Copernican World Research Articles

Blumenberg’s presentation of the history of cosmology as an introduction to the genesis of the Copernican world

Cosmology, especially as a pre-Copernican question of metaphysics, represented one of the central questions of thought throughout the history of the Western horizon: the relationship between metaphysics and cosmology was questioned with Copernicus major work on cosmology and especially in post-Copernican literature where the position of metaphysics alone was questioned. Following this, Hans Blumenberg (?1996) in his work ?Genesis of the Copernican world? presented the history of cosmos thinking from ancient cosmology through the relationship of cosmos and tragedy to the postclassicalidealistic development of science and cosmology within the field of natural science, encyclopedically presenting the results of his research. The main hypothesis of this paper is reflected in proving how Blumenberg, by expounding the genesis of the Copernican world and presenting the thesis of the ?ambiguity of heaven?, actually sets out the preconditions for the development of modern science in the field of natural science thinking. Namely, modern science is in fact the result of a history of thought with all it?s essential principles on the path of clarity and certainty, and finally to the pinnacle of science which is theoretically manifested in exactness. The ultimate goal of the paper is to present the genesis of the ambiguity of heaven to modern cosmology and cosmological research in modern times, especially - on the example of Blumenberg?s work

History, Metaphors, Fables. A Hans Blumenberg Reader

Hans Blumenberg (1920–1996) has been widely admired in Europe for decades by academics and intellectuals from a wide variety of different fields and with varying interests. This has, not surprisingly, somewhat “diluted” his reputation. He was certainly a philosopher, influenced early on by Husserl and Heidegger (only early on, although their influence was still detectable later), but, possessed of vast erudition, and, to cite one of his main interests, constantly “curious” about a number of topics, he published on so many different topics, ranging from theories of modernity, the impact of Copernicus, the history of science more generally, that nature of literature, ontology, themes in the philosophy of language, theories of metaphor, histories and analyses of basic metaphors in Western thought, philosophical anthropology, the nature of myth and analyses of the meaning of numerous individual myths (especially the Prometheus myth), the role of technology in modernity, aesthetics, and individual studies of figures ranging from Goethe to Valéry to Faulkner, that he has as good a claim as any modern thinker to be termed “unclassifiable.” That means that he is often viewed as falling “between” disciplines rather than a master of many (a mistake), and perhaps this has made him seem to some less central to their enterprise, perhaps even marginal. (This is even more the case with Blumenberg than with figures he is often associated with, like Erich Rothacker, Joachim Ritter, and Reinhart Koselleck.) His reception in the anglophone world has been slow, due mostly to the slow pace of translations of his major works. This began to change in the eighties, thanks to the solitary, dedicated and, I think it fair to say, heroic labors of the philosopher Robert M. Wallace, who took it on himself to translate three massive, central books by Blumenberg: The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1983), Work on Myth (1985), and The Genesis of the Copernican World (1987). The pace of translations has since picked up, and now we have an extremely valuable “reader,” edited, translated and introduced by Hannes Bajohr, Florian Fuchs, and Joe Paul Kroll, History, Metaphors, Fables: A Hans Blumenberg Reader.

MOND vs. dark matter in light of historical parallels

MOND is a paradigm that contends to account for the mass discrepancies in the Universe without invoking ‘dark’ components, such as ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. It does so by supplanting Newtonian dynamics and General Relativity, departing from them at very low accelerations. Having in mind readers who are historians and philosophers of science, as well as physicists and astronomers, I describe in this review the main aspects of MOND – its statement, its basic tenets, its main predictions, and the tests of these predictions – contrasting it with the dark-matter paradigm. I then discuss possible wider ramifications of MOND, for example the potential significance of the MOND constant, a0, with possible implications for the roots of MOND in cosmology. Along the way I point to parallels with several historical instances of nascent paradigms. In particular, with the emergence of the Copernican world picture, that of quantum physics, and that of relativity, as regards their initial advent, their development, their schematic structure, and their ramifications. For example, the interplay between theories and their corollary laws, and the centrality of a new constant with converging values as deduced from seemingly unrelated manifestations of these laws. I demonstrate how MOND has already unearthed a number of unsuspected laws of galactic dynamics (to which, indeed, a0 is central) predicting them a priori, and leading to their subsequent verification. I parallel the struggle of the new with the old paradigms, and the appearance of hybrid paradigms at such times of struggle. I also try to identify in the history of those established paradigms a stage that can be likened to that of MOND today.

