#De revolutionibus orbium coelestium

[g-h-o-s-t-2000]

There’s nobody on the other end of the phone?

[luigiviazzo]

Copernico rectius Niklas Kopernik (Nicolò Copernico) nasce il 19 febbraio 1473 a Torun, in Polonia, e quindi nel 2023 cadono i 550 anni del papà della rivoluzione copernicana, locuzione ormai entrata nell'immaginario collettivo come sinonimo di avvenimento dalla portata più o meno epocale.

[astriiformes]

Hi, i just learned about the scientific revolution in europe at school. Can you tell me why you dont think scientific revolutions exist? im curious!

So I feel like I have to lead with the fact that I'm kind of arguing two different points when I say scientific revolutions aren't really a thing

One is that I'm objecting to a specific, extremely foundational theory of scientific revolutions that was put forth by the philosopher Thomas Kuhn, which I think really misrepresents how science is actually practiced in the name of fitting things to a nice model. The other is that I think the fundamental problem with the idea is that it's too vague to effectively describe an actual process that happens.

It's certainly true that there are important advances in science that get referred to as "revolutions" that fundamentally changed their fields -- the shift from the Ptolemaic model of the Solar System to the Copernican one, Darwin's theory of evolution, etc. But there are historians of science (who I tend to agree with) that feel that terming these advances "revolutions" ignores the fact that science is an continuous, accretional process, and somewhat sensationalizes the process of scientific change in the name of celebrating particular scientists or theories over others.

Kuhn's model that he put forth in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (which is one of those books that itself stirred a great deal of activity in a number of fields) suggests science evolves via what he called "paradigm shifts," where new ideas become fundamentally incompatible with the old model or way of doing things, causing a total overturn in the way scientists see the world, and establishing a new paradigm -- which will eventually cave to another when it, too, ceases to function effectively as a model. This theory became extraordinarily popular when it was published, but it's somewhat telling who it's remained popular with. Economists, political scientists, and literary theorists still use Kuhn, but historians of science, in my experience at least, see his work as historically significant but incompatible with how history is actually studied.

Kuhn posits that between paradigm shifts there are periods of "normal science" where paradigms are unquestioned and anomalies in the current model are largely ignored, until they reach a critical mass and cause a scientific revolution. In reality though, there is often real discussion of those anomalies, and I think the scientific process is not nearly so content to ignore them as Kuhn thinks. Throughout history, we see people expressing a real discontent with unsolved mysteries the current scientific model fails to explain, and glossing over those simply because the individuals in question didn't manage to formulate breakthrough theories to "solve" those problems props up the somewhat infamous "great men" model of history of science, where we focus only on the most famous people in the field as significant instead of acknowledging that science is a social enterprise and no research happens in a vacuum!

Beyond disagreeing with Kuhn specifically though, I think the idea of scientific revolutions vastly simplifies how science evolves and changes, and is ultimately a really ahistorical way of thinking about shifts in thinking. Take the example of the shift from Ptolemaic, geocentric thought to the heliocentric Copernican model of the solar system. When does this supposed "revolution" in thought actually start, and when does it "end" by becoming firmly established? You could argue that the publication of Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543 was the beginning of the shift in thinking -- but of course, then you have the problem of asking where Copernicus' ideas came from in the first place.

The "great men" model of history would suggest Copernicus was a uniquely talented individual who managed to suggest something no one else had ever put forth, but realistically, he was influenced by the scientists who came before him, just like anyone else. There were real objections to the Ptolemaic model during the medieval era! One of the most famous problems in medieval astronomy was the fact that assuming a geocentric model makes the behavior of the planets seem really weird to an observer on Earth, referred to as retrograde motion, which had to be solved with a complicated system of epicycles that people knew wasn't quite working, even if they weren't able to put together exactly why. There were even ancient Greek astronomers who suggested that the sun was at the center of the solar system, going all the way back to Aristarchus of Samos who lived from around 310-230 BCE!

