ARTICLE APPARIENTIAS SALVARE MISUNDERSTANDINGS IN KANT’S COPERNICAN ANALOGY (KrV,B XVI)* Gonzalo Serrano Despite Kemp-Smith’s efforts to correct the misinterpretations of the Kantian analogy with Copernicus, there are still common misunderstandings along the lines of those he intended to correct. Considering that he first warned us in 1918! it is curious that these misinterpretations have persisted throughout the century as a common way of illustrating Kantian philosophy. The figure of Copernicus is a very tempting image to illustrate what Kant is proposing in his first Kritik. Kant introduces the analogy in order to explain the way he thinks metaphysics can find the ‘sure path of science’. The issue we must face here is that the analogy continues to be misinter- preted notwithstanding the inconsistency it leads to when so explained. This misinterpretation is also used to criticize, and sometimes even to ridicule, the point of view of his Critical philosophy. In response to this, we will try to show that a simpler interpretation of the analogy is a more appropriate way to defend Kant against some objections. However, before addressing the main argument and consequences of the misinterpretation, we shall begin with some necessary antecedents. First, there is a common and long-standing way of interpreting the Kantian reference to Copernicus as an identification between the critical philosophy and the heliocentric cosmology. This interpretation is as common as it is naive, and it is grounded on a weak association that does not withstand examination, namely linking the Copernican turn from the geocentric to the heliocentric cosmology, on the one hand, and the Kantian turn from the dogmatic-realistic to the transcendental-idealistic conception of knowledge, on the other. There are, secondly, those who, accepting this interpretation, have explicitly discredited Kantian thought as more congru- ous to Ptolemy and his geocentric theory than to Copernicus. According to this point of view, the Kantian analogy with Copernicus would be no more 1am indebted to my colleague and friend Garrett Thomson for revision of the final version of this paper. ‘Norman Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’, (London, 1918; 192%) pp. 23-5, )° British Journal for the History of Philosophy 7(3) 1999: 475-490; ” © British Society for the History of Philosophy 1999 ISSN 0960-8788476 GONZALO SERRANO than nonsense. Finally, there is one commentator, Kaulbach, who believes that this interpretation, characterized by us as naive, may still be defended and that, by means of a deep exegesis, it can be rescued from the inconsis- tencies attributed to it by the second point of view.” We, on the contrary, shall argue that this interpretation is entirely false, both in its simplistic formulation and in its more sophisticated version. Con- sequently we will also maintain that the objection against Kant arising in virtue of this interpretation, i.e. the objection according to which Kant would be more congruous to Ptolemy than to Copernicus, is false in two ways: first, because the objection against Kant depends on a false interpre- tation of the analogy; second, because, once we have a satisfactory inter- pretation of it, the alleged preference for Ptolemy over Copernicus as the congruous term of the analogy fails. The naive interpretation maintains that the Copernican shift from the Earth to the Sun as the centre of the solar system corresponds to the Kantian shift from the object of knowledge to the knowing subject. So we can say that the Earth is to the object as the Sun is to the subject. Hence the formula: ‘Before Kant the object of knowledge was the centre and the knowing subject moved round it. Now, according to Kant, the subject is the centre and the object moves round it’. This is the way many understand the Kantian words: Bisher nahm man an, alle unsere Erkenntnis miisse sich nach den Gegenstiin- den richten {conform to] ... Man versuche es daher einmal, ob wir nicht in den Aufgaben der Metaphysik damit besser fortkommen, da8 wir annehmen, die Gegenstande miissen sich nach unserem Erkenntnis richten [conform to]. (B xvi) 2 Friedrich Kaulbach (1912-92), ‘Der Begriff des Standpunktes im Zusammenhang des kanti- schen Denkens’, Archiv fiir Philosophie, 12 (1963); ‘Subjektivitat, Fundament der Erkennt- nis und Iebendiger Spiegel bei Leibniz’, Zeitschrift fur Philosophische Forschung. 20 (1966); “Die Copernicanische Denkfigur bei Kant’, Kant-Studien, 64 (1973); ‘Die kopernikanische Wende als philosophisches Prinzip’, in F, Kaulbach, U. W. Bargenda and J. Blthdorn (eds), Nikolaus Kopernikus zum 500. Geburtstag, (Kini Wien, 1973);"Das copernicanische Prinzip und die philosophische Sprache bei Leibniz’, Zeitschrift fiar Philosophische Forschung, 27/3 (1973); Philosophie als Wissenschaft. Eine Anleitung zum Studium von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Hildesheim 1981); ‘Die transzendentale Konstellation und der Weltbezug des Ich bei Kant’, Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 35 (1981); ‘Kant und Nietzsche im Zeichen det kopernikanischen Wendung’, Zeitschrift fir philosophische Forschung, 41 (1987); Philosophie des Perspektivismus (Tubingen, 1990). Volker Gerhardt shares Kaulbach’s interpretation of the Kantian analogy to Copernicus and stresses, like him, its importance for the understanding of the critical philosophy. Cir. his ‘Kants kopernikanische Wende’, Kant-Studien, 78 (1987) p. 138 3 The references following the text correspond to Kant’s Kritik der Reinen Vernunfi, Edited by Raymund Schmidt (Hamburg, 1956). I follow the classical way of referring to this work: edition (A or/and B) and page.MISUNDERSTANDINGS IN KANT’S COPERNICAN ANALOGY 477 This interpretation basically consists of an easy and direct conversion of the verb ‘to conform to’ (sich nach etwas richten) to the verb ‘to move round’ (sich um etwas drehen). However, as we shall see, this version is the result of a careless combination of the passage just quoted with the one in the Kritik where Kant introduces the