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The Rationality of the Copernican Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Martin V. Curd
Martin V. Curd*
Affiliation:
Purdue University
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Extract

Given the central importance of the Copernican theory to the birth of modern science, it is somewhat surprising to learn that there were remarkably few committed Copernicans prior to 1600. In a recent study, Westman (1980) finds only ten, of whom fewer than five were major scientific figures. The vast majority of scientists in this period continued to accept the Earth-centered astronomy of Ptolemy or later switched to the geoheliocentric system of Tychp Brahe. This widespread reluctance to adopt the heliocentric theory suggests the following questions about the Copernican Revolution: When and why did it become rational to reject the Ptolemaic theory as false? When and why did it become rational to accept the Copernican theory as true? Or, to put these questions in the more familiar language of the epistemologist: When and why did the beliefs that the Ptolemaic theory is false and that the Copernican theory is true become justified beliefs?

Type
Part I. Discovery, Rationality and History of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1982 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1982 , 1982 , pp. 3 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1982

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