Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Why was Copernicus a Copernican?

Robert S. Westman: The Copernican question: Prognostication, skepticism, and celestial order. Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press, 2011, xviii+682pp, $99.95, £69.95 HB

  • Book Symposium
  • Published:
Metascience Aims and scope

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. My italics. “Lest anybody suppose that, with the Pythagoreans, we have asserted the Earth’s motion rashly, he will find here strong evidence in [our] explanation of the circles. The arguments by which the natural philosophers try above all to establish the Earth’s immobility rest for the most part upon appearances. But all their arguments are the first to collapse here, since we overturn the Earth’s immobility also by means of an appearance” (“Proinde ne quis temere mobilitatem telluris asseverasse cum Pythagoricis nos arbitretur, magnum quoque et hic argumentum accipiet in circulorum declaratione. Etenim quibus Physiologi stabilitatem eius astruere potissime conantur, apparentiis plerumque innituntur; quae omnia hic in primis corrunt, cum etiam propter apparentiam versemus eandem” [101; 531n151]).

  2. “Tycho Brahe was a hereditary nobleman rather than one who had been recently ennobled. His position was not unlike that of a traditional feudal lord” (236 and further, 237–243).

References

  • Achillini, Alessandro. 1498. De orbibus. Bologna.

  • Anderson, Katharine. 2005. Predicting the weather: Victorians and the science of meteorology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Barker, Peter. 2011. The reality of Peurbach’s orbs. In Change and continuity in early modern cosmology, ed. Patrick J. Boner, 7–32. New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Brudzewo, Albert of. 1495. Commentariolum super theoricas novas planetarum Georgii Purbachii in Studio generali Cracoviensi per Albertum de Brudzewo diligenter corrogatum a.d. 1482. Uldericus Scinzenzeler: Milan. Ed. L. Birkenmajer. 1900. Cracow: Universitas Jagellonica.

  • Celenza, Christopher. 1999. Pythagoras in the renaissance: The case of Marsilio Ficino. Renaissance Quarterly 52: 667–711.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, William. 2006. Academic charisma and the origins of the research university. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Funkenstein, Amos. 1975. The dialectical preparation for scientific revolutions. In The Copernican achievement, ed. Robert S. Westman, 165–203. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galilei, Galileo. 1967 [1632]. Dialogue concerning the two chief world systems. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

  • Glogów, John of. 1506. Introductorium compendiosum in tractatam sphere materialis. Cracow.

  • Goldstein, Bernard R. 2002. Copernicus and the origin of his heliocentric theory. Journal for the History of Astronomy 33: 219–235.

    Google Scholar 

  • Golinski, Jan. 2007. British weather and the climate of enlightenment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Grafton, Anthony. 1997. Commerce with the classics. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jardine, Nicholas. 1982. The significance of the Copernican orbs. Journal for the History of Astronomy 13: 168–194.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manfredonia, Franciscus Capuanus de. 1495. Theoricae novae planetarum Georgii purbachii astronomi celebratissimi. Venice: Simon Bevilaqua.

  • McCormick, Ted. 2009. William Petty and the ambitions of political arithmetic. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della. 1496. Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem. Venice: Benedictus Hectoris.

  • Regiomontanus, Ioannes. 1496. Epytoma Ioannis de Monte Regio in Almagestum Ptolomei. Venice: J. Hamman de Landoia.

  • Rosen, Edward. 1975. Copernicus’ spheres and epicycles. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 25: 82–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosen, Edward. 1976. Reply to N. Swerdlow. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 26: 301–304.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swerdlow, Noel. 1973. The derivation and first draft of Copernicus’s planetary theory. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 117: 423–512.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swerdlow, Noel M. 1976. Pseudodoxia Copernicana. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 26: 108–158.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westman, Robert S. 2012. Weighing extraordinary phenomena: Giovanni Battista Riccioli on novas and comets. In Novas y Cometas entre 1572 y 1618. Revolución cosmológico y renovación política y religiosa, ed. Miguel Á. Granada, 333–352. Barcelona: Publicacion i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of the History of Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 73019, USA

    Peter Barker

  2. Department of History, Cornell University, 435 McGraw Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Peter Dear

  3. Department of History, Luther College, Decorah, IA, 52101, USA

    J. R. Christianson

  4. Department of History and Science Studies Program, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive MC 0104, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA

    Robert S. Westman

Authors
  1. Peter Barker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Peter Dear
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. J. R. Christianson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Robert S. Westman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter Barker.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Barker, P., Dear, P., Christianson, J.R. et al. Why was Copernicus a Copernican?. Metascience 23, 203–223 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11016-013-9841-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11016-013-9841-z

Search

Navigation