known analogy with Copernicus. As a preliminary, we should mention the work of Heine. Although he is not strictly a philosopher, his Geschichte der Religion und der Philosophie in Deutschland was widely known in France and Germany. In this work Heine tries to explain the Kantian reference to Copernicus as follows: Nicht mit Unrecht vergleicht er daher seine Philosophie mit dem Verfahren des Kopernikus. Friiher, als man die Welt stillstehen und die Sonne um die selben herumwandeln lie8, wollten die Himmelsberechnungen nicht sonderlich Uber- cinstimmen; da lie8 Kopernikus die Sonne still stehen und die Erde um sie herumwandein, und siche! Alles ging nun vortreffiich. Friher lief die Vernunft, gleich der Sonne, um die Erscheinungswelt herum und suchte sie zu beleuchten; Kant aber liBt die Vernunft, die Sonne, stillstehen, und die Erscheinungswelt dreht sich um sie herum und wird beleuchtet, je nachdem sic in den Bereich dieser Sonne kémmt.4 Among philosophers we can find an early example of the naive interpreta- tion in Victor Cousin’s exposition of the Kantian philosophy: ‘So Kant, instead of supposing man to move round objects, supposed on the contrary, that he himself was the centre, and that all moved round him’5 We have also a couple of examples where the naive interpretation is somehow intertwined with a more thoughtful one. This occurs even among first rank philosophers. Heidegger, for example, indeed understands Kant’s aims and even is able to give, in his own peculiar terminology, a more radical formulation of it.° But when he tries to paraphrase the analogy he definitely assumes the language of the naive interpretation, because he uses the lan- guage of the shift from the geocentric to the heliocentric point of view: Wenn Kant in der Philosophie die Kopernikanische Wendung volizieht, also nicht die Erkenntnisse sich um die Gegenstande, sondern die Gegenstande um die Erkenntnisse sich drehen laBt . .. Wenn Kant sagt, da8 sich die Gegenstainde nach der Erkenntnis richten miiBen, . ..7 + Heine, Werke IV. Schriften tiber Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1968) p. 128. The referred work was originally published in 1834, * V. Cousin, The Philosophy of Kant (London, 1854) p.21. Referred by 8. Mortis Engel, Kant’s Copernican Analogy: A Re-examination’, Kant-Studien, 54 (1963) p. 243, © Kant sieht den Zusamenhang, den wir Grundsdtzlicher und radikaler so formulieren: Seien- des ist in keiner Weise zugdnglich ohne vorgiingiges Seinsversttindnis’. Phainomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Vorlesung 1927/1923 (Frankfurt am Main, 1977) p. 55. 7 Tid.478 GONZALO SERRANO Heidegger, as we can see, easily equates ‘sich um etwas drehen’ (to move round) with ‘sich nach etwas richten’ (to conform to), the typical mistake, as j of the naive interpretation. Now we can examine the inconsistency of this interpretation. If it is true that Kant, in comparing himself to Copernicus, is referring to the heliocen- tric theory, then we would have the following formula of the analogy: The geocentric conception assumed that the Earth was the centre of the solar system and the Sun, planets and stars revolved around it in the same way that the dogmatic-realistic view maintained that knowledge and the knowing subject had to conform to the objects (so the Earth would corre- spond to the objects). On the other hand, the heliocentric conception, pro- posed by Copernicus, would assume that the Sun is at the centre and that the Earth, among other celestial bodies, revolves round it, in the same way that the objects, according to the transcendental-idealistic theory of Kant, would conform to the knowing subject (so the Sun would correspond to the subject). But there is a fact that disrupts this way of interpreting the analogy: namely, that the knowing subject (the one that should be the centre) actu- ally lives on the Earth (the place that has been ejected from the centre). This point makes it difficult to relate the Sun and the subject as the correspond- ing centres of the solar system and knowledge. The analogy then becomes the opposite of what it was supposed to be. This bothersome fact is what makes Russell say that Kant ‘would have been more accurate if he had spoken of a “Ptolemaic counter-revolution”, since he put Man back at the centre from which Copernicus had dethroned him’.’ It is interesting to note that Russell was neither the first in express- ing this objection,'° nor would he be the last.''! But what is curious is that, even among contemporary Kantian scholars, we still find critics who con- sider this objection. Paul Guyer, for example, although he seems to under- stand the whole of the analogy and even to take it seriously, still leaves room for ambiguity in his interpretation when he concludes: ‘Although from a purely geometrical point of view the resulting image will be more Ptole- maic than Copernican — the knowing subject will be placed at the centre of & We can also see this in his Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik: ‘Nach dieser letzten Ex- kenntnis [the ontological] miissen sich die Gegenstande, d. h. ihre ontische Bestimmbarkeit, richten. Offenbarkeit des Seienden (ontische Wahrheit) dreht sich um die Enthilltheit der Seinsverfassung des Seienden (ontologische Wahrheit)’. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Frankfurt am Main, 1973) p. 13. 8 B, Russell, Human Knowledge (New York, 1948) p. 9. ‘© The same opinion was expressed by S, Alexander forty years earlier: ‘For his revolution, so far as it was one, was accurately anti-Copernican’. Cited by N. Kemp-Smith, Commentary to Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ (London, 1918) p. 23. 11K, R. Popper, although not in a tone of objection, expresses the same idea when he admits a second meaning of Kant’s‘Kopernikanische Wendung’:"Kopernikus nahm der Menschheit ihre zentrale Position in der Welt. Kants ‘Kopernikanische Wendung’ ist eine Wiedergut- ‘machung dieser Position’. Karl R. Popper, ‘Kant: der Philosoph der Aufklarung’, in his book Die offene Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde (Betn, 1957) Vol. I, p. 17.MISUNDERSTANDINGS IN KANT’S COPERNICAN ANALOGY 479 the realm of objects, rather than vice versa’.'