding of astronomical concepts. Attractive commercial models of the solar system and celestial globes are readily available. Many models can be constructed of common materials — I found in my doctoral dissertation work that models made and manipulated by students increased retention of concepts of the celestial sphere and rotation, the seasons, lunar phases, and planet motions.But there is another type of model which I have found very successful. I call it the “dynamic human model.” Actually, the concept is not new. I know that many good teachers have a favorite demonstration in which one or more students represent the Earth, sun, or moon. Also, the Elementary-School Science Project of the University of Illinois contained activities for student models to distinguish between Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. However, I do not think the idea has been extended as far as it should be. I would like to suggest ideas for dynamic human models beyond what I have seen elsewhere.

Book Review: Copernicanism and Logic, Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition

Book Review: Copernicanism and Logic, Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition

Catholic astronomers and the Copernican system after the condemnation of Galileo

Summary The Copernican system was condemned as heretical by a decree of the Roman Inquisition in 1633. This decree was effectively, though not officially, withdrawn in 1757, after which date Catholic astronomers felt themselves free to accept and propagate the system without reserve. Between these dates their attitudes varied greatly. In France the decree was never promulgated and was legally unenforceable. Astronomers could be Copernican without any fear of consequences and most of them were, though some, out of respect for the Church, refrained from declaring themselves publicly. In Italy the possible risks were greater, but a few Copernican or near-Copernican works were published without hostile reactions. The ecclesiastical authorities were tolerant and made little positive effort to enforce conformity. By 1744, the system was being freely propagated in Rome itself.

So it wasn't Copernicanism!

So it wasn't Copernicanism!

Jacob Boehme's Divine Substance Salitter: its Nature, Origin, and Relationship to Seventeenth Century Scientific Theories

The Century between the death of Copernicus (1543) and the birth of Newton (1642) witnessed a major reshaping of traditional ways of viewing the universe. The Ptolemaic system was challenged by Copernican heliocentrism, the Aristotelian world was assailed by Galilean physics and revived atomism, and theology was troubled by the progressive distancing of God from the daily operation of His creation. Besides earning this era the title of ‘the Scientific Revolution’, the intellectual ferment of these times offered many world systems as successors to the throne of crumbling Aristotelianism.

Richard van der Riet Woolley, 24 April 1906 - 24 December 1986

For the almost three centuries from the appointment of John Flamsteed in 1675 to the retirement of Richard Woolley in 1971, the office of Director of the Royal Observatory and the title Astronomer Royal were deemed inseparable (although just at the outset there had been slight variability in the title’s wording). Flamsteed and his successors were all among Britain’s most distinguished scientists. They included Edmond Halley, in office 1720-42, probably the greatest scientist of the generation after Newton; James Bradley 1742-62, discoverer of optical aberration giving the first direct empirical evidence for the Copernican system ; Nevil Maskelyne 1765-1811, who was the first scientist to weigh the Earth ; Sir George Airy 1835-81, who personally performed most of the functions nowadays requiring a string of research councils; and Sir Frank Dyson 1910-33, who organized the observations at the 1919 solar eclipse that led to the acceptance of the modification of Newton’s law of gravitation proposed by Einstein.

Editor's Introduction: Between Party and Principle

In the name of order, authoritarian regimes have persecuted their most gifted sons. What is unusual is not that the Athenian court ruled the Socratic method to have corrupted their young and neglected their gods; or Henry VIII found Thomas More's refusal to validate his marriage to be treacherous; or the Papal Inquisition condemned Galileo's exposition of Copernican theory as false and erroneous. What makes them cause celebre is that Socrates elected to drink fatal hemlock rather than disavow his conduct; that More accepted decapitation rather than capitulating to his king; that Galileo chose imprisonment over acquiescence to the dominant Ptolmaic cosmology.

Was There a Crisis Before the Copernican Revolution? A Reappraisal of Gingerich’s Criticisms of Kuhn

In this essay I will discuss and appraise two conflicting answers to the question of whether there was a crisis in Ptolemaic astronomy prior to the Copernican revolution. I will begin by giving a brief account of why anybody should be interested in this question. I will discuss the two conflicting answers of Kuhn (1962, 1970), who claims to present evidence which shows that Ptolemaic astronomy was anomaly-ridden at the time of Copernicus, and of Gingerich (1975), who claims that the supposed anomalies, which have been passed down in the historical literature due to poor scholarship, are fictitious. Finally I will appraise Gingerich’s criticism of Kuhn, giving my own evaluation of Gingerich’s arguments. I conclude that Gingerich’s arguments against the existence of a technical crisis in Ptolemaic astronomy prior to Copernicus appear to be, either arguments against the efficacy of the Copernican system, or arguments based on definitions of complexity which are not directly attributable to Kuhn.

Glymour on Bootstrap Confirmation of Ptolemaic Theory

(A revolution of longitude is one cycle of the roughly periodic motion of the planet from West to East along the inside of the celestial sphere. The period of a cycle of anomaly is the period between successive collineations of the planet, the Earth, and the Sun, with the planet and Sun on opposite sides of the celestial sphere.) Glymour argues that within Ptolemaic theory this regularity tests nothing more than the particular values assigned to such parameters ... while in the Copemican system, by contrast, some of the most hypotheses are confirmed, according to the bootstrap strategy, by the regularity in question (Glymour 1980, p. 196). Although Glymour successfully points out a virtue of the Copernican theory, his own argument can be reformulated in Ptolemaic terms and used against him to show that the Ptolemaic theory has the same virtue. This paper will show that, although E bootstrap confirms the hypotheses of the Copemican theory in some sense (although by the end of this paper, I will interpret fundamental differently from Glymour), E bootstrap confirms the corresponding hypotheses of the Ptolemaic theory to the exact same extent. Having shown this, I will argue that what is actually bootstrap confirmed is not two sets of hypotheses, but rather a single set of hypotheses so that they are common to both theories. After an analysis of that set of common

Celestial Orbs in the Latin Middle Ages

Previous articleNext article No AccessCelestial Orbs in the Latin Middle AgesEdward GrantEdward Grant Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 78, Number 2Jun., 1987 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/354388 Views: 15Total views on this site Citations: 6Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1987 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Иоанн деСакробоско О СФЕРЕ , "Средние века", Средние века , no.33 (Jan 2020): 69–80.https://doi.org/10.7868/S0131878020030046C. Philipp E. Nothaft An Alfonsine universe: Nicolò Conti and Georg Peurbach on the threefold motion of the fixed stars, Centaurus 61, no.1-21-2 (Feb 2020): 91–110.https://doi.org/10.1111/1600-0498.12200Jonathan N. Regier “Qualis alio modo reperiri non potest.” A Few Words on Copernican Necessity, (Sep 2019): 115–136.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67378-3_6Paolo Palmieri Galileus Deceptus, Non Minime Decepit : A Re-Appraisal of a Counter-Argument in Dialogo to the Extrusion Effect of a Rotating Earth, Journal for the History of Astronomy 39, no.44 (Nov 2008): 425–452.https://doi.org/10.1177/002182860803900401Irving A. Kelter Reading the Book of God as the Book of Nature: The Case of the Louvain Humanist Cornelius Valerius (1512–78), (Jan 2007): 174–187.https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230206472_10John L. Russell, SJ Catholic astronomers and the Copernican system after the condemnation of Galileo, Annals of Science 46, no.44 (Aug 2006): 365–386.https://doi.org/10.1080/00033798900200291