Main entry:

Blumenberg, Hans, author.

Title & Author:

The genesis of the Copernican world / Hans Blumenberg ; translated by Robert M. Wallace.

Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©1987.

Description:

xlviii, 772 pages ; 23 cm.

Series:

Studies in contemporary German social thought

Notes:
Translation of: Die Genesis der kopernikanischen Welt.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Part I: The ambiguous meaning of the heavens -- Cosmos and tragedy -- The heavens as a cave -- At the end of the observer in repose -- The nonsimultaneity of the simultaneous -- The view of the heavens and self-consciousness -- Pure intuition as an anthropological utopia -- The heavens as charming landscape; photography and anthropomorphism -- Anachronism as a need founded in the life-world: realities and simulation.
Part II: The opening up of the possibility of a Copernicus -- The history of what led up to the event as conditioning the history of its effects -- Loosening of the systematic structure through exhaustion of what the system can accomplish -- Transformations of anthropocentrism -- Humanism's idealization of the center of the world -- The intolerability of forgoing truth in favor of technique -- A hypothetical account of the way Copernicus arrived at his theory.
Part III: A typology of Copernicus's early influence -- The theoretician as 'perpetrator' -- Consequences of an instance of well-meaning mis-guidance: Osiander -- The Reformation and Copernicanism -- Perplexities of Copernicus's sole student: Joachim Rheticus -- Not a martyr for Copernicanism: Giordano Bruno -- Experiences with the truth: Galileo.
Part IV: The heavens stand still and time goes on -- How the movement of the heavens was indispensable for the ancient concept of time -- How antiquity's concept of time did not fit in the Middle Ages -- The perfection of the earth as a new precondition for the old concept of time -- The deformation of the earth and absolute time.
Part V: The Copernican comparative -- Perspective as the guide for cosmological expansion -- The Copernican system as a prototypical supersystem -- A retrospect on Lambert's universe, form the twentieth century -- Competing proposals for the system of systems: Kant and Lambert -- What is "Copernican" in Kant's turning?
Part VI: Vision in the Copernican world -- How horizons of visibility are conditioned by views of man -- The proclamation of the new stars, and one single person's reasons for believing it -- The lack of a 'paratheory' to explain resistance to the telescope -- Reflexive telescopics and geotropic astronautics.
Dust jacket.

Summary:

This major work by the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg is a monumental rethinking of the significance of the Copernican revolution for our understanding of modernity. It provides an important corrective to the view of science as an autonomous enterprise and presents a new account of the history of interpretations of the significance of the heavens for man.

ISBN:

0262022672
9780262022675
9780262521444
026252144X

Subject:

Copernicus, Nicolaus, 1473-1543.
Copernic, Nicolas, (1473-1543) Critique et interprétation.
Astronomy History.
Astronomie Histoire.
Astronomía Historia
Astronomy.
Cosmologie Histoire.
Europe History 1492-
Europe Histoire 1492-
Europe.
Europe History 1492-1789.
Cosmology, to ca. 1900

Form/genre:

History.

Added entries:

Wallace, Robert M., 1947- translator.
Studies in contemporary German social thought.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 283400
Call No.: BIB 221553
Status: Available