Nicolas Copernicus and the Revolution of the Heavenly Sphere

Copernicus argued that the Sun rather than the Earth lies in the center of the universe. The Earth
moves as a planet around the Sun. In 1543 little proof was available that the Earth moves; there
were many reasons not to accept it. Ptolemaic astronomy, as represented in the Epitome of
Regiomontanus, was neither overly complex nor inaccurate. The most important advantage
offered by Copernicus was a vision of the universe as a coherent and integrated system, where all
the planets move together in elegant harmony.

Circumstances of the book's production. Copernicus (1473-1543) was a Polish

church official. His avocation, however, was the study of the heavens. He studied as
many previous works of astronomy as he could, and even learned ancient Greek in
order to read the parts of Ptolemy that had not yet been translated. In 1514, he had
written up a brief outline of the basic ideas that would later become On the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (a.k.a. De Revolutionibus...), and he showed
these notes to friends and other people interested in astronomy, but did not publish
this material. These notes already contained the fundamental ideas that (i) the Earth
rotates on its axis once every 24 hours, and (ii) the sun was at rest in (nearly) the
center of the universe, and all the planets -- including the Earth -- revolved around the
sun. Copernicus continued to develop the outline into a long book over the next three
decades, but remained hesitant to publish. He finally agreed to publish it after his
friend and supporter Rheticus published a short summary of the Copernican system in
1541. Copernicus was old by this time, and entrusted the publication procedures to
Rheticus. However, when professional duties forced Rheticus to relocate to Leipzig,
he had to pass on responsibility for overseeing publication to the clergyman Andreas
Osiander, who saw it to completion.

Osiander's preface. Question: What is the aim of science? of astronomy in

particular? Osiander's answer:

The astronomer "cannot in any way attain to the true causes," so "he will adopt
whatever suppositions enable the motions [of the celestial bodies] to be computed
correctly from the principles of geometry for the future as well as the past."
Furthermore, "these hypotheses [='suppositions'] need not be true or even probable.
On the contrary, if they provide a calculus consistent with the observations, that is
enough."

Osiander's answer is a version of instrumentalism about astronomy. The aim of

astronomy is simply to predict (and retrodict) the observed positions of the sun, moon,
and stars; astronomy does not aim to give us the true causes of the celestial bodies'
motions. Instrumentalism is contrasted with realism: the realist claims that the aim of
science is not merely to , but also that science aims to discover the true causes of
events. (Instrumentalism's name comes from the notion that instruments or tools, such
as hammers and spoons, are not really the kinds of things that aim at the truth.)

Why is Osiander an instrumentalist about astronomy?

1. If epicycles are the true causes of Venus’s retrograde motion, then the apparent size
of Venus in the night sky should be changing a great deal -- but it does not.
2. “Different hypotheses are sometimes offered for one and the same motion”: that is,
two different combinations of epicycles and eccentrics can both capture all the
observations. The astronomer simply chooses the one that is “easiest to grasp.” But
just because some claim is easiest for us to understand, that doesn't make that
claim true, or even any more likely to be true.
3. The only certain knowledge we humans have is what has been divinely revealed.

Copernicus and the church authorities. It seems that Copernicus (and those around
him) expected the work to create some trouble with the Catholic Church.

Perhaps another reason Osiander forwards an instrumentalist account of astronomy is

to ward off possible negative reactions from the church authorities. Copernicus's
model of a moving Earth and static Sun will appear to contradict certain biblical texts,
in which God makes the Sun stop moving and stand still. However, if the aim of
astronomical hypotheses is only to be an instrument that correctly predicts where
Mars will be in the night sky, and not to capture the truth about the motions of the
celestial bodies, then there is no conflict with holy scripture.

[Note: Many astronomically-inclined people, including Rheticus, strongly

disapproved of Osiander's Forward, claiming that it distorts the true nature of
Copernicus's views. However, De Rev. did manage to escape Church persecution for
the first few decades of its existence, perhaps in part due to Osiander's preface (which
was unsigned, and therefore presumed by most to be written by Copernicus himself.)]