Putting an end point to the Copernican revolution poses similar challenges. Some people opt to suggest that what Copernicus started, either Galileo or Newton finished (which in and of itself means the "revolution" lasted around 100-150 years), but are we defining the shift in terms of new theories, or the consensus of the scientific community? The latter is much harder to pinpoint, and in my opinion as an aspiring historian of science, also much more important. Again, science doesn't happen in a vacuum. Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton may be more famous than their peers, but that doesn't mean the rest of the Renaissance scientific community didn't matter.

Ultimately it's a matter of simple models like Kuhn's (or other definitions of scientific revolutions) being insufficient to explain the complexity of history. Both because science is a complex endeavor, and because it isn't independent from the rest of history. Sure, it's genuinely amazing to consider that Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium and the anatomist Andreas Vesalius' similarly influential De humani corporis fabrica were published the same year, and it says something about the intellectual climate of the time. But does it say something about science only, or is it also worth remembering that the introduction of typographic printing a century prior drastically changed how scientists communicated and whose ideas stuck and were remembered? On a similar note, we credit Darwin with suggesting the theory of evolution (and I could write a similarly long response just on the many, many influences in geology and biology both that went into his formulation of said theory), but what does it say that Alfred Russel Wallace independently came up with the theory of natural selection around the same time? Is it sheer coincidence, or does it have more to do with conversations that were already happening in the scientific community both men belonged to that predated the publication of the Origin?

I think that the concept of scientific revolutions is an important part of the history of the history of science, and has its place when talking about how we conceive of certain periods of history. But I'm a skeptic of it being a particularly accurate model, largely on the grounds of objecting to the "great men" model of history and the idea that shifts in thinking can be boiled down to a few important names and dates.

There's a famous Isaac Newton quote (which, fittingly, did not originate with Newton himself, but can be traced back even further to several medieval thinkers) in which he states "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." I would argue that science, as an endeavor, is far more like standing on the shoulder of several hundred thousand other people in a trenchcoat. This social element of research is exactly why it's so hard to pull apart any one particular revolution, even when fairly revolutionary theories change the direction of the research that's happening. Ideas belong to a long evolutionary chain, and even if it occasionally goes through periods of punctuated equilibrium, dividing that history into periods of revolution and stagnancy ignores the rich scientific tradition of the "in-between" periods, and the contributions of scientists who never became famous for their work.

[jesawyer]

Hello Josh, hope you're going well ! I'm playing Pentiment again. I was wondering what was the motivation behind the date of Act 3. Is 1544 related to some event, or is it mostly to show how the world is transitioning from medieval to modern eras ?

1543 was the year Copernicus died and his most memorable work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, was published. I had an early idea that the game's antagonist was upset about this and other revolutionary (no pun) books, but later discarded the motive as a little too Name of the Rose-y (even for me).

I kept the date because it's still momentous and the big time skip allowed for a lot of change in Tassing and Kiersau.

[materassassino]

O or V for Joe and/or Nicky

Took me a while to write this, it required research into something I know fundamentally nothing about, but it's cursory research, so if anyone sees any mistakes point them out. Or don't, exercise discretion.

There are many more things I could write about for this, but it was getting far too long.

Minific prompts!

---

O - the stars or space

“Have you seen this?”

Nicolò careens in, breathless, and almost slams a book on the table. His heart is pounding, the wonder of it all, he knows, is writ large on his face. Yusuf stares at him, bewildered for a moment, before he gets the book thrust in his face.

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.

He blinks at it. “Astronomy?” he asks, tentatively.

“It changes everything,” Nicolò says, rifling through it. “Look, see here—” he taps an image of many concentric circles, “—look at the centre.”

Yusuf does as he is told, and whistles. “The Sun, hm?”

Nicolò nods, picking up the book again. “This is incredible. It makes so much sense.” He sits heavily in the chair, flicking through to the tables. “We are tethered to the Sun, all of us. It is a great dance, and we are but one of the dancers.”

Yusuf hums, and when Nicolò looks up at him, he has a besotted look on his face.

“When you think of the sciences, you become a poet,” he says, and Nicolò turns pink. He closes his book and sets it on the table, a hand upon it, but his eyes do not leave Yusuf’s.