? This objection, as we can see, closely depends on the acceptance of the naive interpretation.'> Therefore we can conclude that this objection, namely that Ptolemy fits better than Copernicus as the comparing term of the Kantian analogy, assumes that the naive interpretation is right, i.e. that this is what Kant wanted to say. Tosummarize, there 1s no doubt that this objection to the Kantian analogy assumes that we accept the naive interpretation of the analogy, as we have shown. Now, we will bring out Kaulbach’s attempt to save the analogy, bearing in mind that, if he is trying to overcome this objection, then he takes it seriously. His starting point is, therefore, located in the objection to the analogy according to the naive interpretation,'4 an objection that he tries to face by offering a new and more sophisticated, even far-fetched, version of this naive interpretation of the Kantian analogy with Copernicus. First of all, Kaulbach starts by re-examining what Kant ‘really’ meant by his reference to Copernicus. According to Kaulbach, Kant does not compare himself to Copernicus in order to establish an analogy between the new cos- mology and the critical philosophy or, in other words, between heliocentric theory and transcendental idealism. He explicitly says that what matters is not this inversion between the Earth and the Sun (which I agree with), nor even between the stationary spectator and the revolving stars (which I do not agree with). If we recall that the latter is literally the inversion to which Kant is referring, namely the inversion which results in the revolving spec- tator and the fixed stars, then we must conclude that Kaulbach is proposing ” P Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge, 1987) p. 3. "A. Philonenko, another Kantian scholar, likewise shares the naive interpretation and makes evident the link between it and the objection. He tries to explain the analogy by saying ‘qu'on devait cesser de voir le sujet tourner autour de l'objet et s'interroger sur le cas inverse, celui od 'objet tournerait autour du sujet’, and then he criticizes it by adding that ‘A Ja lettre c'est un non-sense que les historiens de la pensée de Kant acceptent sans sourciller’. He notes that ‘d’abord l'image est inadéquate’ and concludes: “aussi la démarche de Kant appuyée sur cette image perd tout valeur’. Dictionaire des Philosophes, PUF (Paris, 1984). The article on Kant (pp. 1394-1403) is signed by A. Philonenko. '¢ Kaulbach, indeed, is aware of the incongruences the naive interpretation leads to and from which the Russellian objection raises’, .. obwohl der Vergleich mit Kopernikus bekanntlich Schwierigkeiten 2u haben scheint. Denn bei Kopernikus handelt es sich ja gerade darum, da ‘unser’ raumlicher, auf die Erde hingestellter Standpunkt als um die Sonne bewegt angenommen wird, wéhrend das Kantische ‘Experiment’ umgekehrt ‘unser’ Subjekt in die Lage des den Gegenstanden gegentiber Ruhenden versetzt.’ Der Begriff des Standpunktes im Zusammenhang des Kantischen Denkens’, Archiv fiir Philosophie, 12 (1963) pp. 21-2. This is something we can find in almost all Kaulbach’s papers on the matter. See also ‘Die Copernicanische Denkfigur bei Kant’, Kant-Studien, 64 (1973) p. 63, where he refers to the incongruences as the ‘Schein der Aporie . .., der sich beim ersten Vergleich der Wendung bei Copernicus und derjenigen Kants ergeben mag’. See likewise ‘Die transzendentale Kon- stellation und der Weltbezug des Ich bei Kant’, Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 35 (1981) p. 237.480 GONZALO SERRANO an interpretation that goes against the Kantian text itself. However he seems to be aware of this, and to insist on this incongruence between the text and his interpretation; he claims: Nach Kant kann der Copernicanische Schritt insofern paradigmatisch auch fur die Philosophie auf ihrem Wege zur Wissenschaftlichkeit sein, als es bei Coper- nicus nicht nur darum geht, daB ein objektives theoretisches Bild durch ein anderes ersetzt wird, etwa in dem Sine, daB nicht die Sonne sich um die Erde bewegt, sondern umgekehrt die Erde um die Sonne ... Am Copernicanischen Schritt is nicht, wie es die Formulierung Kants nahezulegen scheint, bedeutsam, daB sich der Zuschauer dreht, wahrend die Sterne in Ruhe bleiben.'5 If what Kant has in mind is neither the new heliocentric theory of Coper- nicus nor the Copernican step from a stationary spectator and the revolv- ing stars to the revolving spectator and the fixed stars — two very different things — then, according to Kaulbach, what does Kant have in mind? Kaulbach thinks that what matters here is just that we can change our per- spective and that we are free to choose ours. He points out that vielmehr ist an der ‘Veranderung der Denkart’ maBgebend, daB wir uns den Standpunkt, in dessen Perspektive uns sich die Weltdinge zeigen, nicht durch die natiirliche Bedingung unseres Hingestelltseins auf die Erde vorgeben lassen, sondern wir wahlen diesen Stand und seine Perspektive selbst in Frei- heit, indem wir uber den beschrdnkten und uns aufgedr’ngten Horizont unserer leiblich irdischen Wahrnehmung hinausdenken und uns in Gedanken auf einen Stand stellen, von dem aus wir die Weltgegenstinde nach einem von uns selbst gefaBten Plan zu begreifen vermégen .. . Vielmehr ist mafgebend daB der wis- senwollende irdische Zuschauer als verniinftiges Subjekt tiber sich selbst hin- ausdenkt, um in Gedanken einen iiberlegenen Stand einzunehmen, von dem aus er auch sich selbst und die Bedingungen seines eigenen Anschauens zu erkennen vermag.'