Copernicus's Preface to Pope Paul III. Copernicus tells us (and the Pope) that he
did not publish his work for almost 30 years because his basic idea is so contrary to
conventional wisdom and common sense.
So why did Copernicus publish?

• There are many disagreements within traditional astronomy, such as:

1. Astronomers cannot agree on the exact length of the tropical year [= how
long it takes the sun to return to exactly the same point that it rose from a
year earlier]
2. Different hypotheses are used to model the same observed motion [just
as Osiander pointed out]
 3. The hypothesis of eccentric circles fails to capture "the structure of the
universe and the symmetry of its parts."
• The ancients also hypothesized that the Earth moves (Hicetus, Philolaus,
Heraclides, Aristarchus).
• Copernicus's model of the cosmos not only saves the phenomena (like
Ptolemy's model), but it also (unlike the Ptolemaic system) establishes "the
order and size of all the planets and spheres" (see Cohen p.41).
• A better astronomical theory would help in creating better calendars.

De Revolutionibus: Book I

Introduction. Why study the celestial bodies? Copernicus's answer is basically that
of Plato that we saw earlier in the term. The planets and stars are the most beautiful,
most perfect, and most divine of visible things. Studying them pulls our minds "away
from vices and toward better things," and creates in a person an "admiration for the
Maker of everything."

Ch. 1: The Universe is Spherical. Why? Copernicus offers the following reasons:

• The sphere is the most perfect shape

• The sphere is the shape with the largest 'capacity' [GF-A: volume to surface
area ratio?], and the universe is the biggest thing, so it must be a sphere.
• The sun, moon, and planets are spherical
• ‘Wholes strive to be spherical’: Water drops naturally arrange themselves into a
spherical shape

Ch. 2: The Earth is Spherical. Copernicus simply repeats Ptolemy's argments for
this claim.

Ch.4: The Motion of Celestial Bodies is Uniform, Eternal, and (compounded of)
Circular Motions Why?

• Copernicus says "the motion appropriate to a sphere is rotation in a circle."

[GF-A: Says who? The motion 'appropriate to a raquetball' is towards the
center of the Earth.]
• Retrograde motion of the planets could make us think the planets do not move
in a circles. However, Copernicus replies, these are still composed of circular
motions, “because these non-uniformities [=the retrograde motions] occur
regularly according to a constant law. This could not happen unless the motions
 were circular, since only the circle can bring back the past.” All processes that
repeat regularly are some combination of circular motions.
• Copernicus infers that there must be several distinct motions here,

“because a simple heavenly body cannot be moved by a single sphere non-uniformly.

For this nonuniformity would have to be caused either by an inconstancy... in the
moving force or by an alteration in the moving body. From either alternative the
intellect shrinks. It is improper to conceive any such defect in objects constituted in
the best order.”
 Giordano Bruno: Philosopher Heretic

Background:

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) was an Italian scientist and philosopher who espoused the
Copernican idea of a heliocentric universe as opposed to the church’s geo-centric teachings of an
universe. He also believed in an infinite universe with numerous inhabited worlds. Asked by the
Inquisition to recant his beliefs, Bruno refused. He was tortured and burned at the stake for his
outspoken beliefs.

While in London, he also wrote a number of satirical works as well as his 1584 book, “Dell
Infinito, universo e mondi” (“Of Infinity, the Universe, and the World”). The book attacked the
Aristotelian vision of the universe, and, building on the works of the Muslim philosopher Ibn
Rushd (Averroes), suggested that religion is “a means to instruct and govern ignorant people,
philosophy as the discipline of the elect who are able to behave themselves and govern others.”
He defended Copernicus and his heliocentric vision of the universe, and further argued that “the
universe was infinite, that it contained an infinite number of worlds, and that these are all
inhabited by intelligent beings.”

Bruno continued his travels, writing and lecturing in England and Germany through 1591.
During this time, Bruno both intrigued and angered local scholars. He was excommunicated in
Helmstedt and asked to leave Frankfurt am Main, finally settling at a Carmelite monastery where
he was described by the prior as “chiefly occupied in writing and in the vain and chimerical
imagining of novelties.”