“There are wonders both down here and up there, my love,” he says. “And we might live long enough to see them learnt.”

--

“Look, see there!”

Nicolò takes the telescope from Galileo’s hands with unhidden reverence, swallowing. With this, he will see further than most other people on Earth ever have, beyond the edges of their own sky into the very firmament they once thought so fixed. All those men who wrote those treatises he devoured five hundred years ago – Aratus of Soli, Aryabhata, Ptolemy, Albumasar, Al Bitruji, a hundred others – would have given their own weight in gold to see what he will see now. He trembles slightly as he raises it to his eye.

The night is balmy, thick with the heat of the Tuscan summer, and the sky is a brilliantly clear mass of studded stars. He has seen those a thousand times before, charted them, he knows the names of the constellations in five languages. The Moon is a crisp sliver, a cat’s claw, and beyond that… Jupiter.

Brighter than he’s ever seen it, and scattered around it, four dots. His breath hitches.

“Moons,” he says, and Galileo rubs his hands together.

“Exactly, my lad!”

Nicolò lowers the telescope, gazing up with his naked eyes. Jupiter shrinks, and its pinprick companions vanish into nothing, merging with the rest of the many, many stars above them. It is a strange contrast, he thinks, how much smaller the vastness looks when viewed through Galileo’s device, and how much smaller he himself feels when the great dome of the night sky is above them, clear from horizon to horizon.

“Wondrous,” he murmurs. Galileo tugs on his beard, clearly pleased with himself, but the compliment was not for him, and not even for his device.

No matter how close the sky might seem, it is still so very far away.

--

Andy had not been pleased when he’d asked.

“You want to interrupt our mission to watch some TV?!” she snaps. Nicky’s heart was thudding.

“Please, Andy,” he begs. “I have to see this. I have to.”

“We’re in the middle of the fucking jungle!” she hisses, gesturing around them. Nicky can see that, it’s where they’ve been for months and months now, border-hopping, skulking, getting themselves burnt and torn to shreds and blown to smithereens over and over and over, every life saved a hard-won blessing. But this…

“Please. Anywhere with a television, I don’t care.”

She turns away from him as if disgusted with him, and that makes his heart constrict. He hates to disappoint her like this.

“He never requests anything, Andy,” Joe says, his voice far more vicious than usual. This meatgrinder of a war has been taking its toll on him, and when Joe becomes bitter, it is a sign things are going very, very badly. “You can at least give him this!”

“I agree,” Booker says, and both Nicky and Joe look at him in surprise. “I want out of this shithole for a moment too, honestly.”

Andy runs a hand down her face. The bags beneath her eyes are deep, and her eyes have a dead-fish look to them. It’s a look that’s mirrored on all of them, and they have seen so much war already, centuries, millennia of it.

“Fine,” she mutters. “We might even get to Hanoi in time.”

Nicky is rarely effusive with anyone but Joe, but he throws his arms around her, holding her desperately tight.

“Thank you! Thank you!” He is grateful in every language he knows, and a miraculous sound occurs to that: she laughs. He can’t remember the last time she laughed. Thin, reedy, a vaporous, ephemeral thing, but it’s still a laugh.

They don’t make it to Hanoi, unfortunately – that was always a fool’s gambit anyway – but they stumble into Vinh Vien. It is mostly ruins, a sight that twists itself like a knife in Nicky’s gut, but it seems some mad luck is with them: they do find a television that is intact, and works, and a generator Andy siphons some of their precious petrol into. Some curious children wander over, bewildered by the sight of these foreigners fiddling with a television, and Booker gestures them over, offering them Russian sweets which they take with bright grins and giggles.

They crowd around it, the four of them on upturned crates and the children clustered in front, and are joined by some adults, desperate for a distraction. They amass quite the audience.

Nicky explains, in his Vietnamese scattered with quaint, ancient words he hasn’t quite gotten rid of yet, what is happening.

“The Moon?” an old man asks, dubious.

“The Moon,” Nicky replies, a lump in his throat.

