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- Title
Kopernik, Platon in heliocentrizem.
- Authors
Vesel, Matjaž
- Abstract
One of the most important questions of historical epistemology that is still not completely explained is how Copernicus arrived at heliocentrism. What was the question for which heliocentrism was the answer? How and why did he become a Copernican? The author argues that Copernicus's critical attitude towards the state of astronomy, which ultimately resulted in his geokinetism and heliocentric arrangement of the planetary orbs, was founded upon his Platonism. He adapted Plato's views on the order and arrangement of the universe created by the supreme Artisan, the goal of that order for humankind, and on the status and role of astronomy in discovering this order. Plato expressed these ideas in Laws, Epinomis, Timaeus, and Republic, and Copernicus summarized them in the original preface (proemium) to De revolutionibus and in Chapter 10 of Book I of the same book. According to the author, Copernicus's Platonism explains all the most fundamental aspects of his project. It brings unity and coherence to his work and links otherwise seemingly completely unrelated issues, such as the equant problem and the problem of the order of the planetary spheres, into a consistent philosophy. Those Platonist conceptions not only played a negative role in the criticism of Ptolemaic astronomy but were at the same time and to a certain extent instrumental in Copernicus establishing a heliocentric cosmology.
- Publication
Filozofski Vestnik, 2013, Vol 34, Issue 1, p89
- ISSN
0353-4510
- Publication type
Article