Giordano Bruno’s Philosophy and Cosmology

Bruno’s philosophy—despite its inconsistent terminology, intricacies, eclecticism and wilful

contrariness—has an inner coherence. Indeed, he can claim to be the first thinker since antiquity
to integrate a metaphysics, physics, psychology and ethics into an original, if unsystematically
presented, philosophy, one that aspired to go beyond the re-elaborations of Platonism,
Aristotelianism or scepticism within a Christian context that had hitherto prevailed. The outcome
was a radical alternative to medieval and Renaissance interpretations of human nature, the
cosmos and God. His philosophy remained, however, in one decisive respect a creation of the
Renaissance: neither celestial nor terrestrial mechanics were reducible to mathematical
abstractions.

Dismissing contemporary claims that Copernicus’s hypothesis was merely a convenient

computational device, Bruno announced that it disproved the traditional Aristotelian-Ptolemaic
picture of the cosmos. In the first place, it disproved Aristotle’s doctrine that each sublunary
element had a fixed “natural place” at the center of the cosmos—the earth’s globe at the very
center, water in the sphere immediately surrounding it, followed by the air and fire spheres—and
that particles of the elements, if displaced from these natural spheres, had an intrinsic impulse to
regain them. On the contrary, since the earth, wrote Bruno, was a planet circling the sun, the
elemental spheres of which it was constituted were continuously in motion. The elements did not
have absolute “natural places”; and an elemental part, whether displaced from a whole or
chancing to be near a whole, sought to attach itself to it because a whole was the place where it
would be best preserved. Once united with a whole, elemental parts were no longer heavy or
light and revolved with it naturally, that is, without resistance. This doctrine of gravity drew on
Ficino’s Neoplatonic ideas of elemental motion, Copernicus’s doctrine of gravity, Lucretius’s
comments on the weightlessness of parts in their wholes and scholastic notions of self-
conservation.

Commendable though his achievement had been, Copernicus had remained unaware of the
full implications of his heliocentric hypothesis. It was left to Bruno, the philosopher, to
accomplish the full revolution of thought, to pass beyond the quantitative sensible realm that,
indispensable stepping stone though it was, had unduly preoccupied mathematicians like
Copernicus and to proceed to what could be discerned by reason alone.

Copernicus’s most egregious shortcoming in this respect had been his failure to recognize
that his heliocentric hypothesis disproved Aristotelian and scholastic arguments that the
cosmos was finite and unique. If the heavens were infinite, these arguments ran, then their
outermost regions would—impossibly—revolve infinitely fast around the earth at centre of
the cosmos. Nor could there be more than one cosmos, because, if there were, then a
displaced particle of an element would—no less impossibly—have two or more natural
places to which it should return. These objections, Bruno inveighed, carried no force in a
heliocentric world. The apparent daily rotation of a firmament or “sphere of fixed stars”
around the earth was an illusion created by the earth’s rotation around its axis as it circled the
sun. The universe was not a finite globe composed of concentric spheres, “like an onion”, to
use a simile popular in his day, to use a common simile. Instead, it was an infinite,
homogeneous expanse populated by an infinite number of solar systems like our own. How
far, he declared triumphantly, his achievement surpassed that of Columbus, who had
discovered just one continent on one earth! Scholastic discussions concerning the plurality of
worlds are evident influences. The authority that Bruno particularly liked to invoke, however,
was Scripture. The infinite number of celestial bodies corresponded to “those so many
hundreds of thousands [of angels]”—an allusion to Daniel 7:10—“that assist in the ministry
and contemplation of the first, universal, infinite and eternal efficient cause”.