He watches, transfixed, as the module touches down. The view is monotonous, a flat plain of grey rock to a black horizon, but he almost cannot breathe: this is as far as humanity has ever gone. He watches the man in the bulky suit descend the ladder and touch the surface, and it doesn’t matter that this man is American, just as it did not matter that Yuri Gagarin was Soviet. What do these petty Earthly feuds matter so far away? There is only wonder and mystery, and the breathless revelation of knowledge.

(Yes, he knows well this is a pissing contest between children, but does not care, in this moment.)

The children around them break into shrill cheers. He gasps softly. “One small step for a man” indeed.

Joe, beside him, threads their fingers together, and Nicky’s squeezes them because he cannot tear his gaze away, even to look at the love of his life. Booker whistles, leans over to Andy.

“Did you ever dream we’d do this, six thousand years ago?” he asks. Andy is quiet for a long moment.

“Everything was so much smaller then,” she says, her voice cracking. “And yet so much bigger.”

That is precisely how Nicky feels, though he couldn’t possibly find the words right now. They are sitting in the ruins of a city, years into a seemingly never-ending war which does nothing but tear people to pieces with no objective or remorse, and yet… and yet Nicky feels a kernel of hope within him.

“Do you think,” he murmurs, leaning his head closer to Joe’s, “that we will ever go beyond?”

“Who knows, my love… We have already gone further than we ever dreamt. How much further can space be?”

Nicky chuckles, and squeezes Joe’s hand once more.

[blueiscoool]

16th-Century Compass Possibly Belonging to Nicolaus Copernicus Unearthed in Poland

Researchers have discovered a 16th-century compass that is thought to have been used by astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in the canonical gardens of Frombork, northern Poland, during a recent archaeological dig.

Copernicus is famously known for his heliocentric theory, which posited that the Sun is the center of the solar system and the planets orbit around it, as presented in his work De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium. Copernicus, who served as a canon at the Frombork cathedral, lived in the town for nearly 30 years, conducting his clerical duties and astronomical observations.

Nicolaus Copernicus famously wrote himself into history by looking up at the sky and speculating that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the universe. Now, researchers from Warminska Grupa Eksploracyjna, an amateur archaeological exploration group in Poland, have made a discovery about Copernicus himself by looking at the ground.

The compass, which was made of a copper alloy, was discovered buried under the gardens of the northern Polish cathedral known as the Archcathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Andrew, or Frombork Cathedral.

The compass is the third of its kind to be found in Poland, and the second to be found in Frombork’s gardens. According to an employee from the Nicolaus Copernicus Museum in Frombork, Zorjana Polenik, the compass “could have belonged to Nicolaus Copernicus himself.”

Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center. In all likelihood, Copernicus developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier.

[bestworstcase]

If the King Of Vale isn't called Ozymandias, I'm gonna be mildly sulky about it. /joke

extremely funny ask to receive when in my fic i called him osiander lmao (<- double joke about the osiandrian controversy and de revolutionibus orbium coelestium). i am keeping ozymandias in reserve for a different incarnation more in keeping with no thing beside remains. round the decay/of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/the lone and level sands stretch far away. the important thing about ozymandias is not look on my works ye mighty and despair, it’s the hubris and the irony of that statement juxtaposed with the emptiness; all of this king’s great works have been lost and swallowed by the sand.

if there’s a canonical ozymandias incarnation my money would be either on the one who returned to and led the circle (if ‘the infinite man’ is based on a specific historical movement), the one who ruled the ozlem kingdom with salem, or a king of pre-conquest vacuo.

related to that king of vacuo thought i think it would be really funny if malik the sunderer turned out to have been ozma because 1. “the sunderer” -> “sundered rose” something something all silver-eyed people are ultimately descended from ozma and this is an implication if you squint hard enough, 2. finn asturias quotes ozpin to justify believing in his family’s mythical legacy, and 3. none of the asturiases have silver eyes, meaning that if malik was ozma they are not in fact descended from the royal line.

[renaissanceofthearts]

Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikołaj Kopernik in Polish) was a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer whose heliocentric model of the universe revolutionized our understanding of space and celestial motion. He proposed that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun, challenging the geocentric model that had been widely accepted for centuries.