Suppressed Intuitions, Large Number Coincidences, and a Mathematical Foundation for Life and Consciousness

A brief examination of the natural sciences reveals that we are still under the influence of pre Copernican intuitions. These have only been suppresses and not supplanted. This is why we appeal to such things as large number coincidences in the hope that the mathematics, which unlike us does not suffer from naive beliefs, will lead us in the right direction. However, we need to be extremely careful as it is easy to create these coincidences and over interpret their significance. In the 1980’s work on these coincidences did lead to a mathematical formulism which seems to have relevance in our universe. This led to a suggested link between the biological cell, the weak force and the electron neutrino and suggests a new approach to consciousness studies that is gradually gaining ground. This mathematical formulism also suggests a new arrangement for the natural sciences which is more appropriate in a post Copernican world.

The John Holmes Memorial Lecture: Global Governance in a Copernican World

FOR ALL THE DIPPING POLITICAL SCIENCE DOES INTO SUCH DISCIPLINES AS economics, physics, and sociology our theory and metaphors, it is (as Carl Sagan no doubt would have agreed) astronomy that provides the best conceptualization of the twenty-first-century international system. The Cold War system of the second half of the twentieth century was a lot like the ancient philosopher-astronomer Ptolemy's theory of the universe. For Ptolemy, the earth was at the center with the other planets, indeed all the other celestial bodies, revolving around it. And so too was the United States at the center of the Cold War world. It was the wielder of power, the economic engine, the bastion of free world ideology. When the Cold War ended with the demise and defeat of the Soviet Union, US centrality seemed even more defining; it was the sole surviving superpower. The US economy was driving globalization. Democracy was spreading all over. The world seemed even more Ptolemaic. Not anymore. The twenty-first-century world is more like the theory of the universe developed in the early sixteenth century by the Polish astronomer-cosmologist Nicolaus Copernicus, who posited that the earth was not at the center, that the was, and that the earth had its own orbit around the sun, and other planets had their own orbits around the not the earth. So too in the twenty-first century, the United States is not at the center. It has its own orbit. Other planets (countries) also have their own sources of influence, their own national interests, their own identities, and their own domestic politics. This Copernican world is evident geopolitically with other powers rising (China), recovering (Russia), seeking to reinvigorate (European Union), emerging (e.g., India, Brazil, and Turkey), and engendering their own revolutions (e.g., Tunisia and Egypt). It is evident economically with globalization having the United States' own National Intelligence Council assessed as a of a 'Made in the USA' character. It is evident ideologically amidst my colleague Steve Weber and I have called the marketplace of ideas. It is evident culturally as with the comment by a New York art dealer after an auction dominated by newly moneyed non-Western collectors that for the first time in nearly two hundred years the Western world doesn't make the decisions about our future. (1) What is less clear, though, is the is in our version of a Copernican world, keeping planets (countries) from crashing into each other. It is not the United Nations: it helps, but only partially. It is not just having a more multilateralist president of the United States. Indeed, the what is the sun question is fundamental to global governance. This article, drawn from my 2011 John W. Holmes Memorial Lecture at the annual meeting of the Academic Council of the United Nations System, has two main objectives: develop this Copernican model theoretically and draw out some of its principal policy implications from a global governance perspective. Theoretical Bases of the Copernican World The Copernican world model has three comparative theoretical advantages. First, it picks up on the diffusion and dilution of power that realists underestimate and that makes the twenty-first-century international system less than hegemony, whether of the persistent US version or the prospective Chinese one Second, it gets at the greater contestation of systemic ordering principles than liberal institutionalist theories acknowledge. Third, it brings the state back in, checking against too-exclusive focuses on global architecture and other systemic-level factors in ways consistent with the crucial role states still must play in the multidimensionality of global governance. Diffusion and Dilution of Power One of the most seductive deceptions of the George W. Bush years was that, once he was gone, the United States would regain its global reputation and place of leadership and all would be well. …

Hans Blumenberg, lecteur et interprète de l'œuvre de Copernic

The aim of this article is to analyse Hans Blumenberg’s reinterpretation of the Copernican revolution in his book on the genesis of Copernican world : Die Genesis der kopernikanischen Welt (1975). The main problem is to determine why such an event was impossible before Renaissance, since Aristarch of Samos had unsuccessfully conceived a heliocentric system in Antiquity. Correlatively, what kind of changes among historical conditions of early modern thought made possible a progressive emergence of copernicanism ? Blumenberg’s complex answer requires a peculiar two-faced methodology : a preparatory history called “ Vorgeschichte ” which is controlled by a history of the real effects (“ Wirkungsgeschichte ”) produced in the world by an intellectual changes. Thanks to this double perspective, Blumenberg is striving to show that Copernicus was neither a “foreign body” in his time nor a relay of the secularization thesis, but an agent of self-affirmation (“ Selbstbehauptung ”) of man proper to modern times.

