Kepler's Break With The Medieval World View example essay topic

A world-view is a composite of several interpretive models through which the individual establishes his or her identity relative to everything else in the universe. In the broadest of terms, any world-view is made up of four component elements. In the first of these components, which can be designated the Theological element, man tries to define himself in relation to the transcendent. Questions are asked, such as Is there a God or gods? What is the nature of God? How am I to relate to that which is absolutely ultimate?

In general, a person's transcendent presuppositions have a determinative impact upon all other aspects of their world-view. The second component is Psychological in nature, and asks such questions as Who am I, and what is my significance in the greater scheme of things. Does my individuality have meaning? Third would be the Sociological aspect. How is man to live with his fellows? How should human society be organized?

Fourth, What is the nature of the universe? How did it begin and how will it end? What is the nature of my relationship with the material world? In the broadest sense, this may be designated the Cosmological aspect of a world view. A significant change took place in the European approach to truth and authority in the early years of the thirteenth century. This, in turn, led to a radical transformation in the then-prevalent world-view.

The Avignon Crisis, and conflicts between the Church and various monarchs, encouraged members of the clergy to study the history of the Church in order to establish the authority of the Pope on a firm foundation. This led to a recovery of Roman Law and a renewed interest in the ancient Greek and Roman authors. While this was going on, the Muslims in Spain had transformed the city of Cordova into the intellectual capital of the Islamic world. Contact with these scholars revived the influence of Aristotle, and generated a great deal of controversy within the Church over the nature of truth itself.

On the one hand, Aristotle had taught that truth could only be discovered by applying human reasoning to human observation. The Church, on the other hand, had long asserted that truth came about through revelation. Since it was something that was revealed by God, it could only be apprehended through faith. A reasonable compromise was worked out in the mid-thirteenth century. Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican monk who had been significantly influenced by the thought of the great Islamic philosopher, Ibn Rush, and through him the great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, argued that both faith and reason were necessary elements if one is to have a complete understanding of the truth.

This synthesis became known as Scholasticism. Aquinas expounded his views in a massive work, the Summa Theological, and from the middle of the thirteenth century until the early years of the sixteenth, Aristotle provided the accepted interpretive model of the universe. The basis of all knowledge, according to Aristotle, was observation, a product of the five senses. Additionally, all things have certain natural qualities, such as lightness or heaviness. Things which were heavy had a tendency to sink, and things which were light had a tendency to rise. Since the senses told Aristotle that the earth neither sank nor rose, and that all things appeared to revolve around it, the earth must be both the center of the universe, as well as the heaviest part of the universe.

The sun, moon, and stars revolved around the earth because they were lighter than the earth. They did not float off into the vastness of space because they were held in place by what he called "crystalline spheres". PTOLEMY Aristotle's concepts were elaborated upon early in the second century AD, by Ptolemy (100-178 A.D. ), a Greek astronomer who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. Working from both Aristotle and Pythagoras Ptolemy developed a consistent Geocentric model of the Universe, and this model became a central aspect of the Medieval Christian cosmology.

In this system the earth lay at the center of the universe. It was orbited successively by the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Beyond the orbit of Saturn was the Stellatum, or the sphere of the fixed stars. The boundary of the Stellatum was the Primum Mobile, or 'first moving thing,' a sphere which made a rotation every twenty four hours, thereby causing the inner spheres to do likewise. Beyond the Primum Mobile was the Caelum Ipsum, or 'very heaven' of God. The system proved to be remarkably compatible with medieval theology and quickly became the accepted position of the Church.

ROGER BACON While the recovery of Aristotle was taking place, other scholars were directing their attention toward the scientific writings and discoveries of the ancients. Foremost among the medieval scientists was Roger Bacon. In the 1200's, science consisted of such things as alchemy and astrology. Turning lead into gold, the quest for an elixir of eternal life, and plotting the positions of the stars and determining their influence on human life concerned the brightest and most rational minds of the day. Bacon pioneered science in Europe by asserting that the workings of the natural world could only be understood through observation and experimentation. As far as the written record is concerned, Roger Bacon was the first person to use a magnifying glass, thereby augmenting his natural senses.

