Westman, Robert S. (Author)
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 110
Issue: 2
Pages: 296-301
Considerable historiographical controversy surrounds the question of why and how Copernicus decided to overturn the prevailing Earth-centered representation of the heavens. This essay summarizes some key elements of an explanation first laid out in The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order (2011) and subsequently expanded with further evidence in Copernicus and the Astrologers (2016). Copernicus’s defining problem situation is to be found in his involvement in a culture of astrological prognostication during his student days in Bologna (1496–1500). Just before Copernicus’s arrival in the fall of 1496, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s attack on the foundations of astrology appeared from a prominent Bologna publisher. This publisher also produced several of the prognostications authored by Domenico Maria di Novara, in whose house Copernicus lodged. Among Pico’s many charges was a claim that astrologers do not agree on the order of the planets. Although the word “astrology” appears only once in Copernicus’s extant writings, it is certain that he was aware of Pico’s account of the astrologers’ disagreements on the matter of planetary order. The Copernican Question sets forth an inference about how and why Copernicus turned to heliocentrism that claims to be not only plausible but also the likeliest to correspond to what actually happened.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Westman, Robert S.;
(2013)
The Copernican Question Revisited: A Reply to Noel Swerdlow and John Heilbron
(/isis/citation/CBB001252174/)
Book
Folkerts, Menso;
Kühne, Andreas;
(2006)
Astronomy as a Model for the Sciences in Early Modern Times: Papers from the International Symposium, Munich, 10--12 March 2003
(/isis/citation/CBB000930204/)
Article
Michel-Pierre Lerner;
(2012)
Note sur Giordano Bruno traducteur de l' "Ad lectorem" du "De revolutionibus"
(/isis/citation/CBB937214983/)
Article
Christián C. Carman;
(2018)
The First Copernican Was Copernicus: The Difference Between Pre-Copernican and Copernican Heliocentrism
(/isis/citation/CBB076879380/)
Book
Jardine, Nicholas;
Segonds, Alain Philippe;
(2008)
La guerre des astronomes: la querelle au sujet de l'origine du système géo-héliocentrique à la fin du XVIe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB001021225/)
Book
Finocchiaro, Maurice A;
(2010)
Defending Copernicus and Galileo: Critical Reasoning in the Two Affairs
(/isis/citation/CBB001023120/)
Book
Anna De Pace;
(2020)
Galileo lettore di Copernico
(/isis/citation/CBB163414161/)
Article
Michel-Pierre Lerner;
(2017)
De Copernic à Galilée: brève histoire d'une condamnation
(/isis/citation/CBB116196191/)
Book
de Pace, Anna;
(2009)
Niccolò Copernico e la fondazione del cosmo eliocentrico: con testo, traduzione e commentario del Libro I de Le revoluzioni celesti
(/isis/citation/CBB001023278/)
Book
Biro, Jacqueline;
(2009)
On Earth as in Heaven: Cosmography and the Shape of the Earth from Copernicus to Descartes
(/isis/citation/CBB001032983/)
Article
Geoffrey Blumenthal;
(2015)
Astrology and Copernicus's Early Experiences in the World of Renaissance Politics
(/isis/citation/CBB543607030/)
Chapter
Peter Barker;
Tofigh Heidarzadeh;
(2016)
Copernicus, the Ṭūsī Couple and East-West Exchange in the Fifteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB241259511/)
Article
Blumenthal, Geoffrey;
(2014)
Copernicus's Development in Context: Politics, Astrology, Cosmology and a Prince-Bishopric
(/isis/citation/CBB001420393/)
Book
Goddu, André;
(2010)
Copernicus and the Aristotelian Tradition: Education, Reading, and Philosophy in Copernicus's Path to Heliocentrism
(/isis/citation/CBB001020711/)
Book
Dobrzycki, Jerzy;
Wlodarczyk, Jacek;
Kremer, Richard Lynn;
(2010)
Selected Papers on Medieval and Renaissance Astronomy
(/isis/citation/CBB001023145/)
Chapter
Simon, Elliott M.;
(2010)
Pico, Paracelsus and Dee: The Magical Measure of Human Perfectibility
(/isis/citation/CBB001220294/)
Book
Dougherty, M. V.;
(2007)
Pico della Mirandola: New Essays
(/isis/citation/CBB000830114/)
Chapter
Rutkin, H. Darrel;
(2010)
The Use and Abuse of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe: Two Case Studies (Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Filippo Fantoni)
(/isis/citation/CBB001021800/)
Article
Goddu, André;
(2009)
Copernicus's Mereological Vision of the Universe
(/isis/citation/CBB000932582/)
Article
Martens, Rhonda;
(2009)
Harmony and Simplicity: Aesthetic Virtues and the Rise of Testability
(/isis/citation/CBB000932500/)
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Science in Context
Perspectives on Science
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Be the first to comment!