The Copernican Question

The Copernican Question PDF Author: Robert Westman
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520355695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 702

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Book Description
In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus publicly defended his hypothesis that the earth is a planet and the sun a body resting near the center of a finite universe. But why did Copernicus make this bold proposal? And why did it matter? The Copernican Question reframes this pivotal moment in the history of science, centering the story on a conflict over the credibility of astrology that erupted in Italy just as Copernicus arrived in 1496. Copernicus engendered enormous resistance when he sought to protect astrology by reconstituting its astronomical foundations. Robert S. Westman shows that efforts to answer the astrological skeptics became a crucial unifying theme of the early modern scientific movement. His interpretation of this long sixteenth century, from the 1490s to the 1610s, offers a new framework for understanding the great transformations in natural philosophy in the century that followed.

The Copernican Question

The Copernican Question PDF Author: Robert Westman
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520355695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 702

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus publicly defended his hypothesis that the earth is a planet and the sun a body resting near the center of a finite universe. But why did Copernicus make this bold proposal? And why did it matter? The Copernican Question reframes this pivotal moment in the history of science, centering the story on a conflict over the credibility of astrology that erupted in Italy just as Copernicus arrived in 1496. Copernicus engendered enormous resistance when he sought to protect astrology by reconstituting its astronomical foundations. Robert S. Westman shows that efforts to answer the astrological skeptics became a crucial unifying theme of the early modern scientific movement. His interpretation of this long sixteenth century, from the 1490s to the 1610s, offers a new framework for understanding the great transformations in natural philosophy in the century that followed.

The Copernican Revolution

The Copernican Revolution PDF Author: Thomas S. Kuhn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674171039
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
An account of the Copernican Revolution, focusing on the significance of the plurality of the revolution which encompassed not only mathematical astronomy, but also conceptual changes in cosmology, physics, philosophy, and religion.

Copernican Questions: A Concise Invitation to the Philosophy of Science

Copernican Questions: A Concise Invitation to the Philosophy of Science PDF Author: Keith Parsons
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ISBN: 9780072850208
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This provocative, focused, and succinct new text addresses two issues integral to the study of the philosophy of science: the rationality of science and the realism question. Students are invited to think deeply about salient issues as they explore collections of cases and examples, beginning by considering the founding document of modern science, Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, and including discussions of other key readings such as Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Author Keith Parsons challenges students’ thinking, offering his own views while providing a solid foundation for debate.

Wittgenstein's Copernican Revolution

Wittgenstein's Copernican Revolution PDF Author: I. Dilman
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023059901X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Wittgenstein's Copernican Revolution is concerned with how one is to conceive of the relation between language and reality without embracing Linguistic Realism and without courting any form of Linguistic Idealism either. It argues that this is precisely what Wittgenstein does and also examines some well known contemporary philosophers who have been concerned with this same question.

Theories of the World from Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution

Theories of the World from Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution PDF Author: Michael J. Crowe
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486315592
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Revised edition re-creates the change from an earth- to a sun-centered conception of the solar system by focusing on an examination of the evidence available in 1615.

Copernicus and the Astrologers

Copernicus and the Astrologers PDF Author: Robert S. Westman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780981950082
Category : Astrology, European
Languages : en
Pages : 89

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Book Description


Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems PDF Author: Galileo
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 037575766X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 642

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Book Description
Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in Florence in 1632, was the most proximate cause of his being brought to trial before the Inquisition. Using the dialogue form, a genre common in classical philosophical works, Galileo masterfully demonstrates the truth of the Copernican system over the Ptolemaic one, proving, for the first time, that the earth revolves around the sun. Its influence is incalculable. The Dialogue is not only one of the most important scientific treatises ever written, but a work of supreme clarity and accessibility, remaining as readable now as when it was first published. This edition uses the definitive text established by the University of California Press, in Stillman Drake’s translation, and includes a Foreword by Albert Einstein and a new Introduction by J. L. Heilbron.

The Case of Galileo

The Case of Galileo PDF Author: Annibale Fantoli
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268079722
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The “Galileo Affair” has been the locus of various and opposing appraisals for centuries: some view it as an historical event emblematic of the obscurantism of the Catholic Church, opposed a priori to the progress of science; others consider it a tragic reciprocal misunderstanding between Galileo, an arrogant and troublesome defender of the Copernican theory, and his theologian adversaries, who were prisoners of a narrow interpretation of scripture. In The Case of Galileo: A Closed Question? Annibale Fantoli presents a wide range of scientific, philosophical, and theological factors that played an important role in Galileo’s trial, all set within the historical progression of Galileo’s writing and personal interactions with his contemporaries. Fantoli traces the growth in Galileo Galilei’s thought and actions as he embraced the new worldview presented in On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, the epoch-making work of the great Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Fantoli delivers a sophisticated analysis of the intellectual milieu of the day, describes the Catholic Church’s condemnation of Copernicanism (1616) and of Galileo (1633), and assesses the church’s slow acceptance of the Copernican worldview. Fantoli criticizes the 1992 treatment by Cardinal Poupard and Pope John Paul II of the reports of the Commission for the Study of the Galileo Case and concludes that the Galileo Affair, far from being a closed question, remains more than ever a challenge to the church as it confronts the wider and more complex intellectual and ethical problems posed by the contemporary progress of science and technology. In clear and accessible prose geared to a wide readership, Fantoli has distilled forty years of scholarly research into a fascinating recounting of one of the most famous cases in the history of science.

The Copernicus Complex

The Copernicus Complex PDF Author: Caleb Scharf
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374709467
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Longlisted for the 2015 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Short-listed for Physics World's Book of the Year The Sunday Times (UK) Best Science Book of 2014 A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2014 An NBC News Top Science and Tech Book of 2014 A Politics & Prose 2014 Staff Pick In the sixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicus dared to go against the establishment by proposing that Earth rotates around the Sun. Having demoted Earth from its unique position in the cosmos to one of mediocrity, Copernicus set in motion a revolution in scientific thought. This perspective has influenced our thinking for centuries. However, recent evidence challenges the Copernican Principle, hinting that we do in fact live in a special place, at a special time, as the product of a chain of unlikely events. But can we be significant if the Sun is still just one of a billion trillion stars in the observable universe? And what if our universe is just one of a multitude of others-a single slice of an infinity of parallel realities? In The Copernicus Complex, the renowned astrophysicist Caleb Scharf takes us on a scientific adventure, from tiny microbes within the Earth to distant exoplanets, probability theory, and beyond, arguing that there is a solution to this contradiction, a third way of viewing our place in the cosmos, if we weigh the evidence properly. As Scharf explains, we do occupy an unusual time in a 14-billion-year-old universe, in a somewhat unusual type of solar system surrounded by an ocean of unimaginable planetary diversity: hot Jupiters with orbits of less than a day, planet-size rocks spinning around dead stars, and a wealth of alien super-Earths. Yet life here is built from the most common chemistry in the universe, and we are a snapshot taken from billions of years of biological evolution. Bringing us to the cutting edge of scientific discovery, Scharf shows how the answers to fundamental questions of existence will come from embracing the peculiarity of our circumstance without denying the Copernican vision. With characteristic verve, Scharf uses the latest scientific findings to reconsider where we stand in the balance between cosmic significance and mediocrity, order and chaos. Presenting a compelling and bold view of our true status, The Copernicus Complex proposes a way forward in the ultimate quest: determining life's abundance, not just across this universe but across all realities.

The Genesis of the Copernican World

The Genesis of the Copernican World PDF Author: Hans Blumenberg
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262022675
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 838

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Book Description
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.