Subject: [HM] Copernicus (was: Indian astronomy and mathematics)
From: Chris Linton (C.M.Linton@lboro.ac.uk)
Date: Fri Feb 04 2000 - 03:52:08 EST
Don Cook wrote
> ...
> Copernicus was a Platonist and was able to ignore the sense
> perception of an unmovable earth.
> ...
I don't think that this is true. To Copernicus, the motion of the earth
was a necessary consequence of his accurate solution to the problem of
the planets: "In so many and such important ways, then, do the planets
bear witness to the earth's mobility" (De Revolutionibus, I, 11). It
seems clear from Copernicus' writings that he had great problems with
the concept of a moving earth and his attempts to justify it were no
more convincing than Aristotle's reasons for a stationary earth.
The argument put forward by Thomas Kuhn in "The Copernican revolution"
in 1957 that Copernicus was influenced by the Neo-Platonic tradition
of sun worship is often repeated, but many Copernican scholars have
dismissed it, see eg. E. Rosen (1983) "Was Copernicus a Neoplatonist?"
Journal for the History of Ideas, vol 44, pp. 667-669.
Chris Linton
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* Department of Mathematical Sciences * Fax: 01509-223969 *
* Loughborough University * E-mail: *
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