His approach gave him tremendous insight into the potential of technology. Writing almost eight hundred years ago, Bacon asserted: Machines may be made by which the largest ships, with only one man steering them, will move faster than if they were filled with rowers; wagons may be built which will move with unbelievable speed and without the aid of beasts. This momentary flowering of European intellectual life was short-lived. The Mini-Ice Age, the Black Death, a series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years War, and a host of other maladies threatened to take from Europeans all of the advances that had been made in the thirteenth century. As is always the case, when the human need for order is threatened with anarchy, authority asserts itself, and authority is generally driven by tradition. When this is the case, the orientation is always toward the past -conservative rather than progressive - and the future must wait.

The century and a half after Roger Bacon was filled with such waiting. The combined influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation had generated an attitude of scepticism towards all authority. Soon this skepticism led to a questioning of established beliefs in the sciences, just as it had in religion and politics. COPERNICUS (1473 -- 1543) As mentioned above, sometime around 150 AD, Ptolemy wrote what was to become the defining text for the science of astronomy, an immense book known as the Almagest or "The Greatest".

It's position as the defining text would go unchallenged for the next 1400 years. Ptolemy incorporated a huge number of tables that enabled astronomers to calculate the positions of the planets for hundreds of years. The central premise of Ptolemy's work was that the earth was the center of the universe, and that the planets, the sun and moon, and the stars went around the earth in a circle. In order to explain certain observable anomalies, Ptolemy posited that each of the planets were also describing smaller circles (or epicycle) as they proceeded in their orbit. With the instrumentation at his disposal, for the most part his unaided eyes, Ptolemy had devised a system that accurately accounted for the observed motions in the heavens. The authority of Ptolemy's volume and the conceptualization of the solar system that it presented possessed a longevity that is usually reserved for religious texts.

Finally, in 1530, the gauntlet of challenge was cast by a Polish mathematician named Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus' asserted a helio-centric rather than a geo-centric model of the solar system. The sun was at the center, and the earth went around it, as did the other planets. Only the moon continued to go around the earth.

The publication of these ("On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres -- De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium) theories took place in 1543, near the time of Copernicus' death, so he did not live to see the revolutionary impact his ideas would have on human society. Soon, however, the theological implications of the heliocentric model became evident, and ecclesiastic resistance mounted. The church had long maintained that the universe had been created for mankind, and that the human species was both the pinnacle and the center of creation. It was only reasonable to assume that the earth, as the home of mankind and the chosen place of God's incarnation, should be the center of the universe.

To assert anything else was the threaten the very foundation of the system. As with any reform or revolution, a radical second-generation soon emerges. Extremists not only asserted the validity of Copernicus' position, but began to flaunt the implications of that position for established theology. Giordano Bruno, an intellectual radical, not only asserted the veracity of Copernicus' assertion, but he pressed further.

Space was infinite, according to Bruno, and the stars are scattered out through this expanse, not simply resting on the outer sphere of the cosmos. Moreover, there were an infinite number of inhabited worlds. Such assertions were too much for the Church to tolerate, and in 1600, Bruno was burned at the stake. Hard evidence supporting the claims of Copernicus would have to come from others. TYCHO BRAHE (1546 -- 1601) The next step towards the acceptance of the helio-centric model was taken by the Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe (pronounced brahe or bra-hee). Ironically, while he was gathering information that would ultimately prove the Copernican theories, he spent most of his life in opposition to them.