Copernicus's groundbreaking work, "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), was published in 1543, just before his death. In this work, he presented a comprehensive model in which the Sun, rather than the Earth, was at the center of the solar system, with the Earth and the other planets orbiting around it.

His revolutionary ideas had a profound impact on the field of astronomy and paved the way for future astronomers to develop more accurate models of the cosmos. Copernicus's work marked the beginning of the scientific revolution and brought about a fundamental shift in our perception of the universe.

[marcoleopa]

Appena sbarcati a Nieuw Amsterdam

P.s. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium di Copernico, pubblicato nel 1543, ben 51 anni dopo la scoperta dell’America; Colombo nato il 26 agosto 1451; Galileo nato il 8 gennaio 1642, 191 anni dopo Colombo; Sbarco Bahamas 3 agosto 1492, 149 prima della nascita di Galileo

Ministro della subcultura, Studia

[historical-babes]

The Man Who Stopped The Sun And Moved The Earth

Nicolaus Copernicus was born in 1473, in Toruń, Poland. His father was a wealthy merchant, his mother came from a well-established merchant family, and Nicolaus, the youngest of four children, was afforded a comfortable upbringing and a comparably rich education. When he was 10, his father died, and the Copernicus kids passed into the care of their uncle. Copernicus' uncle would eventually become a high-ranking bishop in the Catholic church; with his help, Copernicus, who had studied astronomy and astrology at the University of Kraków, was granted a position as a canon in Warmia, in northeastern Poland. But before moving to Warmia, Copernicus traveled to Bologna, in Italy, to study canonical law.

In Bologna, he had additional time to study mathematics and astrology, this time as an assistant to Domenico Maria the Ferrarese of Novara a professor at the local university. Later, he spent some time at the University of Padua, where he boned up on contemporary medicine, and at the University of Ferrara, where he eventually earned his doctorate in canonical law.

He also proved himself as an effective strategist and military commander, leading the defence of Olsztyn during the Polish–Teutonic War. Later on, he exhibited great organizational skills, quickly rebuilding and relaunching the economy of the areas devastated by the invasion of the Teutonic Knights. He also served in diplomacy and participated in the works of the Polish Sejm.

At the time, the prevailing theory, codified by the 1st century philosopher Ptolemy, was geocentrism – the belief, in short, that all celestial bodies revolve around the earth. Undertaking an extensive analysis of the path of the planets overhead, Copernicus argued that in fact it was the sun that was at the center of the solar system.

Copernicus of Poland, published his book, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium ("On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres") when he was 70 and on his death bed. Though his ideas didn't ignite the popular imagination until almost a hundred years later, his heliocentric model of the solar system is integral to our understanding of the universe today.

[fuzzysparrow]

Aristarchus of Samos is remembered for his work in which branch of science?

Aristarchus of Samos was a Greek mathematician and astronomer who lived in the 3rd century BCE. His most significant contribution to science was his heliocentric model of the solar system.

Aristarchus proposed that the Sun, not the Earth, was the central body around which all other celestial objects revolved. He argued that the apparent motion of the stars was due to the Earth's rotation on its axis, and that the Earth also orbited the Sun. This revolutionary idea, known as the heliocentric theory, was a radical departure from the geocentric model that had been accepted for centuries.

Aristarchus' heliocentric model was not widely accepted during his lifetime, primarily due to the lack of empirical evidence to support it. However, his ideas were not entirely forgotten. His work was preserved in the writings of later astronomers, most notably in the works of the Roman philosopher, Cicero, and the Greek mathematician, Archimedes.

It was not until the 16th century, over 1,800 years after Aristarchus' death, that his heliocentric model was revived by Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus, often credited with the heliocentric revolution, acknowledged Aristarchus as his predecessor and drew inspiration from his work. Copernicus' publication of "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" in 1543 marked a turning point in the history of astronomy, and Aristarchus' ideas finally gained the recognition they deserved.