® Here it seems that the Copernican achievement consists in overcoming the difficulty of living on the Earth and, at the same time, observing the solar system from the point of view of the Sun, a new and superior perspective that we reach only ‘in thought’ and ‘in freedom’. In this way Kant would be exonerated in relation to the Russellian objection, resulting from the dis- turbing fact that the Sun is the centre of the solar system and that we, knowing subjects on the Earth, revolve round it. So Kaulbach can reconcile our Copernican situation (our revolving round the Sun) with the Kantian point of view (our being able to place ourselves at the centre of the realm of objects). But, at what price should we accept this interpretation? If the analogy 15 F Kaulbach, Die Copernicanische Denkfigur bei Kant’. Kant-Studien, 64 (1973) p. 31 '6 Tid,MISUNDERSTANDINGS IN KANT’S COPERNICAN ANALOGY 481 consists only of our ‘freedom’ to change our perspective ‘in thought’ and our ‘daring’ to do it, then the proper terms of the analogy, and with them the analogy itself, vanish. We no longer have an analogy between two deter- mined points of view (an astronomical and a philosophical one) and the way we change from them to two new determined points of view (also astro- nomical and philosophical). The points of view, old and new, are the proper content of the analogy. Since the naive interpretation does not work, then Kaulbach tries to save the analogy by emptying it, i.e. by depriving it of all content. According to his interpretation what matters is only our ‘freedom’ and ‘daring’!” to change our point of view or perspective; it does not matter which point of view we exchange. Consequently, the price of Kaulbach’s interpretation of the analogy is the content of the analogy itself'® This way of referring to Copernicus seems to rest on a passage of Leibniz that Kaulbach cites as evidence that ‘Leibniz hat so deutlich wie Kant die Copernicanische Reflexionsfigur mit seinem cigenen philosophischen Ansatz in Verbindung gebracht’.!? He even suggests the possibility that ‘Kant vielleicht zu dem Gedanken dieser Analogisierung durch Leibniz gekommen ist’. Leibniz, according to Kaulbach, has noted that the advan- tage of Copernicus over Ptolemy ‘besteht demnach in der Einsicht des ersteren, daB die Wahrheit iiber die Himmelsbewegungen durch die “richtige” Perspektive zu gewinnen ist, welche das Denken erreicht, indem es einen ihr entsprechenden Stand einnimmt’.” The text itself shows us that Kaulbach is right concerning Leibniz; but that does not mean he is right con- cerning Kant. In the text, entitled “Von dem Verhangnisse’, Leibniz writes: Allein wir miissen uns mit den Augen des Verstandes dahin stellen, wo wir mit den Augen des Leibes nicht stehen, noch stehn kénnen. Zum Exempel wenn man den Lauf der Sterne auf unserer Erdkugel betrachtet, darin wir stehen, so kommet ein wunderliches verwirretes Wesen heraus, so die Stern-Ktindige "” Kaulbach also points out that the analogy consists in daring (das Wagnis) to change the per- spective, now based on the footnote in B XXII. Cir. op. cit. pp. 32, 34, Also in Philosophie als Wissenschaft. Eine Anleitung zum Studium von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Hildesheim 1981) p.36. This is another way of leaving the analogy indeterminate and empty. 's ‘This way of leaving the analogy indeterminate and empty is not new. F. L. Cross, after having denied that the heliocentric doctrine is the tertium comparationis of the Kantian analogy (in our terms, rejecting the naive interpretation), says that ‘the main reason (I am convinced) why Copernicus is introduced into the argument is merely to illustrate the propriety and pos- sible fruitfulness of making trial of an untested hypothesis’ (‘Kant’s so-called Copernican Revolution’, Mind, 46 (1937) p. 215; cfr. also, in the same volume, his reply to Paton: ‘Pro- fessor Paton and “Kant’s so-called Copernican Revolution”, p. 476). Norwood Russell Hanson shares with Cross not only the opinion but also the sentences that express it Compare, for example the conclusions of Cross (p. 217) with N. R. Hanson’s ‘Copernicus’ Role in Kant's Revolution’, The Journal of the History of Ideas, XX (1959) p. 278, In addi- tion, Hanson's paper has plenty of passages literally taken from Cross’s contribution. '° F, Kaulbach, ‘Das Copernicanische Prinzip und die philosophische Sprache bei Leibniz’, Zeitschrift fir philosophische Forschung, XXVU/3 (1973) p. 333. 2 Thid482. GONZALO SERRANO kaum in etlich tausend Jahren zu einigen gewissen Regeln haben bringen kénnen, und diese Regeln sind so schwer und unangenehm, daB ein Kénig von Castilien, Alphonsus genannt, so Tafeln vom Himmelslauf ausrechnen lassen, aus Mangel rechter ErkenntniB gesaget haben solle, wenn er Gottes Rathgeber gewesen, da er die Welt geschaffen, hiitte es besser herauskommen sollen. Aber nachdem man endlich ausgefunden, daB man das Auge in die Sonne stellen miisse, wenn man den Lauf des Himmels recht betrachten will, und daB alsdann alles wunderbar schon herauskomme, so sieht man, daB die vermeinte Unordnung und Verwirrung unsers Vertandes schuld gewesen, und nicht der Natur?! Does Kant really mean that we have to place ourselves in the Sun with the eyes of the understanding? Can we attribute to Kant what Leibniz thinks of Copernicus? Is there only one way to refer to Copernicus? I think there is a confusion in Kaulbach’s mind about the way both philosophers refer to Copernicus, not to mention his confusion about Copernicus’s own contri- bution.?? There is no doubt about what Leibniz, and therefore Kaulbach, means by claiming that Copernicus’s system requires a change of perspec- tive in observing the solar system: namely, that we must shift from our natural perspective on the Earth to the more intellectual perspective of the sun.2} This shift implies the heliocentric theory of the solar system, and therefore we have proof that Kaulbach is adopting the naive interpretation of Kant’s analogy. Let us now compare this way of interpreting the role of Copernicus with the passage where Kant himself establishes his analogy: Es ist hiermit ebenso, als mit den ersten Gedanken des Kopernikus bewandt, der, nachdem es mit der Erklérung der Himmelsbewegungen nicht gut fort wollte, wenn er annahm, das ganze Sternenheer drehe sich um den Zuschauer, 21 Leibniz, ‘Von dem Verhiingnisse’, in: Leibniz, Deutsche Schriften, edited by G. E. Guhrauer (Berlin 1838/40), Vol. II, pp. 48-55. Partially quoted and commented by Kaulbach in ‘Das copernicanische Prinzip und die philosophische Sprache bei Leibniz’, pp. 333-5. I quote this text from: Leibniz, Hauptschriften zur Grundlegung der Philosophie (Hamburg, 1966), Vol. IL, pp. 131-2 2 There are several senses in which Copernicus is referred to, that makes difficult to establish the very idea of ‘Copernican’. Copernican is the change of the centre of the universe (from the Earth to the Sun); Copernican is also our awareness that we no longer inhabit a closed and finite universe at its centre; Copernican is likewise the observational inversion between the perceived motions and the observer's motions, according to the relativity of the move- ment. Sometimes ‘Copernican’ is even said of any revolutionary change in knowledge which implies some inversion in the initial hypothese. 