Tycho's contribution lay in the exactitude of his naked-eye observations of celestial movement, and the remarkable advances he made in instrumentation to measure these movements. Though he made the observations and produced remarkable exact tables of the movements of the heavenly bodies, Tycho did not possess the mathematical aptitude necessary to refine his raw data. Upon his death the table were confiscated for a time by a remarkable German astronomer in Tycho's employ. JOHANN KEPLER (1517 -- 1630) For all his genius, Tycho still held to a medieval view of the world. The sun still revolved around the earth once a year, though Tycho did reach a compromise with Copernicus and allowed for the other planets to revolve around the sun. By and large, however, his model of the solar system was still constructed in terms of a medieval theology.

The earth, the site of God's unfolding plan of redemption, was the center of the universe. In all likelihood, due to his improvident life-style, the remarkably accurate measurements Tycho made would have been lost had it not been for the efforts of Johannes Kepler. Kepler's early life showed little promise; he was born prematurely, developed smallpox at the age of seven months, and was afflicted with poor vision from his childhood. From such questionable beginnings, Kepler's intellectual prowess eventually led him to a place at the University of Tbingen Though he was given a remarkable amount of latitude, Tbingen was a Protestant institution, and Luther's opposition to the Copernican system still made it difficult for a scientist to support the concept while simultaneously pursuing gainful academic employ. Kepler, however, tried, and defended the heliocentric model in public debate. His defense of Copernicus made continuing at Tbingen an impossibility.

Other institutions, however, were more open-minded, and in 1594 he was offered a professorship of astronomy at the University of Graz. Here he gained the academic freedom he so desired, but the position was not entirely to his liking. At this point in history, part of the job description of every professional astronomer was to make astrological predictions. Timidly, Kepler spoke against the absurdity of using the stars as a means of gaining insight into the future. Nevertheless, he fulfilled the expectations of his superiors, predicting a cold winter, and an invasion by the Turks. Remarkably, both predictions turned out to be correct.

Though the respect Kepler desired did not come in the manner he would have wished, it did come. Kepler did not complain, since the new respect was accompanied by a corresponding increase in salary. Kepler's break with the medieval world-view developed rather slowly. While lecturing at Graz, Kepler began to contemplate the relationships between certain geometric forms.

Would not the same great mind that created the perfection of the geometric form impose the same perfection on the larger universe? Working from this presupposition, Kepler proceeded to elaborate a theory of planetary orbits. Though there was a discrepancy in the system at the orbit of Jupiter, Kepler refused to fault the system itself and credited the error to a flaw in the tables of Copernicus. He immediately proceeded to publish is findings.

As Ptolemy had entitled his work the Almagest, or the Greatest, Kepler entitled his own explanation of the way things work Mysterium Cosmographicum, or "The Mystery of the Universe", explained, of course, by Kepler. At this point in his life, however, Kepler was proceeding from a false assumption, attempting to marshal evidence to prove an unverifiable premise. There is no compelling geometrical reason for the planets to occupy their particular orbit; they just do. This, however, was beyond Kepler's knowledge. For an astronomer working in the early years of the seventeenth century, the universe was the most profound and sublime manifestation of the creative activity of God and should realize itself in an expression of perfect symmetry. The next question which Kepler asked himself concerning the planetary orbits was more fundamental: why did the outer planets move more slowly?

Saturn's orbit is about twice the size of Jupiter's, but Saturn takes substantially more than twice as long to make a circuit. Initially, Kepler followed a medieval explanation and posited two possibilities: either the active nature angelic beings who moved the worlds was proportionately diminished as the distance from the sun increased, or their was a single celestial being in the sun responsible for moving all the worlds in the solar system, and the power of this being is diminished as the distance increases. Such was his assertion in the first edition of Mysterium Cosmographicum. Later in life, after he turned fifty, he issued a second edition of his book, and corrected himself, and replaced the word "soul" with that of "force". Like the Milesian philosophers of two millennia earlier Kepler had arrived at the conclusion that natural phenomena should be explained in terms of natural causes. The break with the medieval world-view was complete.