Introduction

This special issue of Telos focusing on the work of the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg aims to reinvigorate the critical engagement with his work in the English-speaking world by casting a new light on his thought and its fundamental concerns. The American reception of Blumenberg reached an initial high point in the late 1980s and 1990s with Robert M. Wallace's remarkable translation of three monumental volumes: The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1983), Work on Myth (1985), and The Genesis of the Copernican World (1987). This reception often (though not exclusively) focused on the questions prompted by Blumenberg's contributions to…

A True Demonstration: Bellarmine and the Stars as Evidence Against Earth’s Motion in the Early Seventeenth Century

A True DemonstrationBellarmine and the Stars as Evidence Against Earth’s Motion in the Early Seventeenth Century Christopher M. Graney (bio) In 1615 Robert Cardinal Bellarmine demanded a “true demonstration” of Earth’s motion before he would cease to doubt the Copernican world system. No such demonstration was available because the geocentric Tychonic world system was a viable alternative to the heliocentric Copernican system. On the contrary, recent work concerning early observations of stars suggests that, thanks to astronomers’ misunderstanding of the images of stars seen through the telescope, the only “true demonstration” the telescope provided in Bellarmine’s day showed the earth not to circle the Sun. This had been discussed by the German astronomer Simon Marius, in his Mundus Iovialis, just prior to Bellarmine’s request for a “true demonstration.” In the early seventeenth century, careful telescopic observations made by skilled astronomers did not support the heliocentric world system of Copernicus, but rather the geocentric world system of the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. This was because early telescopic astronomers did not understand the limitations of their telescopes, which produced spurious views of stars. Since they failed to realize this, they concluded that the stars were not sufficiently distant to be compatible with the Copernican system.1 [End Page 69] In April 1615, in a letter offering his opinion on the Copernican world system, Robert Cardinal Bellarmine wrote: I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them then that what is demonstrated is false. But I will not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown me. Nor is it the same to demonstrate that by supposing the sun to be at the center and the earth in heaven one can save the appearances, and to demonstrate that in truth the sun is at the center and the earth in heaven; for I believe the first demonstration may be available, but I have very great doubts about the second, and in the case of doubt one must not abandon the Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Fathers.2 Bellarmine had been drawn into a growing controversy concerning Galileo Galilei and the Copernican world system. The discoveries Galileo had made with the telescope in the years prior to 1615 had certainly undermined traditional Aristotelian and Ptolemaic ideas about the heavens. The Sun’s spots and the Moon’s Earth-like features, such as mountains and plains, were inconsistent with their being made of an unchanging and unearthly “quintessence.” Jupiter’s satellites revealed that the Earth was not the center of all heavenly motion. Venus’s phases showed that body to circle the Sun. That the Milky Way was composed of stars and that far more stars existed than could be seen with the unaided eye illustrated the limitations of existing knowledge. In reaction to Galileo’s success, certain opponents of Galileo and Copernicus had begun to turn to biblical rather than scientific arguments to make their case. In December 1613 the Grand Duchess Dowager Christina and some associates had challenged one of Galileo’s [End Page 70] friends and followers, the Benedictine Fr. Benedetto Castelli, on the issue of the Earth’s movement.3 Castelli mentioned this to Galileo in a letter dated December 14. Castelli noted to Galileo that those who challenged him “admitted as true all the celestial novelties you have discovered,” but they challenged the conclusion that the Earth moves, “especially since Holy Scripture [is] clearly contrary to this claim.”4 Galileo replied to Castelli with a substantial letter dated December 21 in which he refuted the biblical objection to the Copernican system. This letter was not published, but copies were circulated.5 Moreover, someone produced altered copies of the letter so as to cast an unfavorable light on Galileo. For example, Galileo wrote to Castelli that “in the Scripture one finds many propositions...