Bruno’s Universal Soul

The soul that Bruno identified as one of the four principles of corporeality was the World or
Universal Soul. The universe was an organism in which each principal body and the life
sustained on it participated in a common animating principle, in the same way as the many
parts of the human body were vivified by one and the same soul. Even supposedly inanimate
things had a vestigial presence of life. Rocks, for example, were alive to the same degree as
the bones or teeth of animals were. To make this point, Bruno borrowed an analogy that
Plotinus had used for the same purpose in the Enneads; the Universal Soul was “all-in-all”,
that is, present wholly and indivisibly in each and every thing to the degree that things were
capable of receiving it, just as a single voice, however great the audience, was audible to
everyone in a room diversely.
Bruno, like others before him, attributed the doctrine of “all-in-all”, in a dematerialized
version. He also adduced several scriptural witnesses identifying the Universal Soul
implicitly with the Holy Spirit: “For the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world: and that which
containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice.” The Universal Soul combined with
Universal Matter to produce the universe. The former was the active power, form, the latter
its passive subject.
 Descartes Six Meditations
Meditations on First Philosophy

In Meditation I, Descartes discusses the faultiness in how an empiricist believes that

beliefs from the senses ought to belong in the foundation of knowledge. Descartes' chief
aim in this meditation is to show that the empiricist is mistaken. (2) Beliefs coming from
the senses can reasonably be doubted.
https://beisecker.faculty.unlv.edu/Courses/Phi-
101/MeditationI.html#:~:text=An%20empiricist%20believes%20that%20beliefs,that%20
the%20empiricist%20is%20mistaken.&text=(2)%20Beliefs%20coming%20from%20the
%20senses%20can%20reasonably%20be%20doubted.

In Meditations II Descartes set out to determine whether there is anything that I could be
certain of after the doubts of Meditations I. He quickly determined that there is: the fact
that I exist. But to know that I exist is one thing, and to know exactly what I am is
something else.
http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/courses/mind/notes/meditation2.html

In Meditation III/VI, Rene Descartes' main argument for the existence of God hinges on
our perception of infinity. All ideas or beings must have as much formal reality, according
to Descartes, as those that they in turn create or produce. The fourth meditation opens
with the Meditator reflecting on the ground he has covered so far, observing that all his
certain knowledge, and in particular the most certain knowledge that God exists, comes
from the intellect, and not from the senses or the imagination. Now that he is certain of
God's existence, a great deal more can follow. First, he knows that God would not
deceive him, since the will to deceive is a sign of weakness or malice, and God's
perfection would not allow it. Second, if God created him, God is responsible for his
judgment, and so his faculty of judgment must be infallible so long as he uses it correctly.
What if God has endowed him with infallible judgment, how is it that he can be mistaken,
as he undoubtedly is from time to time?

The Meditator explains that he finds himself somewhere between God—a perfect,
complete, and supreme being—and nothingness. He was created by a supreme and
infinite being, and all created in him by that supreme being is infallible, but he was also
created to be only a finite being. While he participates partly in the supreme being of
God, he also participates partly in nothingness. When he is wrong, it is not the result of
some faulty faculty created by God, but is rather the result of his non-being, his lack of
perfection. Everything that God has created is perfect, but God has created the Meditator
as a finite being whose finitude still leaves room for error. But the Meditator remains
unsatisfied. If God is a perfect creator, God should be able to create perfect beings.
Surely, God could have willed it so that the Meditator would never err, and God always
wills what is best. The Meditator reflects that God's motives and reasons are
incomprehensible to finite beings such as himself. For this reason, also, he rejects the
search for final causes in physics: it would require a great deal of arrogance to try to read
God's mind or understand God's motives. Rather than look at one isolated part of the
universe, the Meditator suggests he might find perfection if he looks at God's creation as
a whole. He may appear to be an imperfect being when considered on his own, but he
may play a perfectly appropriate role in the wider context of a perfect universe.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2653783

Meditation V discusses “the essence of material things”, a large part of what he has in
mind is geometry. Also, Descartes's main goal in this Meditation is to give a second proof
of the existence of God, different from the one that he gave in Meditation 3/4.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-ontological/