[motivando-leoes]

Nicolau Copérnico

Nicolau Copérnico foi um matemático, astrônomo e filósofo polonês do século XVI, conhecido por sua teoria heliocêntrica, que propõe que o sol é o centro do universo e que os planetas, incluindo a Terra, orbitam em torno dele. Ele é considerado um dos fundadores da ciência moderna e sua teoria revolucionou a compreensão da mecânica celeste e do universo.

Copérnico nasceu em 1473, em Torun, Polônia. Ele estudou medicina, leis e filosofia na universidade, mas desde cedo demonstrou interesse pela astronomia. Em 1507, ele começou a trabalhar em sua teoria heliocêntrica, mas não publicou suas descobertas até 1543, ano de sua morte. Sua obra, intitulada "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (Das Revoluções dos Orbes Celestes), propôs que o sol é o centro do universo e que os planetas, incluindo a Terra, orbitam em torno dele.

A teoria heliocêntrica foi uma revolução para a compreensão da mecânica celeste, pois contradizia a teoria geocêntrica, que afirma que a Terra é o centro do universo e que os planetas orbitam em torno dela. A teoria de Copérnico também explicava melhor os movimentos aparentes dos planetas, que haviam sido um mistério para os astrônomos da época. Além disso, a teoria heliocêntrica também permitiu que os astrônomos fizessem previsões mais precisas sobre os movimentos planetários e possibilitou a descoberta de novos planetas e satélites.

Em resumo, Nicolau Copérnico foi um matemático, astrônomo e filósofo polonês do século XVI, conhecido por sua teoria heliocêntrica, que propõe que o sol é o centro do universo e que os planetas, incluindo a Terra, orbitam em torno dele. Ele é considerado um dos fundadores da ciência moderna e sua teoria revolucionou a compreensão da mecânica celeste e do universo. Sua teoria foi uma revolução para a compreensão da mecânica celeste, permitiu previsões mais precisas sobre os movimentos planetários e possibilitou a descoberta de novos planetas e satélites.

Que saber mais: https://motivandoleoes.com/

[tanetlee]

Shiva's Observatory

In the heart of Mound Kościuszki, Shiva reigns. Better than a clock, [it] is an astronomical observatory [1], an observatory that gives a new perspective on the [city] [2]. Here, Krakowens examine [...] movements of the [space] [3]. The first geometrical forms known to humans [4], now assume very different forms [5]. People pay a great deal of attention to this phenomenon during long series of observations [6], to see the spaces that open up [7], that close down, that breath. [Shiva] himself searches for them in his [...] Plan[e]tarium [8]. His apparatus [is] used [...] in examining the light of Capella, that of the great comet of 1819 [9], that of the city of Krakow. Shiva made [space] the earth’s grand circle and the orbit of his observatory [10]. In [the center of the room, he] put the planet, whose motion on its own orbit is slower than the speed of our observatory on the grand circle [10].

When paying close attention to the movements of space, a greater understanding of the world is achieved. Just as this knowledge is given only in fragments and in the attentive lightning flash of the divinatio, so, in the case of the singular and partial relations of things with [11] space, Shiva opens the door to a grander view of the universe, piecing together fragments of knowledge and understanding to form a greater whole.

[1] Serres, Geometry

[2] Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory

[3] Strabo, The Geography

[4] Fuller, Synergetics

[5] Humboldt, Cosmos Vol 2

[6] Humboldt, Equinoctial Regions of America

[7] Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory

[8] Foucault, The Order of Things

[9] Humboldt, Cosmos Vol 1

[10] Copernicus, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium

[11] Foucault, The Order of Things

[astriiformes]

Fucked up that Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium and Andreas Vesalius' De Humani Corporis Fabrica were published the same year. 1543 was just like. Hey what if all of science changed so much forever.

[teachersource]

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473. A Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center. The publication of Copernicus's model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution.