The role of biblical interpretation in the cosmology of Tycho Brahe

MOND is a paradigm that contends to account for the mass discrepancies in the Universe without invoking ‘dark’ components, such as ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. It does so by supplanting Newtonian dynamics and General Relativity, departing from them at very low accelerations. Having in mind readers who are historians and philosophers of science, as well as physicists and astronomers, I describe in this review the main aspects of MOND – its statement, its basic tenets, its main predictions, and the tests of these predictions – contrasting it with the dark-matter paradigm. I then discuss possible wider ramifications of MOND, for example the potential significance of the MOND constant, a0, with possible implications for the roots of MOND in cosmology. Along the way I point to parallels with several historical instances of nascent paradigms. In particular, with the emergence of the Copernican world picture, that of quantum physics, and that of relativity, as regards their initial advent, their development, their schematic structure, and their ramifications. For example, the interplay between theories and their corollary laws, and the centrality of a new constant with converging values as deduced from seemingly unrelated manifestations of these laws. I demonstrate how MOND has already unearthed a number of unsuspected laws of galactic dynamics (to which, indeed, a0 is central) predicting them a priori, and leading to their subsequent verification. I parallel the struggle of the new with the old paradigms, and the appearance of hybrid paradigms at such times of struggle. I also try to identify in the history of those established paradigms a stage that can be likened to that of MOND today.

How Things Change: The History of Sociotechnical Structures

How Things Change: The History of Sociotechnical Structures

The Genesis of the Copernican World (review)

The Genesis of the Copernican World (review)

The Genesis of the Copernican World.

This major work by the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg is a monumental rethinking of the significance of the Copernican revolution for our understanding of modernity. It provides an important corrective to the view of science as an autonomous enterprise and presents a new account of the history of interpretations of the significance of the heavens for man.Hans Blumenberg is Professor of Philosophy, emeritus, at the University of Munster in West Germany. This book is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy

The Genesis of the Copernican World.

The Genesis of the Copernican World.

Levende vekselvirkning

Living InteractionViggo Mortensen: Theology and Science. Beyond Restriction and Expansion. Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1989. With an English Summary. Dissertation, University of Aarhus.God and Nature. Is a dialogue between theology and science feasible? Edit. Viggo Mortensen. Munksgaard, 1990.Reviewed by William MichelsenIn his World Chronicle from 1812 Grundtvig attacked the sciences, especially chemistry and the mathematical method, for leading away from religion and theology, and the attack caused a conflict between him and the physicist H.C. Ørsted in 1814-1815. Nevertheless, in 1829, Grundtvig left for England with a letter of recommendation from Ørsted, which opened all doors to him in Cambridge. – In a letter, written shortly before his departure, to the botanist and politician /. Fr. Schouw, who was angry about his pamphlet "The Rejoinder of the Church”, 1825, Grundtvig used the phrase ”living interaction” about the kind of relationship he wished to see between scientists and theologians, irrespective of the serious differences of opinion that might separate them individually. In his theological dissertation about the relationship today between theology and natural science Viggo Mortensen uses the same phrase, but in an extended sense so that in his use it covers the obligation for theology and science to accept each other’s way of thinking and in particular the obligation for theologians to embrace an evolutionist view as well as the world picture and view of man of modern science.Like Doctor of Divinity Rudolf Arendt in the book "God and Nature", which contains the contributions of the critics at the public defence of the dissertation and other comments on it, the present reviewer is of the opinion that there is a sharp distinction to be drawn between a justified and an unjustified extension of scientific principles to apply also to the theological view of the world and of man. When for example Grundtvig refused to acknowledge the Copernican world picture, it was because it clashed with the "Mosaic-Christian view of life" which Grundtvig asserted. On the other hand, the "Mosaic-Christian view", as Grundtvig interpreted it, did not conflict with the notion of man as a being undergoing a development. However, he places all the emphasis on the historical development of human culture that depends on the language. And the occurrences of "fall" in human life as well as in nature as a whole which science explains as physical phenomena, are interpreted theologically by Grundtvig as deviations from the destiny of man according to the Bible: to be like his Creator.Thus - much in the manner of Grundtvig - the present reviewer does not find it reasonable to accept the "evolutionary epic", in which Viggo Mortensen epitomizes a modern neo-Darwinistic view of the world and of man, but will accept the cautious dialogue which K.E. L.gstrup entered into in his latest works before his death.So the present reviewer finds it justified for theology to accept scientifically verifiable results. But he does not find it reasonable for theology to embrace a world picture or a concept of man that changes the view that man lives on a globe and in a world which he did not create, and that he imagines a creator and a creation as described in the Bible. - The task of science, as Grundtvig claimed, is to describe and explain man and the world he lives in. Theology is the science whose task it is to describe and explain the religious ideas about the world and about man, contained in Christianity. And these ideas are not of a scientific character. Thus there are intrinsic boundaries between the tasks of theology and science, as indeed human life is limited by time and space.