Meditation VI
In the Sixth Meditation Descartes famously argues for a form of substance dualism of
mind and body, arguing that not only are we aware of ourselves fundamentally as
thinking things, but that thinking things (mental substance) are in principle independent
of any material thing or body.
https://notebook.colinmclear.net/teaching-
notes/meditation6/#:~:text=In%20the%20Sixth%20Meditation%20Descartes,any%20mat
erial%20thing%20or%20body.
 On Hobbes and Locke: And the Rights of Man

The views of Hobbes and Locke take root in how the two philosophers define rights;
Hobbes in terms of terms of action and Locke with an emphasis on liberty. They agree,
however, that rights are derived from the human impulsion towards self-preservation.
Both philosophers couch their views of human rights in terms of rights in the state of
nature (the hypothetical condition of humanity before a state's foundation). An analysis of
their two accounts of rights reveals Hobbes’ cynicism of human nature is the basis for his
belief in the unlimited rights of everybody within the state of nature, whereas Locke’s
argument for limited rights is the product of a much more optimistic view of humanity.
Locke’s account is ultimately more appealing, especially in light of the troubling
implications of Hobbes’ formulation. It should be no surprise that successive generations
of Enlightenment thinkers found inspiration in Locke, and not Hobbes, and that the
former’s views on rights are not only more persuasive, but also remain as compelling
today as they did in the 18th century.

For both Hobbes and Locke, all rights stem from the fundamental human motivation to
preserve their own lives. Hobbes states this as his first right of nature, “the liberty each
man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature,
that is to say, his own life (Leviathan XIV 1).” Similarly, Locke posits that everyone “is
bound to preserve himself and not to quit his station willfully (2nd Treatise 6).”
Consequently, “men, being once born, have a right to their preservation (2nd Treatise
25).” If humans’ most basic purpose is to live, “natural reason” dictates that they must
have the freedom to do whatever is absolutely necessary to preserve their lives. It
follows that people have a right to these means, the “meat and drink and other such things
as nature affords for their subsistence (ibid.)”–even if it involved stealing. The basic
right to life implies necessarily a right to defend oneself against enemies or otherwise
hostile forces. Locke epitomizes this sentiment by arguing that one has the right to kill
even a petty thief in self-defense, since it is impossible to know his full intentions at the
time. Both authors proceed to extend rights beyond those strictly necessary for our
preservation. This seems reasonable, on the grounds that such ancillary rights enhance
our ability not only to live, but live well. Yet as more rights are granted, there is greater
opportunity for individuals’ rights to come into 2conflict. On this point, the full extent of
rights in the state of nature, the two philosophers ultimately diverge.

Hobbes:
For Hobbes, the English Civil War significantly shaped his worldview. In response, he
developed a political philosophy that emphasized three key concepts:
1. The natural state of mankind (the “state of nature”) is a state of war of one man
against another, as man is selfish and brutish.
2. The way out of the “state of nature” is a “social contract,” to be agreed upon by
the people to be governed and the government.
 3. The ideal form that government should take is an absolute monarchy that has
maximum authority, subverting mankind’s natural state and creating societal order
in the process

Hobbes defines rights purely in terms of action. A right, according to Hobbes, is “the
liberty to do or to forbear (Leviathan XIV 2).” Liberty, in turn, he defines as “the
absence of external impediments (Leviathan XIV 1).” In essence, then, a right is a
freedom, the potential to act or not to act in a particular manner, as the case may be.
Hobbes stresses that a right is not a capability; it does not furnish the ability to exercise
the freedom. Having a right to travel, for example, does not entitle you to the means to
travel. Even when there are impediments, i.e. one does not have a particular right to
something, they “cannot hinder *one+ from using the power left him (ibid.).” A person
can act in any manner he chooses to the extent his power allows him, but only when he
has a right can he expect to act unimpeded.