Where Kepler had initially assumed that planetary movement was the product of some animating spiritual energy, he eventually arrived at the conclusion that the animating energy was simply a mechanistic force that could be explained in mathematical and geometrical terms. Kepler realized that he would only be able to confirm his solar model by gaining access to Tycho's data. When the Protestant / Catholic tension in the Holy Roman Empire eventually led to the closing of the school at Ganz, Tycho invited Kepler to join him at Prague. When he arrived, however, optimism quickly gave way to disillusionment. Tycho's eccentric personality, coupled with his experiences with Christian IV, had created within him a sense of paranoia. The great masses of data at his disposal were his, and they were to be doled out in the smallest of portions at his own discretion.

Kepler would only be allowed access to the information pertaining to the orbit of Mars. The following year, however, Tycho's improvidence caught up with him and he passed to the great beyond. Kepler realized immediately that the heirs of Tycho's estate had no interest in astronomy, and would quickly dispose of the accumulated work of a lifetime in order to make a profit. Kepler quickly took steps to prevent that eventuality, confiscating the greater portion of Tycho's research.

With this information at his disposal, Kepler was able to generate a mathematical solution to the problems inherent in the system of Copernicus: The planets did travel around the sun, but the orbit was an ellipse rather than a circle. In 1609, Kepler published his findings in a book entitled On the Motion of Mars. To these mathematical insights would soon be added the visual evidences of another great astronomer: Galileo. GALILEO (1564 -- 1642) Up to this point in history there had been little added to the knowledge of the heavens that might not have been known to the ancient Greeks.

All had been based upon naked eye observation and mathematical calculation which could have been worked out by Ptolemy had he not been blinded by his presuppositions. The year before Kepler published his findings on the orbital peculiarities of Mars, however, was marked by a far more significant scientific breakthrough. In the Netherlands, a scientist named Lipper hey used a pair of lenses in sequence to create a telescope in 1608. The following year the instrument was brought to the attention of an Italian scientist named Galileo Galilei, and his ever active mind immediately set out to improve the device.

At this point one must deal with the unfortunate truth that the primary motive force of progress is the twin pursuit of power and progress. How can an innovation be utilized to secure either a military or a commercial advantage? Having produced an instrument with a magnification power of nine, Galileo brought the device to the attention of the Venetian Senate as well as the Duke of Venice. The advantages such a tool would bestow on the Venetian navy was immediately apparent, and Galileo was granted tenure at the University of Padua and the security of a reasonable salary. Galileo then turned his instrument towards the heavens. His first major discovery was that the Moon's surface is mountainous, and not a perfect sphere as had always been assumed.

This rocked few theological boats. According to the Medieval world-view, the fall of Lucifer had corrupted creation to the orbit of the moon, but beyond that the celestial sphere remained undefiled. His next major discovery was his discovery of the moons of Jupiter, and this also was the cause of significant theological distress. After all, seven had been considered a perfect number since antiquity, and this perfection was reflected in the existence of the seven "Wanderers" or planets that are visible to the unaided eye. The presence of the moons of Jupiter threatened to upset the very balance of the cosmos.

Additionally, here was hard, empirical evidence that there were other "centers" beside the center of the universe, i.e. the Earth. The Copernican argument, asserting that the sun rather than the earth, was the center around which the visible universe circled, was given increasing validity. In addition, Galileo was the first to observe that Venus, like the moon, went through a regular series of phases. This discoveries that Galileo was making cast new light on the assertions of Copernicus, and destined him for trouble with the Church. In 1611, Galileo traveled to Rome and to meet with the senior Jesuit astronomers. In all probability, Galileo foresaw the coming storm, and felt that the Jesuits offered him the best possible shelter.

Father Clavius, author of Gregorian Calendar and undisputed leader of Jesuit astronomy had a hard time believing there were mountains on the moon, but he surrendered with good grace on looking through the telescope. Another confrontation with Church authorities occurred in 1613, when Galileo published his observations of sunspots. Jesuit astronomers asserted that these were small objects surrounding the sun, but Galileo correctly surmised they were actually on the sun's surface. The doctrine of perfectly incorruptible heavenly bodies suffered another blow, and the response of the Church was quick and thorough. In 1616, the Copernican System was condemned. The fundamental premise of the Reformation was that individual Christians were free to interpret the Bible without interference from a Church hierarchy.

