The Copernican Revolution

The Copernican Revolution by Thomas Kuhn

Here you'll find some notes and responses to questions. They still lack a specific order but I hope to fix that eventually.

In the preface, Kuhn makes a distinction between intellectual history and scientific history. Why is it important, according to Kuhn, to place a history of science (and in particular the Copernican revolution) in the context of an intellectual history?

Kuhn believes that there is a different kind of understanding of the function and structure of scientific research when one has knowledge of a historical context. In the case of the Copernican Revolution this is no exception, for its nature, causes and timing would’ve been impossible to understand without knowing the data and concepts that astronomers used at the time.

In the foreword, Conant claims that reading Kuhn’s text is better than taking the Harvard Case Studies. Why?

Conant claims that Kuhn presents an analysis of interconnections among a wide variety of subjects to the Copernican Revolution, where theory, observation and belief play an important role. He describes the Harvard Case Studies as “narrowly restricted” in “both chronology and subject matter.” After comparing both approaches he states that Kuhn “points the way to the road which must be followed if science is to be assimilated into the culture of our times.”

“A star that rises due east is visible on only half of its diurnal circle.” Explain why.

The farther from the pole a star is, the less from it’s circle we’ll be able to see above the horizon. (Similar to the sun). Due to this trajectory we don’t see them during almost half of the year (since they rise and set when we have daylight).

“As an observer moves south, he sees fewer and fewer circumpolar stars.” Explain why.

Every 69 miles that you travel south, the elevation of the pole above the northern horizon decreases by 1°.

5. Early astronomers made similar observations. In this sense their data was “objective. According to Kuhn is there anything “subjective” about the work of a scientist?

Yes, the theories and conceptual schemes derived from the astronomer’s observations are subjective since they are interpretations.

6. From about the fourth century AD astronomers and philosophers have basically come to agreement on a description of the universe. Simply describe that universe.

The theory is called the two-sphere universe. It consists of, well, two spheres. The first one is planet earth, which is the center of this universe. The second one is what encloses all of the stars. Outside of both there is “nothing” not even space (don’t ask me how this is possible).

Dialogue on Copernican Revolution: Chapters 4 & 5

Note: I did not read these chapters previous to the dialogue that took place on May 6th, 2013 at 5:00pm so I took notes from the outer circle.

Bert: Let’s start by sharing what struck you the most.

Carmen: Muslims preserved and translated writings of the greeks. When Europeans were interested they translated from Islam to their languages. Struck Carmen because today there’s this notion of Islamic cultures being “terrorist”

Bert: Very, very, very few people in the Middle East follow the beliefs of terrorist Islam. It’s an incredibly rich and beautiful culture.

Diego: Impressed to see how during certain eras the Church (Catholic I imagine) supported science while at other times they rejected it. Reads quote by St. Augustine.

Carmen: It wasn’t really useful to know much about astronomy.

Kata: Acknowledges Carmen’s comment and says that it wasn’t just a lack of interest but also a conflict between Religions and Astrology (which some people thought was the purpose of astronomy).

Pablito: Ack. Kata & Diego’s comments. Talks about conflict between religions and beliefs as well.

Carmen: When the Church “conquered” Europe they wouldn’t have to worry about the people. (???)

Bert: Quotes.

Pablito: From Agora to 12th century the architecture of Churches resembled forts. They are like military bases.

Bert: Re-discovery of learning increased trade. Realize that we’re inheritors of this knowledge because human beings decided to take time out and understand some texts. Without relative wealth increase you don’t have the time for learning. (Reminds me of my question # 2 in my Economics class).

Carmen: Still surprised that when things don’t seem useful they’re not studied.

Diego: Why do you say that?

Carmen: Because I see that in the world.

Diego: I was also thinking about that last month, and think about the scientists today and the many people seeking truth. Wondering, looking for galaxies, etc.

Carmen: I understand the division of labor but I mean “regular people” like me, I didn’t wander and think about those things before.

Isa: We take many things for granted.

Kata: You can just take a class about it (you leave it to the “experts”).

Pablito: It’s great that you link Carmen’s comments to school. Schools have become a kind of church where dogma is taught.

Bert: absolutely

Pablito: You sit there, you agree or just nod as if you so. You give your money and feel “saved”.

Carmen: They have the monopoly. If you want to become educated “you must go to school”.

Bert: Well now you have more choice.

Lore: Now we have more liberty, at the time the church handled government and other main institutions. People went to hear mass in Latin and didn’t understand anything. Martin Luther translating the bible to German. Related it to her own religious experience and how the preachers at her temple tell her to not believe them but to think for herself.

Kata: Translation of the bible, Calvin, New Aristocratic Economy, and similar events that took place at the time helped Copernicus.

Carmen: He mentions that nobody was paying much attention to the story of the heavens. With navigation tools were needed, with calendars this knowledge was necessary.

Kata: That’s sort of where Copernicus took his ideas, they needed a new calendar.

Carmen: In chapter 5 they mention Copernicus’ innovations due to the inefficiency of Ptolemy’s system.

Meta-Kata: Are we going to mention Ch. 5

Meta-Bert: I would like to take them one at a time.

Meta-Kata: I wanted to say something.

Kata: I found it interesting that Copernicus was just another classical astronomer with a small idea that other people worked on afterwards.

Pablito: Islamic contributions. Records for centuries. If this knowledge had been lost Copernicus wouldn’t have had these sort of data.

Kata: But he said that he wanted to make it simpler because of everything that was lost in the translations.