Book Review: Copernican Reflections: The Genesis of the Copernican World

Book Review: Copernican Reflections: The Genesis of the Copernican World

When the world turned

The Genesis of the Copernican World. By Hans Blumenberg. Translated by Robert M. Wallace. MIT Press: 1987. Pp. 772. $40, £35.95.

Impetus Mechanics as a Physical Argument for Copernicanism Copernicus, Benedetti, Galileo

The ArgumentOne of the earliest arguments for Copernicanism was a widely accepted fact: that on a horizontal plane a body subject to no external resistance can be set in motion by the smallest of all possible forces. This fact was contrary to Aristotelian physics; but it was a physical argument (by abduction) for the possibility of the Copernican world system. For it would be explained if that system was true or at least possible.Galileo argued: only nonviolent motions can be caused by the smallest of all possible forces; hence resistance-free horizontal motions are nonviolent; this confirms Copernicanism insofar as it designates the rotations of celestial spheres (being resistance-free horizontal motions) as nonviolent.Galileo's argument was compatible with (and supportive of) the specific Copernican version of impetus mechanics; but it was also compatible with a (somewhat qualified) principle of inertia. Thus it promoted decisively the transition from impetus mechanics to classical inertial mechanics.

GOD'S PLACE IN A SPACE AGE

Abstract. 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.

Recombinant DNA and the Copernican world view.

Recombinant DNA and the Copernican world view.

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense except in the Light of Evolution

As RECENTLY AS 1966, sheik Abd el Aziz bin Baz asked the king of Saudi Arabia to suppress a heresy that was spreading in his land. Wrote the sheik: Holy Koran, the Prophet's teachings, the majority of Islamic scientists, and the actual facts all prove that the sun is running in its orbit ... and that the earth is fixed and stable, spread out by God for his mankind. ... Anyone who professed otherwise would utter a charge of falsehood toward God, the Koran, and the Prophet. The good sheik evidently holds the Copernican to be a not a In this he is technically correct. A can be verified by a mass of facts, but it becomes a proven theory, not a fact. The sheik was perhaps unaware that the Space Age had begun before he asked the king to suppress the Copernican heresy. The sphericity of the earth had been seen by astronauts, and even by many earth-bound people on their television screens. Perhaps the sheik could retort that those who venture beyond the confines of God's earth suffer hallucinations, and that the earth is really flat. Parts of the Copernican world model, such as the contention that the earth rotates around the sun, and not vice versa, have not been verified by direct observations even to the extent the sphericity of the earth has been. Yet scientists accept the model as an accurate representation of reality. Why? Because it makes sense of a multitude of facts which are otherwise meaningless or extravagant. To nonspecialists most of these facts are unfamiliar. Why then do we accept the theory that the earth is a sphere revolving around a spherical sun? Are we simply submitting to authority? Not quite: we know that those who took time to study the evidence found it convincing. The good sheik is probably ignorant of the evidence. Even more likely, he is so hopelessly biased that no amount of evidence would impress him. Anyway, it would be sheer waste of time to attempt to convince him. The Koran and the Bible do not contradict Copernicus, nor does Copernicus contradict them. It is ludicrous to mistake the Bible and the Koran for primers of natural science. They treat of matters even more important: the meaning of man and his relations to God. They are written in poetic symbols that were understandable to people of the age when they were written, as well as to peoples of all other ages. The king of Arabia did not comply with the sheik's demand. He knew that some people fear enlightenment, because enlightenment threatens their vested interests. Education is not to be used to promote obscurantism. The earth is not the geometric center of the universe, although it may be its spiritual center. It is a mere speck of dust in cosmic spaces. Contrary to Bishop Ussher's calculations, the world did not appear in approximately its present state in 4004 B.C. The estimates of the age of the universe given by modern cosmologists are still only rough approximations, which are revised (usually upward) as the methods of estimation are refined. Some cosmologists take the universe to be about 10 billion years old; others suppose that it may have existed, and will continue to exist, eternally. The origin of life on earth is dated tentatively between 3 and 5 billion years ago; manlike beings appeared relatively quite recently, between 2 and 4 million years ago. The estimates of the age of the earth, of the duration of the geologic and paleontologic eras, and of the antiquity of man's ancestors are now based mainly on radiometric evidence-the proportions of isotopes of certain chemical elements in rocks suitable for such studies.