Aftermath of Copernicanism

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HPS 322 Michael J. White History of Science Fall semester, 2013 Aftermath of Copernicanism I. Andreas Osiander represents one early reaction to the Copernican heliocentric cosmology: treating it as a useful mathematical fiction. (See Kuhn, p. 187.) II. The Copernican hypothesis was also used in the development of new celestial tables (ephemerides): A. Without committing himself to the ‘truth’ or physical reality of Copernicanism, Erasmus Reinhold used the Copernican hypothesis in developing the Prutenic Tables (published in 1551, dedicated to Albert I, Duke of Prussia; ‘Prutenia’ is the Latin for ‘Prussia’). These replaced the Alfonsine Tables of 1483 (dedicated to King Alfonso X of Castile), which were based on the Ptolemaic hypothesis. B. The much more accurate Rudophine Tables of 1627, were developed by Johannes Kepler, using the Copernican hypothesis, Kepler’s postulate of elliptical planetary orbits, and logarithms. II. Calendrical reform Under the direction of Christopher Clavius, the Copernican hypothesis was used in the calendrical reform under Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, which led to the replacement of the Julian by the Gregorian calendar very quickly in Roman Catholic regions of Europe but much more slowly in Protestant and Eastern Orthodox areas. III. Initial Protestant objects of the Copernican hypothesis based (largely) on Holy Scripture. (See Kuhn, pp. 191 and following.) The Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura leads to an increased emphasis on the literal meaning of Scripture. This is in contrast to the older, more traditional view of various levels of meaning of Holy Scripture shared by both the Jewish Rabbinical and Christian traditions: e.g. the literal, the allegorical, the tropological (or moral), the anagogical (or eschatological): “Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia” (“The literal [meaning] teaches the facts of the matter, the allegorical what you are to believe, the moral what you are to do, and the anagogical where you are to aim”)..

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