2 T do not agree, by the way, with this way of putting the issue. I do not think we have to place ourselves in the Sun to understand that the Sun is the centre of the solar system and to see (rationally) the Earth moving around it. On the contrary it is enough to be aware of (or to suppose) our own mobility to understand the heliocentric theory; and that does not mean that we have to place ourselves (with the eyes of reason) in the Sun.MISUNDERSTANDINGS IN KANT’S COPERNICAN ANALOGY 483 versuchte, ob es nicht besser gelingen méchte, wenn er den Zuschauer sich drehen, und dagegen die Sterne in Ruhe lieB. (B xvi) First of all, there is no mention of any change of position from which we observe the solar system. Furthermore, it is curious that the Sun is not men- tioned at all here, neither is the Earth, nor their alleged exchange of posi- tions as centre of the solar system. Consequently, it seems it has nothing to do with heliocentric cosmology. However, there are no problems if we assume that the spectator mentioned in the text takes the place of the Earth and this assumption gives us one term of the analogy. But, what is the Sun? Perhaps it should be replaced by the stars; after all, the Sun is a star. In one sense, we can consider the Sun as one of the stars we see revolving around us. But, in another sense, the Sun differs from the other stars, since it is the only one around which we revolve. To avoid ambiguity, the question should be stated in the following way: Which motion does Kant refer to when he says Copernicus made the spectator revolve? Kaulbach, among others, would reply: the revolving motion of the Earth around the Sun. However, this answer does not make sense with respect to the stars, for how could the earth revolve round them?™ And, we cannot doubt that the stars are one of the terms of the analogy since they explicitly appear as such in the text. There still remains one motion to consider: the revolving motion of the Earth around its own axis, its rotation. This rotation has the advantage, over the other movement, namely that it relates to the stars in the same way as to the Sun. Consequently it is not subject to ambiguity. However, contrary to Kaulbach’s interpretation (he does not seem to distinguish between the two kinds of mation),?5 rotation has nothing to do with the Earth’s move- ment around the Sun. Furthermore this orbiting neither seems to be implied in the analogy, nor in the text. Therefore, the other term in the analogy, according to either interpretation, should not be the Sun.2° We have shown that the naive interpretation fails. We have also seen that * There is, however, someone who has sustained such an absurdity. Cfr. L. Guillermit ‘Emmanuel Kant et la Philosophie Critique’,*. .. Copernic améliora la mécanique céleste en supposant que lobservateur terrestre tournait autour des astres immobiles’, in F. Chatelet, Histoire de la Philosophie, Vol. 5:'La Philosophie et Histoire (1780-1880) (Paris, 1973) p. 37. *. als es bei Copernicus nicht nur darum geht, .. . da8 nicht die Sonne sich um die Erde bewegt, sondern umgekehrt die Erde um die Sonne. ... Am Copernicanischen Schritt ist nicht, wie es die Formulicrung Kants nahezulegen scheint, bedcutsam, daB sich der Zuschauer dreht, wahrend die Sterne in Ruhe bleiben. (‘Die Copernicanische Denkfigur bei Kant’, Kant-Studien, 64 (1973) p.31) There is no doubt that Kaulbach is here confused about the motion Kant is referring to. * About the terms of the analogy sce also H. Blumberg, Die Genesis der kopernikanischen Welt (Frankfurt, 1975) pp. 706-7, where the author faces also Kaulbach’s interpretation,484. GONZALO SERRANO Kaulbach offers a new version of the naive interpretation to avoid the Rus- sellian objection, but that this conflicts with Kant’s text. Now we demon- strate that Kant’s text, contrary to Kaulbach’s opinion, actually avoids, and leaves groundless, the Russellian objection. In this way, we can attain a more satisfactory and simple explanation of the analogy. The terms of the analogy concerning astronomy are the stationary or moving spectator and the fixed or moving stars. The analogy is a question of relative motion. Ptolemy thought that we on the Earth were at rest and the stars revolved round us. Copernicus, considering the relativity of the motion,?’ supposes that the stars are at rest and the Earth revolves around its own axis in a direction contrary to that in which we see the stars revolv- ing around us (which also explains the apparent daily motion of the Sun around the Earth). What matters here, for the purpose of the Kantian analogy, is the attitude of the astronomer towards his or her observations of the heavens, and the attitude of the knowing subject towards the objects of knowledge. The astronomer, as much as the knowing subject, should be aware that what he or she observes, is in part the result of his or her own inputs: the astronomer adds his or her own motions (the Earth’s motions); the knowing subject the contribution of his or her own faculties. In case any doubt remains about what the real terms of the analogy are, let us examine the textual evidence concerning the significance of the Copernican work. Copernicus’s work traditionally has been considered as synonymous with the heliocentric theory, but if we look closer, his theory is much more complex than the simple assertion that the Earth (and planets) move around the Sun, or that the Sun is the centre of the solar system. To begin with, we should consider the way Copernicus himself refers to his own theory, particularly in the dedicatory preface to the Pope:‘my teach- ing about the movement of the Earth’ (haec mea doctrina de terrae motu), ‘my thoughts concerning the movement of the Earth’ (meas cogitationes de 27 For every apparent change in place occurs on account of the movement either of the thing seen or of the spectator, or on account of at least unequal movement of both. For no move- ment is perceptible between things moved equally in the same direction - I mean between the thing seen and the spectator. Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. Translated by Charles Glenn Wallis. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Great Books of Western World Vol. XVI (Chicago, 1952), pp. 514-15. In comparing the quotations of the first book with the Latin text [in Copernicus, Das neue Weltbild. Latin-German edition by Hans Gunter Zeki (Hamburg, 1990) p. 98]. I have made some alterations in the English trans- lation. 28 We can find a fair formulation of the analogy, among others, in Blumenberg: ‘da8 allen Gogenstinden gleichermaBen apriorische Bestimmungen zukommen, erklirt sich aus der Verfassung des Subjekts der Erfahrung und nicht aus der durchglingigen Bestimmtheit der Gogenstiinde an sich, so wie die villig homogene Bewegung des >ganzen Sternheers< eben nicht aus der physischen Gleichschaltung aller Gestimne, sondern aus der Identitat der Bewe- gung des Zuschauers entspringt.’ [Die Genesis der kopernikanischen Welt (Frankfurt, 1975) p.706]MISUNDERSTANDINGS IN KANT’S COPERNICAN ANALOGY 485 terrae motu).° We cannot take these quotations merely as isolated passages within the Copernican treatise. On the contrary, the motions of the Earth are referred to as the most important supposition (to be demonstrated) that Copernicus needs in order to explain the heavenly phenomena. After having ‘meditated upon this lack of certitude in the traditional mathemat- ics concerning the composition of movements of the spheres of the world’, Copernicus found that some ancient philosophers thought that the Earth moved. He also ‘began to meditate upon the mobility of the Earth’ (Inde igitur occasionem nactus coepi et ego de terrae mobilitate cogitare)* and the consequences it could have for his observations. And so, having laid down the motions which T attribute to the Earth farther on in the work, I finally discovered by the help of long and numerous observations that if the motions of the other wandering stars are correlated with the circular motion of the Earth, and if the motions are computed in accordance with the revolution of each planet, not only do all their phenomena follow from that but also this correlation binds together so closely the order and magnitudes of all the planets and of their spheres [orbium] and the heavens themselves that nothing can be shifted around in any part of them without disrupting the remaining parts and the universe as a whole.! The following paragraph is another passage in which we can appreciate how important this thought about the Earth’s motions is for the Copernican theory. Copernicus offers us there a brief summary of his whole work always relating it to the supposition that the Earth moves: Accordingly, in composing my work I adopted the following order: in the first book I describe all the locations of the spheres [orbium] together with the motions which [ attribute to the Earth, so that this book contains as it were the general constitution of the universe. But afterwards in the remaining books I correlate all the motions of the other planets and their spheres with the mobil- ity of the Earth, so that it can be inferred from that how far the motions and the appearances of the remaining planets and spheres can be saved by being correlated with the movements of the Earth.” After having demonstrated the threefold motion of the Earth in the first book, Copernicus adds that he is going to ‘use this motion as a principle and ® Ibid., Preface and Dedication to Pope Paul III, pp. 506, 507. Latin text, pp. 66, 68. © Tbid., 508; Latin 72-4, § Tbid., $08; Latin 74. " Tbid., 508; Latin 74,486 GONZALO SERRANO a hypothesis in demonstrating the remaining motions’.** This is a point Copernicus reminds us of through the whole work, especially at the begin- ning of the second™, the fifth* and the sixth*® books. Finally, let me con- clude this Copernican excursus with a passage that any Kantian scholar will recognize as familiar: For this reason I think it necessary above all that we should note carefully what the disposition of the Earth to the heaven is, so as not — when we wish to scru- tinize the highest things - to be ignorant of those which are nearest to us, and so as not — by the same error — to attribute to the celestial bodies what belongs to the Earth.” T have been a little hard on the so-called naive interpretation because of its equivocal link to the heliocentric theory. I say ‘equivocal’ because the naive interpretation interprets the heliocentric theory in terms of the shift in the centre of the solar system from the Earth to the Sun, and this leads % Ibid., Book Lxi, 532; Latin 146-8, Cf. also the beginning of chapter xii, for some reason skipped in the English translation: We have summarized that, what of the natural philoso- phy seemed to us necessary for our aim, as principles and hypotheses, namely, that the world is spherical, immense, presenting the aspect of an infinite magnitude; also that the sphere of the fixed stars which contains all the things is immovable and, on the contrary, that the remaining celestial bodies move in circles. We also accept that the earth moves according to certain revolutions, by which we intend to build up the whole science of the stars as it were upon a comerstone, Since we have expounded briefly the three terrestrial motions, by means of which we promised to demonstrate all the planetary appearances, now we shall fulfill our promise by proceeding from the whole to the parts and examining and investigating them, one by one, to the extent of our powers. p. 557. 