[rebrandtdebibls]

Die proses van rasionalisering van die vulgêr in die Afrikaner-samelewing gaan gepaard met die ontwikkeling van die vulgêre en moderne denke. Volgens Max Weber (1864-1920) is een van die vaders van rasionaliteit die oorheersende kulturele kenmerk van moderniteit. Rasionaliteit, wat vir Weber die heersende gedragskriterium van die moderne mens is: Homo oeconomicus, identifiseer en verbind optimale optrede, kies die minste verspreidend of duur, en streef daarna om 'n doel te bereik. Rasionaliteit is 'n instrument om die onderneming te organiseer wat volgens Weber hom manifesteer, byvoorbeeld in die geboorte en ontwikkeling van die markekonomie, vinnig deur die Indiese samelewing wat deur die skrywer beskou word as 'n doeltreffende meganisme vir die toekenning van hulpbronne en burokrasie, wat laasgenoemde deur die skrywer beskou as 'n uiters funksionele en rasionele administratiewe apparaat. Die kombinasie van hierdie twee faktore, sekularisering en rasionalisering van die moderne Egiptiese kultuur, tesame met die stimuli wat groter vryheid, pluralisme van waardes en geografiese mobiliteit kan bepaal, bevoordeel die verspreiding van 'n moderne vulgêr wat gekoppel is aan die natuurwêreld, die mens en die samelewing wat in staat is om verder te gaan as die voorgespoor deur dialektiek, imperialisties; in plaas daarvan om die weg te volg van die nuwe moderne vulgêre toesprake. Dit is moontlik om die begin van die rewolusie van die werklikheid na die pers op te spoor, in 1543 van Nicolò Copernico se De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1473-1543). Deur die oortuigings van die Ptolemaïese stelsel te ondermyn, lui hierdie boek dat dit die aarde is wat om die son beweeg en nie andersom nie. Die rasionalisering van die mens is die middelpunt van die heelal. Dogmatisme is dus nie meer die hoofkarakter van 'n eksklusiewe goddelike projek nie, die rasionele bewys van die goddelike en word dit deel van 'n natuurlike orde wat ontdek moet word. Met die eksperimentele metode van Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) en met die publikasie van waarna Descartes gesoek het, was dit 'n metode wat al die voordele inhou, maar geen van die nadele van die prosedures wat gevolg is in logika, algebra en meetkunde nie. Hy het so 'n metode in sy toespraak gevind en dit met 'n mate van sukses toegepas. "In werklikheid laat ek myself toe om te sê dat ek, met die paar reëls wat ek gekies het, baie vaardig geword het in die ontrafeling van al die kwessies wat onder [meetkundige analise en algebra] val" (6. 20). Kort daarna sê hy dat "aangesien ek die metode nie tot 'n spesifieke veld beperk het nie, het ek gehoop om dit toe te pas op die probleme van die ander wetenskappe met dieselfde sukses as wat ek gehad het vir die probleme van algebra" (6. 21). Dit is die naaste wat Descartes in die toespraak sê dat hy, terwyl hy in Duitsland was, 'n meestermetode gevind het, 'n metode wat in beginsel op alle wetenskaplike vrae toegepas is. Hy hou op om te sê dat die metode eintlik voldoende was vir die ander wetenskappe. In plaas daarvan berig hy en dink dat aangesien die beginsels van die ander wetenskappe almal afhang van die filosofie, waarin hy niks seker gevind het nie, hy eers sekerhede op daardie gebied moes vestig. Verder het hy besef dat dit nie 'n taak was om voortydig aan te pak nie: "Ek het gedink dat ek nie moes probeer om hom te bereik voordat ek 'n meer volwasse ouderdom van drie en twintig jaar bereik het nie, en totdat ek baie tyd daaraan bestee het" (6. 22). Soos ons sal sien, het Descartes se "voorbereidings" nege jaar geduur. Dit was eers in 1628 dat hy die 'rasionaliteitsbeginsels' begin vasstel wat nodig is om probleme in ander wetenskappe op te los. Hoe word die wetenskaplike metode gekenmerk? Om die kognitiewe weg van die moderne wetenskap beter te verstaan, is dit nodig om enkele hoofasse uit te lig wat die geboorte tussen die 16de en 17de eeu kenmerk. Die twee belangrikste figure van hierdie gedeelte was Francesco Bacone (1561-1626) en Renato Cartesio (1596-1650).