Nicolaus Copernicus

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Nicolaus Copernicus

1473–1543

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

The Earth is not the centre of the universe; it moves around the Sun like the other planets.

Placement

Science & Human Sciences · Eastern Europe · Science

The heliocentric worldview – the “Copernican revolution” that Kant made the metaphor of his philosophy.

Key ideas

Heliocentrism

Open in the star map

Influence

Influenced by 2

Pythagoras

influenced by
In the dedication of De revolutionibus (1543) Copernicus cited Pythagorean precedents for a moving earth and the Pythagoreans’ practice of passing on doctrine only to friends. N. Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), dedication to Paul III; SEP “Nicolaus Copernicus”; SEP “Pythagoreanism”
Evidence: AI draft
Pythagoras › traditionally c. 570–495 BCE
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

influenced by disputed ✓
Copernicus used the same construction as the Tusi couple in De revolutionibus (1543); whether he knew al-Tusi’s work, perhaps through Byzantine channels, is disputed. N. Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543); F. J. Ragep, “Copernicus and His Islamic Predecessors”, History of Science 45 (2007); G. Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (2007); SEP “Nicolaus Copernicus”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi › 1201–1274

Influenced 3

Giordano Bruno

influenced ✓
Bruno took up Copernicus’ moving earth but read it beyond astronomy as a step to an infinite universe with countless worlds (La cena de le ceneri, 1584). G. Bruno, La cena de le ceneri (1584); De l’infinito, universo e mondi (1584); SEP “Giordano Bruno”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata · InPhO
Giordano Bruno › 1548–1600
Galileo Galilei

influenced
Galileo defended Copernicus’ heliocentric system with telescopic evidence (Sidereus nuncius, 1610) and in the Dialogo (1632), which led to his condemnation in 1633. Galileo, Sidereus nuncius (1610); Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632); SEP “Galileo Galilei”; SEP “Nicolaus Copernicus”
Evidence: AI draft
Galileo Galilei › 1564–1642
Isaac Newton

influenced
Newton gave the Copernican arrangement of the planets a dynamical basis by deriving planetary motion around the sun from universal gravitation (Principia, 1687). I. Newton, Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (1687); SEP “Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”; SEP “Nicolaus Copernicus”
Evidence: AI draft
Isaac Newton › 1643–1727

Works

1543On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
The sun moves to the center.

Position

Copernicus was not a philosopher in the narrow sense, but his idea transformed philosophy. Dissatisfied with the complicated Ptolemaic system, he proposed that the sun, not the earth, stands near the centre, and that the earth rotates daily and orbits the sun yearly. Many apparent irregularities of planetary motion then became simple consequences of our own movement. The theory displaced humanity from the centre of the cosmos and showed that appearances can deceive about the true order of things. Kepler, Galileo and Newton completed the revolution, and Kant later called his own philosophical turn a “Copernican” one.

Life & context

Born in 1473 in Toruń, Copernicus studied in Kraków and in Italy, at Bologna, Padua and Ferrara, where he took a doctorate in canon law. He spent most of his life as a canon of Frombork Cathedral in Warmia, working as administrator, physician and economic adviser. Persuaded by his pupil Rheticus, he finally published his main work in 1543, the year of his death.