35 Now we are turning to the motions of the five wandering stars: the mobility of the earth binds together the order and magnitude of their orbital circles in a wonderful harmony and sure commensurability, as we said in our brief survey in the first book, when we showed that the orbital circles do not have their centres around the earth but rather around the sun. p. 732 36 We have indicated to the best of our ability what power and effect the assumption of the revolution of the earth has in the case of the apparent movement in longitude of the wan- dering stars and in what a sure and necessary order it places all the appearances It remains for us to occupy ourselves with the movements of the planets by which they digress in lati- tude and to show how in this case too the selfsame mobility of the earth exercises its ‘command and prescribes laws for them here also . . . Accordingly by means of the assump- tion of the mobility of the earth we shall do with perhaps greater compactness and more becomingly what the ancient mathematicians thought to have demonstrated by means of the immobility of the earth. p. 813. Tbid.,514; Latin, 94-6. Compare this passage with the footnote in B xxi:’. . . die beobachtete Bewegungen nicht in den Gegenstiinden des Himmels, sondern in ihrem Zuschauer zu suchen’,MISUNDERSTANDINGS IN KANT’S COPERNICAN ANALOGY 487 to incongruities. As we have shown, the change of the centre is not the per- tinent element to be borrowed from the heliocentric theory in order to explain the Kantian analogy. Instead we should take Kant’s analogy liter- ally, as it stands in the text. This means that the terms of the analogy are, on one side, the fixed or moving stars and, on the other side, the station- ary or moving spectator (the Earth). There is no mention at all in the text of ‘central positions’ nor of ‘the Sun changing places with the Earth’, and because of this, among other reasons, we concluded that the analogy does not concern the centre of the solar system. Nevertheless, based on another passage, there seems to be a more rea- sonable way to relate this element of the heliocentric theory in the Kantian analogy. Consider the phenomena that have to be explained by the move- ment of the Earth around the Sun. This motion contains the Copernican explanation of the most difficult appearances to be saved: the orbits of the planets. To go further with the analogy, we can say with Kant that the strange retrogradations we observe in the orbits of the planets are the result of the combination of the observer’s own motion around the Sun and the planet’s motion; something we could not understand if we did not consider our own motion as part of the observed (apparent) motion of the other planets. This leads us to conclude that we have to be careful in relating the move- ments involved in any observation. For example, the motion of the Earth around the Sun is not relevant to our observation of the apparent nightly motion of the fixed stars from east to west; it is, on the contrary, essential for understanding our observation of the other planets. The problem is to deter- mine which motion of the Earth contributes, in each case, to ‘saving the appearances’. There is no doubt that the Copernican element of the analogy, as it stands in the preface to the second edition of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, is the rotation of the Earth around its own axis in relation to the apparent motion of the fixed stars (and implicitly to the apparent daily motion of the Sun). We can also extend the analogy to other motions that are not explicitly considered in this part of the Kritik; for example, the motions of the planets. But we can do this only if we correctly correlate the motions involved. That is the reason why we are not allowed to say, in the frame of the analogy, that ‘it is not the Sun which revolves around the Earth, but the Earth which revolves around the Sun’ (the heliocentric inversion). The orbiting of the Earth around the Sun is not an explanation of our daily observation of the Sun’s motion around us, i.e. it does not ‘save the appear- ance’ of the Sun appearing to revolve around us. The relevant motion on our part which does certainly save this appearance is the Earth’s rotation around its own axis, but not its orbit around the Sun. Therefore, we should say, keeping the structure of the formula mentioned earlier, that ‘it is not the Sun (or the fixed stars) which revolves around the Earth, but the Earth which revolves around its own axis in a direction contrary to that which488 GONZALO SERRANO the Sun (or the fixed stars) appears to revolve around us’ (the Copernican inversion). Having affirmed this, if we then want to extend the analogy to the apparent motions of the planets, and to what is problematic about them, namely their retrogradation, then we should relate them to the specific motion of the Earth that is relevant to help in ‘saving the appear- ance’ of the retrogradation: namely, its motion around the Sun. This gives us a particular application of Kant’s Copernican analogy; if we want to express it in a formula, we should say that ‘it is not the planet which moves backwards and forwards but the Earth which revolves around the Sun producing the appearance of the planet’s retrogradation within its own orbit’. Now we can face, finally, the Kantian passage that seems to be responsi- ble for the misunderstanding embodied in the new version of the naive interpretation. The referred passage occurs in Der Streit der Fakultaten, where Kant considers the Copernican hypothesis as the change of point of view from the Earth to the Sun. Apparently this passage supports the reading which directly links the Copernican analogy to the heliocentric