| Title | Copernicus's Doctrine of Gravity and the Natural Circular Motion of the Elements |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2005 |
| Journal | Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes |
| Volume | 68 |
| Pages | 157-211 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Knox, Dilwyn |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| What do these ideas tell us about Copernicus the philosopher? He drew on Stoic and, perhaps unknowingly at times, Platonic doctrines of the elements, but he avoided their metaphysical implications. There would have been little point, even if he had been so inclined, in compromising his heliocentric hypothesis, contentious as he knew it was, with suspect doctrines of, say, spiritus and cosmic animation. For three centuries, scholastic theologians and philosophers, despite Aristotle's statements to the contrary, had done their best to de-animate the heavens. Nor, for the same reason, should we think that Neoplatonic sun symbolism was important to him. His brief references to sun symbolism and Hermes Trismegistus take up no more than five or so lines and derive mostly from standard classical sources, including Pliny in a passage immediately following the latter's discussion of gravity. The main problem facing Copernicus was to make the earth move, not to explain why the sun stood at the center. He also consulted doxographical works explaining the many and divergent views of ancient thinkers, for instance, pseudo-Plutarch's Placita philosophorum, Bessarion's In calumniatorem Platonis, and Giorgio Valla's De expetendis. He consulted classical Latin authors like Pliny and Cicero, who, through the endeavors of Renaissance humanists and the agency of the printing press, had become better known during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His extensive use of Pliny's Natural History, Book II, exemplifies the way in which the latter became a popular source for alternatives to Aristotelian or scholastic natural philosophy during the sixteenth century. The greatest debt, in other words, that Copernicus the cosmologist owed was not to Renaissance Platonism or a revamped Aristotelianism. It was rather to the variety of ancient learning promoted by Renaissance humanists during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To them he owed not just the wherewithal and encouragement to consult a much wider library of classical authors than his scholastic predecessors were wont to do but also the intellectual flexibility to regard his sources as no more than that—sources for ideas rather than authorities. In this, Copernicus was typical of many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century "scientific" thinkers, Galileo included. But Renaissance humanism left its mark in another important respect. Copernicus set himself the task of learning Greek, and this provided him, if the evidence above is to be trusted, with one of his most important cosmological doctrines. [conclusion p. 210-211] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/x8JGitPSYOT3L0a |
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| Title | Copernicus's Doctrine of Gravity and the Natural Circular Motion of the Elements |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2005 |
| Journal | Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes |
| Volume | 68 |
| Pages | 157-211 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Knox, Dilwyn |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
What do these ideas tell us about Copernicus the philosopher? He drew on Stoic and, perhaps unknowingly at times, Platonic doctrines of the elements, but he avoided their metaphysical implications. There would have been little point, even if he had been so inclined, in compromising his heliocentric hypothesis, contentious as he knew it was, with suspect doctrines of, say, spiritus and cosmic animation. For three centuries, scholastic theologians and philosophers, despite Aristotle's statements to the contrary, had done their best to de-animate the heavens. Nor, for the same reason, should we think that Neoplatonic sun symbolism was important to him. His brief references to sun symbolism and Hermes Trismegistus take up no more than five or so lines and derive mostly from standard classical sources, including Pliny in a passage immediately following the latter's discussion of gravity. The main problem facing Copernicus was to make the earth move, not to explain why the sun stood at the center. He also consulted doxographical works explaining the many and divergent views of ancient thinkers, for instance, pseudo-Plutarch's Placita philosophorum, Bessarion's In calumniatorem Platonis, and Giorgio Valla's De expetendis. He consulted classical Latin authors like Pliny and Cicero, who, through the endeavors of Renaissance humanists and the agency of the printing press, had become better known during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His extensive use of Pliny's Natural History, Book II, exemplifies the way in which the latter became a popular source for alternatives to Aristotelian or scholastic natural philosophy during the sixteenth century. The greatest debt, in other words, that Copernicus the cosmologist owed was not to Renaissance Platonism or a revamped Aristotelianism. It was rather to the variety of ancient learning promoted by Renaissance humanists during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To them he owed not just the wherewithal and encouragement to consult a much wider library of classical authors than his scholastic predecessors were wont to do but also the intellectual flexibility to regard his sources as no more than that—sources for ideas rather than authorities. In this, Copernicus was typical of many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century "scientific" thinkers, Galileo included. But Renaissance humanism left its mark in another important respect. Copernicus set himself the task of learning Greek, and this provided him, if the evidence above is to be trusted, with one of his most important cosmological doctrines. [conclusion p. 210-211] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/x8JGitPSYOT3L0a |
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