The Catholic Church maintained that the interpretation of the Bible was set by Church tradition. Should a compromise be made for Copernicus, Rome maintained that it would be used for leverage by the Protestants. If one reinterpretation could be made, how could the Church logically contend against wholesale reinterpretations? For the next sixteen years Galileo continued, albeit in a somewhat subdued fashion, to continue his investigations.

Galileo was searching for some real proof that the earth was moving, and he eventually concluded that the evidence he was seeking could be found in the tides. Why should all the water on the surface of the earth slosh around once or twice a day? Galileo decided it was because the earth was both rotating and moving around the sun, so for a given place on earth, its speed varies throughout the day, depending on whether its speed from the daily rotation is in the same direction as its speed from the earth's moving around the sun. This constant speeding up and slowing down is what Galileo thought generated the tides, so the tides were proof the earth was moving! (In reality, this is not a good argument-the tides are actually generated by the gravity of the moon.) Galileo publish his finding, entitled Dialogues on the Two Chief Systems of the World in 1632 and immediately brought down the wrath of the Inquisition. At the trial, Galileo was forced to recant his heretical position, though with the tenacity of a true academic he is reputed to have muttered rather quietly "E pur si move", ("It [the earth] still moves").

Though less than Luther's bold "Here I stand", it was still a defiance of traditional authority in the pursuit of new truth. NEWTON (1642 -- 1727) Copernicus had established the helio-centric nature of the solar system, and Kepler had concluded that the orbits of the planets were elliptical rather than circular, yet no one had venture forth a theory on why the planets moved in the manner they did. Isaac Newton, who was born in England in the year Galileo died, was destined to solve the problem of planetary motion, as well as devise a theory of physics that would endure until Einstein developed the theory of relativity. Proceeding from Kepler's assertion that the universe was a great mechanism, and the workings of the mechanism could be explained mathematically, Newton posited his single most significant contribution: The Law of Gravity. Briefly stated, the law of Gravity asserts that every object in the universe is attracted to every other object with a force that is directly proportionate to the product of their masses and inversely proportionate to the square of the distances between them. The law of gravity effectively explained why the universe did not fly apart.

Three further laws were needed to explain the intricate motion that takes place in a universe governed by so powerful a force. The first of these is known as the law of inertia, and it asserts that every object continues in a state of rest or in a state of uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force. The second asserts that the rate of change in the motion of an object is directly proportionate to the force acting upon it. The third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The law of gravity, combined with the three laws of motion, provided for the emergence of a complete cosmology based on mathematical principles, and the publication of Newton's Principia Mathematica, or The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687 effectively closed the book on the medieval world-view. JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704) The foundations of the modern social sciences were laid when John Locke attempted to follow Newton's system ization of the natural world and present a systematized the understanding of the human mind.

In his seminal work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke argued that at birth the human mind was a tabla rasa, or "blank slate". There were no innate ideas, and everything that is written on this "blank slate" is the product of sensory input. The mind of the individual emerges as it confronts the external world. Here, again, was a fundamental challenge to traditional authority.

In essence, Locke was dismissing the doctrine of original sin. Human beings were endowed with the ability to alter their own destinies. Locke proceeded to attack both the divine right of Kings and the Machiavellian concept of power politics in his Two Treatises of Government. Here Locke argued that individual possess a God-given right to security in their life, liberty, and property. To secure these ends, political agreement are made in which rulers are empowered to protect that life, liberty, and property. Should a ruler prove unworthy of that trust, he could be removed from power and replaced.

Here the foundation of American individualism was established, and the philosophical groundwork of our own Declaration of Independence was laid. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY INTELLECTUAL GIANTS COPERNICUS TYCHO BRAHE JOHANN KEPLER GALILEO ISAAC NEWTON JOHN LOCKE.