Pablito: For me it’s impressive this scattered data that helped him work.

Bert: “No aspect of medieval thought is more difficult to recapture than the symbolism in nature of faith and men in microcosm in the structure of the universe which was the microcosm.” What does he mean by that one?

Has anyone read the divine comedy?

Pablito: I know Chacho did.

Chacho: Smiles.

Bert: Most of the images of heaven and hell are not from the bible but from Dante. But going back, what does Kuhn mean here?

Isa: I think the aristotoelian spheres made sense. I think he’s referring to that symbolism but I’m now quite sure if I understand what is microcosm.

Bert: In the quote who or what is the microcosm?

Kata: When I read this it reminded me of drawing class.

Pablito: Kuhn has been constructing in the previous pages what was happening in the middle ages and how the Aristotelian cosmology instead of being a threat it was taken as the cosmology… the task was to reconciliate Aristotelian cosmology and Christian tradition (?) . . . It’s interesting because the “demon” is in the center of the universe, and if God is in the heavens and your Soul belongs to God then it would resemble this connection of you and the heavens. If something happens in the heavens it means that something would relate to you.

Diego: I was thinking something like that.

Carmen: So it was supposed to be a mirror.

Pablito: Dualistic view: mirrors … heaven – soul. Soul – heaven.

Diego: Quote (pg 111) “But in the process the bible becomes in some sense a propaganda… composed for an ignorant audience”. If they changed the scripture what were their true beliefs? Did they believe in it or in an interpretation? Or a way to preserve their notion of the universe?

Carmen: I think all of them because (repeats reasons.) The three of them.

Bert: An interesting thing is this concept that movement is not a perfect state of being. That which is perfect is still. Why is that which is not in motion not perfect?

Pablito: Movement is not elegant or perfect: and Christ ascended. So should he have not ascended?

Bert: Aristotle believed he went from one state to a better one.

Pablito: Reconciliation between bible and philosopher.

Isa: Yeah how astronomy and theology are related to aristotlés theory. Likes the paragraph “when angels become the force of epicycles…” “Moving the earth meant moving God’s throne”.

Carmen: Or worse, the universe without a center.

Diego: I really like Erasmus in thiswhole process. He wasn’t really interested in building this whole model, but he wanter to prove Aristotelian proofs wrong or something like that.

(Then I spaced out)

Bert: I have some questions to help guide our conversation.

Was Copernicus’ Text a revolutionary one?

DR: No. His system was as complex as Ptolemys.

KH: I agree it wasn’t the revolutionary text but two ideas that were in it were revolutionary.

DR: Kuhn explains that it’s a revolution making rather than a revolutionary text.

(Spaced out again)

What is the central question Kuhn addresses in Ch. 5?

Carmen: How was Copernicus thinking?

Isa: . . .

Pablito: The double view.

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Bert: How do you step out? Can one step out? How can there be a paradigm shift when the impetus has to come from the paradigm that you’re within?

Isa: Relates to On Dialogue. We sometimes focus more on solving the problem than on the paradigm.

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Bert: To Copernicus the ptolomeic system is monstrous. Whas is it that makes it monstrous?

Diego: There were a lot of contrubutions from different astronomers. Analogy to artist that takes many different parts of different pieces of work and mixes them into one.

“It’s not beautiful”.

Kata: It was mathematical astronomy that Copernicus found monstrous.

“Beauty is a subjective matter, in the eye of the beholder we are told. What could be more subjective than that? But beauty is a familiar pointer in physics.

Questions:

Why did they take so long for the heliocentric system to be adopted?

-Perspective & observation: Everything seems to be revolving around the Earth. (The other system made sense)

-Cosmology: Being the center of the universe gave meaning to every practical and spiritual action.

-Diego: Economical & logical (perceived by the senses)

-Marce: Logical reasoning, observation, technology.

-Alejo: Had to be connected to the two-sphere universe (closed culture).

-Chacho: ? (Observation & logic) The System was beautiful and aesthetic.

-Pablito: The Heliocentric system is counterintuitive (against our senses).

-Javier P: With the tools and knowledge at the time it seemed to make sense.

-Javier T: Without going to space they had ideas of what the universe looked like and how it worked. + They had a very firm grasp of what they thought to be true.

-Carmen: Everything was networked. Comprehensible, complete, it explained everything that we were able to perceive through our senses.

-Majo: The two-sphere universe was powerful, we could prove it with our senses.

-Ingrid: Useful in everyday lives, specially in navigation.

-Kata: The universe was complete, everything perceived was true. (Made sense).

-Bert: This was practical. (pg. 43) New Theory didn’t bring anything new that was practical and useful.

-Grace: The Heliocentric Theory was too complex to understand easily, Religion interfered too.

Kuhn refers to theory as “transcending the known”. What does it mean? What does it tell us about the function and nature of theory itself?

Theory is the creation of new knowledge, or of potential.

-You make assumptions that things happen because of such theory.

-Set of lenses (colors observations) – Those lenses could provide you with the means to your next discovery.

-Theory can allow you to disprove more theory but it can also lead you to a more accurate one. (“The Copernican universe is itself the product of a series of investigations that the two-sphere universe made possible”.)

-Ideas are not isolated, they are connected and lead to new ideas.

???: What changed what? Religious changes Scientific or vice versa?

One word that describes the learning in this dialogue: How? (How did all of this came to be known)

What is nothing? Can it exist? (Qué es “la nada”)