theory, or more specifically, Kaulbach’s interpretation. No wonder that Kaulbach bases his reading on this passage. Here we find the elements that Kaulbach uses in his interpretation: Vielleicht liegt es auch an unserer unrecht genommenen Wahl des Standpunkts, aus den wir den Lauf menschlicher Dinge ansehen, daB dieser uns so widersin- nisch scheint. Die Planeten, von der Erde aus gesehen, sind bald riickgingig, bald stillstehen, bald fortgingig. Den Standpunkt aber von der Sonne aus genommen, welches nur die Vernunft tun kann, gehen sie nach der Kopernikanischen Hypothese bestandig ihren regelmaBigen Gang fort. On the one hand, according to this passage, ‘Copernican’ is the point of view from the Sun (the heliocentric point of view in the strict sense), from which we would observe the orbits of the planets without any retrogradation, which means as they are in themselves and not as they appear to the earthly observer. This point of view would be analogous to that of Reason in con- trast to the sensible and earthly perspective. On the other hand, according to the Kritik itself, ‘Copernican’ is the point of view from the moving Earth whose motions must be considered as part of the picture in order to make the observations and appearances understandable. In the above passage, however, where Kant is contrasting the course of the planets apparent to us with their real course, the ‘Copernican hypoth- esis’ seems to be concerned only with the real course of the planets, and not with the difference between the ‘apparent’ and the ‘real’. But we 38 Kant, Werkausgabe. Edited by W, Weischedel (Frankfurt, 1977) Vol. XI, p. 355.MISUNDERSTANDINGS IN KANT’S COPERNICAN ANALOGY 489 cannot say that this contrast between ‘apparent’ and ‘real’ motions of the planets corresponds to the one between Ptolemy and Copernicus. What distinguishes the Copernican point of view from the Ptolemaic one is pre- cisely the ascription of motions to the earthly observer. On the one hand, this leads Copernicus to the distinction between ‘apparent’ (relative to the observer) and ‘real’ (independent from the observer) motions of the heav- enly bodies. On the other hand, Ptolemy assumed the immobility of the Earth and consequently did not distinguish between ‘real’ and ‘apparent’. He supposed that what he observed was as real as he observed it. The so-called perspective of the Sun does not explain by itself why we sometimes see the planets stop, move backwards and forwards again. The real course of the planets cannot explain their apparent orbits, unless we relate them to the observer's motion. Once we do this, the motion involved is no longer the real course in itself of the planet but rather the one relative to the observer. For this reason, the above passage from Kant is neither interesting nor illuminating for understanding the Copernican analogy as it stands in the Kritik. In the Kritik, we do not have to adopt the perspective of the sun, but only include our own motion as a part of the explanation of what we observe. This idea seems to make sense and it agrees with the aim of Kant’s philosophy. As observers, or astronomers, we have to include our own motions with those we observe in order to properly explain what we observe and this requires distinguishing the apparent motions relative to us and the real motions, which from the Earth, we cannot observe (but only infer). Similarly, as knowing subjects, we must recognize that the objects we know with our knowing capacities are only phenomena (appearance to us), as distinguished from the objects in themselves that we cannot know (but think). The source of the misunderstanding that conflates both senses of ‘Copernican’ is perhaps the confusion between the ‘physical’ and the ‘observational’ centre. That the Earth moves means that the ‘physical’ centre is changed; but that does not mean that we alter the place from which we observe, the observational centre. On the contrary, we cannot but adopt the moving position from which we are destined to observe. However, at the same time, we should realize that our observations are rel- ative to the motions of this place. From this point of view, both Coperni- can and Critical, we can distinguish the two aspects of the same thing, both in the case of the orbits of the planets and of objects in general. The two aspects are, on the one hand, the orbits as they appear to us and the objects of knowledge and, on the other hand, the real orbits and the things in them- selves, However, we should not claim that this point of view is the per- spective of the Sun, from which we can establish the real orbits, or analogously, that of reason from which we can think of the things in them- selves. In conclusion, the Copernican and the Critical are respectively the points of view from which we can distinguish the two aspects that allow us, in astronomy, to ‘save the appearances’ and, in metaphysics, to understand490 GONZALO SERRANO the ‘conditions of possibility of a priori knowledge’ (limiting and condi- tioning the extent of our observation and of our knowledge).°° Universidad Nacional de Colombia Departmento de Filosofia Ciudad Universitaria Santafé de Bogota, Colombia email: gserrano@bacata.usc,unal.edu.co °9 | hope to have made clear along these lines how far I am from interpretations like this recent one: Just what in Copernicus Kant had in mind is unclear and commentators have ventured innumerable guesses. My own theory runs like this: Copernicus opened the way to a science cof nature by shifting the center of the cosmos from earth to sun, thereby making the earth merely one orbiting body among others. Likewise, Kant strove to raise metaphysics to the level of science by shifting the focal point of knowledge from the experiencing individual {the empirical subject) to universal selfconsciousness (transcendental apperception), thereby reducing the former to merely one among many experienced objects (the phenom- enon of innersense)’. W. Waxman, Kant’s Model of the Mind. A new Interpretation of Tran- scendal Idealism. (Oxford, 1991) p. 290, n13