Abstract
Like Copernicus, Kant sought to explain the properties of observed phenomena by postulating a kind of activity in the observer. This is the “Copernican Revolution”. Nonetheless, in expositions of Kant’s metaphysics the expressions “Copernican Revolution” and “Copernican Hypothesis” have come to assume a perhaps unwarranted role. Commentators and historians of philosophy suggest that Kant himself actually used these phrases and that there is one and only one meaning in Kant’s mind for such language. Though these distinguished Kantian scholars intimate both that Kant used the expression “the Copernican Revolution” and also that he meant to compare his revolution with that of Copernicus in one and only one way, the following analysis aims to show that it is still worth inquiring whether this is an adequate account of the connections between Copernicus and Immanuel Kant.
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Notes
- 1.
Praefatio Authoris; from “… ac propemodum contra communem sensum…” to “… illorum phaenomena indesequantur…” [The translation Hanson offers here closely follows the C.G. Wallis translation of the Preface and Dedication to Pope Paul III (Copernicus [1939] 1995, 5–6). – MDL]
- 2.
Thus H. J. Paton (1936, 75) writes: “Kant compares his own philosophical revolution with that initiated by Copernicus.” (my italics). A. C. Ewing (1950, 16) says: “But Kant means that he resembles Copernicus in attributing to ourselves, and so classing as appearance, what his predecessors had attributed to reality.” (my italics).
- 3.
“…it is this doctrine and this doctrine alone…” says N. Kemp-Smith (1918).
- 4.
Hanson here follows Kemp-Smith’s translation with the exception of this sentence. As Hanson mentioned earlier, Kemp-Smith had “We should then be proceeding precisely on the lines of Copernicus’ primary hypothesis.” – MDL
- 5.
Hanson here refers to the works of Kant published by the Felix Meiner Verlag. – MDL
- 6.
Where Hanson offers translations of Kant, they are from Kemp-Smith 1950. –MDL
- 7.
See Copernicus’ own words at the head of this paper, and compare Bxvi quoted above.
- 8.
Part of the Elementa Matheseos Universæ (1746).
- 9.
See Adickes (1924–1925, I.11n.)
- 10.
“… what I am saying may seem obscure here, nevertheless it will become clearer in the proper place.” Copernicus, De Revolutionibus, Dedication to Pope Paul III (my translation). In Copernicus’ magnum opus we must, of course, distinguish the Dedication to Pope Paul III from the very first foreword to the reader. The latter was almost certainly the mischievous work of Andreas Osiander, as is made clear beyond doubt in Gassendi’s Life of Copernicus appended to his Tychonis Brahei (1654). The Dedication, however, is indisputably by Copernicus himself; these were facts definitely established only in 1873, but hinted at in the mid-seventeenth century. Professor Kemp-Smith mistakenly refers to the Osiander portion in the name of Copernicus, in order to show how the latter regarded his “hypothesis”. The hypothesis-talk was Osiander’s invention, calculated to save De Revolutionibus from an early Papal death. Copernicus’ claims were really much stronger.
- 11.
This also seems suspicious as a piece of history of science. De Revolutionibus… seeks primarily to show that, as a matter of physical geometry, all the data which gave rise to the astronomical computing system set out in Ptolemy’s Almagest can equally well be accounted for (i.e., explained and predicted) by shifting the primary reference point of the ancient system from the Earth to the Sun. The geometry which resulted would be much tighter and more elegant, the introduction of ad hoc (i.e., unsystematic) hypotheses would be minimized, and one’s physical imagination would be less offended. But Copernicus was essentially a medieval astronomer. He thought himself to be working within the old framework of ideas more effectively, by making certain formal and systematic alterations. Almost certainly he was not aware of the full implications of his geometrico-physical modification. And Copernicus never expresses himself as I suspect Kant would have liked him to do, by stressing that his hypothesis consisted in “investing the observer with a certain activity.”
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Hanson, N.R. (2020). Copernicus’ Rôle in Kant’s Revolution. In: Lund, M.D. (eds) What I Do Not Believe, and Other Essays. Synthese Library, vol 38. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1739-5_10
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