Hobbes places no limit on rights in the state of nature. According to his first law of
nature, “every man has a right to every thing (Leviathan XIV 3).” He takes this view to
the extreme: “every thing” includes “even the right to one another’s bodies (ibid.).”
Hobbes view is grounded in his rather cynical understanding of human behavior in the
absence of an overarching power. From man’s desire for “the same things+, which
nevertheless they all cannot enjoy (Leviathan, XIII, 3)” follows competition, which
degenerates quickly into a “war of every man against every man (XIII, 12).” People come
prepared not only to strip a man of the fruits of his labor, but also “of his life, or liberty
(XIII, 3).” They endeavor to subdue and destroy each other in pursuit of their own selfish
ends. Since man has a natural right to his own self-preservation, any means necessary in
“preserving his life against his enemies (XIV, 4)” is therefore also a right. Hobbes
interprets these rights to include the entire sphere of human actions— literally “every
thing.” For Hobbes, then, we have a right to deny another’s rights, if that is what is
necessary to preserve our own rights – a point of view that could justify absolutism.

Locke:
For Locke, the overthrow of King James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 showed
how governments and people should behave. He developed a philosophy that
emphasized three points:
1. According to Locke, the natural condition of mankind is a “state of nature”
characterized by human freedom and equality. Locke’s “law of nature”—the
obligation that created beings have to obey their creator—constitutes the
foundation of the “state of nature.” However, because some people violate this
law, governments are needed.
2. People voluntarily give government some of their power through a “social
contract” in order to protect their “natural rights” of life, liberty, and property.
 3. If a government fails to protect the natural rights of its citizens or if it breaks the
social contract, the people are entitled to rebel against the government and create a
new one.

Locke does not provide an explicit definition of rights in the manner of Hobbes, but
clearly conceives of rights as inherent components of humanity and not necessarily
defined by human actions. In 87 of the Second treatise, he states that “man … hath by
nature a power to preserve his property— that is, his life, liberty and estate.” These
qualities are the most essential and fundamental things to which we have rights. It
follows that a right is something we are born with and hence compelled to protect and
preserve. Hobbes’ concept of a right as a liberty to act is contained in Locke’s definition,
since in protecting and preserving a right we maintain our freedom to exercise it. A
distinction emerges, however, in that Locke asserts we have a right to liberty, while for
Hobbes liberty is the essence of a right.

Locke’s view of rights in the state of nature rests on the existence of what he calls the law
of nature. On the surface, his account of the state of nature is functionally similar to
Hobbes’ when he makes comparable statements about human equality and “the perfect
freedom to order one’s+ actions and dispose of his+ possessions as he thinks fit (2nd
Treatise, 4).” Yet he arrives at much different conclusions. Key to this distinction is
Locke’s firm belief in a “law of nature” – reason – which governs men’s actions
regardless of their state or situation. The law of nature places a critical limit on human
behavior: his state of nature “is a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of license (2nd
Treatise, 6).” People may act as they think fit, but only “within the bounds of the law of
nature (2nd Treatise, 4).” Among other consequences, the law of nature prescribes a
certain moral code: it “teaches all mankind who will but consult it...that no one ought to
harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions (2nd Treatise, 6).” Locke argues
such a code of actions is a natural consequence of reason and further justifies it on divine
grounds—we are God’s property and are therefore “made to last during His, not one
another’s pleasure (ibid.).” By arguing that one endeavor “as much as he can to preserve
the rest of mankind (ibid.),” the law of nature even provides for a basic altruism.

For Locke, people within a commonwealth accept certain limitations on rights but
ultimately preserve their fundamental rights. The commonwealth exists for the very
reason of preserving these rights against “the injuries and attempts of other men (2nd
Treatise, 87).” If somehow a government fails to protect these rights it becomes
illegitimate and the people have the duty to overthrow that government. When
transitioning from the state of nature to a commonwealth, therefore, men do not cede or
relinquish their fundamental rights, only the right to arbitrate in their own cases. The
commonwealth assumes the individual power of men to “punish the offenses of all those
of that society (ibid.),” and arbitrate what constitutes an offense. Its primary role is that
of an “umpire (ibid.),” in “deciding the differences which may arise between members of
the state (ibid.)” according to laws “authorized by the community.” Although these
particular rights formerly belonged to individuals, they are held in trust by the
commonwealth in order to preserve their most fundamental rights, namely those of life,
liberty and estate.