10/8/2022

WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

(BEFORE THE INVENTION OF MODERN TELESCOPES)

SYLLABUS
1. Prehistory, Mesopotamia, and Egypt

2. Greek World – Philosophy Rules

3. Hellenistic World & Christianity’s Shadow
4. Islamic World Saves Sciences
5. Renaissance and the Heliocentric Universe
6. Scientific Revolution
7. Refining Newton’s Work

WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES
DEFINITIONS OF A FEW RECURRING TERMS

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

GREEK WORLD vs MESOPOTAMIA AND EGYPT

• Geography and climate impacts land use once people settle
• Egypt and Mesopotamia favor central control (water control and land use)
• Greek lands do not support large settlements
• Mountain ranges make overreach and empire building difficult
• Easy access to the Mediterranean favors trade and colonial expansion
• They venture E to the Aegean islands, Asia Minor, and W to southern Italy
• Colonize western part of Asia Minor, then, colonies become independent

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

GREEK WORLD vs MESOPOTAMIA AND EGYPT

• New city states formed seek new colonies around Pontus and Italy
• Navigators and traders develop a different state of mind (than farmers)
• Absence of a rigid priestly class encourages independent thinking
• Ionian thinkers of Asia Minor are influenced by Babylonian “science”
• They develop a world view based more on speculation than meticulous
observation
• This becomes the basis of philosophy of nature, independent from religion

WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

Odysseus spread his sail to the breeze; and he ..

guided his raft skilfully with the steering-oar, nor did
sleep fall upon his eyelids, as he watched the
Pleiades, and late-setting Boötes, and the Bear, …
which ever circles where it is and watches Orion,
and alone has no part in the baths of Ocean. For ..
Calypso, the beautiful goddess, had bidden him to
keep on the left hand as he sailed over the sea.
Odysseus, Book V
Homer, 8th C BCE

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

HOMER and HESIOD

(8TH & 7TH C BCE)
• Earth is a flat circular disc surrounded by Oceanus
• Waters of Oceanus pass thru subterranean channels and form seas and
rivers
• Above, the vault of heaven covers the earth
• Below is Tartarus, a bowl equal to the sky-dome above
• Sky vault is unmoved, sun, moon, and stars move under it
• In addition to the quote above, Homer mentions Pleiades and Sirius
• Hesiod mentions solstices – uses them as ref points of beginning of seasons

WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

EVOLUTION FROM HESIOD TO PLATO

• No real record of any astronomical observations survive
• Other than doxographies, only scraps with a few lines of text survive
• Even early summaries do not survive - except in later summaries or
doxographies
• Some of the later quotes in doxographies are distorted deliberately, either:
• To support a point the author is making
• Or to use an ancient authority to refute an opponent’s point
• Modern researchers trying to solve these puzzles often disagree

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

PRE-SOCRATICS
• Thales (624 – 547 BCE)
• Anaximander (610 -546 BCE)
• Anaximenes (585 -526 BCE)
• Pythagoras (580 - 500 BCE)
• Xenophanes (570 - 478 BCE)
• Heraclitus (fl. c.~ 500 BCE)
• Parmenides (504 - 450 BCE)
• Anaxagoras (500 – 428 BCE)
• Empedocles (494 – 434 BCE)
• Oenopides (fl. 5th C BCE)

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES
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PRE-SOCRATICS’ UNIVERSE
Earth Support by Ur-Element Heaven Sun Moon Planets Stars

Thales Flat disc Water Water Dome? F F F F

Anaximander Cylinder Nothing Apeiron Infinite Details Later

Anaximenes Flat disc Air Air Xtal Sphr F F F Studs

Pythagoras Sphere # Fire and …# Sphere In their spheres around the central fire?#

Semi infinit Clouds turned into Fire – they die when set
Xenophanes cylinder
Its “roots” Mud (E & W) ? - new ones pop up every day

Heraclitus Flat disc ? Fire Dome All bowl shaped, contain fire

Parmenides Sphere Central Air? Sphere Rings of fire separated fm the Milky Way

Anaxagoras* Flat-Oblong Air ? D or S? Fire Incandes Points of fire

Empedocles F or S? ** EWAF Xtal Sphr** F Refl Sun Float F Fixd F

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

PRIMORDIAL ELEMENT –ARCHE or URELEMENT

• Pre-Socratic philosophers debated what was the primordial element from
which everything in nature developed
• Earth, water, air, and fire were considered singly or in some combination
• Empedocles proposed all four in combination and threw in two states: hot
and cold
ANAXIMANDER’s APEIRON
• Anaximander said the primordial element can not be known, called it apeiron
• Literal meaning is limitless or boundless
• He also had other original ideas, about celestial objects

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

ANAXIMANDER’s COSMOS
Rings above earth, dimensions and distances of
stars, moon, and sun
WAY OFF but … at least he put them at different
distances in a 3D universe, not just glued to a dome

MOON
SUN

Summer Winter

By Dirk L. Couprie - http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/anaximan.htm,

CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1465120

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

OENOPIDES
• He was probably a better observer of
heavens than his predecessors
• Two discoveries are attributed to him:
• Obliquity of the ecliptic (he calculated
approx. 24 degrees)
• The Great Year (recurrence period of
when certain planets line up)
• He calculated a year as 365.37 days
• His calculation resulted in 59 solar years
or 730 lunar months (?)

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

GREEK TIMEKEEPING & CALENDAR

• While some philosophized, some sky watchers attended to practical matters
• Stars were watched for navigation and to tell time at night
• Night was divided by the visible constellations
• During the day polos or gnomon were used to measure time
• Days were based on earth’s rotation, months were lunar, year was solar
• In Athens, year started at summer solstice, other cities at other times
• By 5th C BCE they had approx. determined the length of seasons
• Intercalation had to be practiced, eight years = + 99 lunar months

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

PLATO (c.424 – 348 BCE)

The true astronomer must be the wise man who does not, like Hesiod, occupy himself
with risings and settings but investigates the seven orbits contained in the eighth
Plato, Epinomis
• Ideas constitute the real world, visible world is an appearance only
• Reality can't be experienced through the senses
• Socrates, in the dialogues speaks with disdain of knowledge of nature
• So, the philosophy of nature was replaced by philosophy of life
• Vision of the heavens also changed to be a symbol of the world of “ideas”

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

PLATO – TIMAEUS
CREATION OF THE COSMOS
• Creator of the Cosmos, the divine craftsman demiurgos is a mathematician
• The universe is created with a soul and in the image of an ideal living being
• The universe is created following geometric principles
• It is created out of existing matter and is placed into a receptacle
• It is eternal, perfect, a perfect globe, .. with a movement appropriate for such
a form
• Demiurgos is constrained by necessity in creating
• Creation of the lower order of beings is “delegated” to gods created

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GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

PLATONIC SOLIDS & THE ELEMENTS

• All elements (F,A,W,E) are composed of regular polyhedra that in turn are
composed of triangles
• A fifth polyhedron with pentagonal faces is the “fifth element” or aether that
fills the universe

FIRE AIR EARTH AETHER WATER

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

PLATO
SPINDLE OF NECESSITY
• In the Republic Plato describes what souls see in heaven:
• A pillar of light binds heavens together
• The revolutions are maintained by the spindle of necessity
• The spindle has eight whorls, rims of which form a single surface
• The outermost is the starry sphere, it revolves in one direction
• The other seven revolve in the opposite direction at different speeds
• The seven correspond to the sun, moon, and the five known planets
• Moon is in the innermost circle, planets do not conform to the known order
• This allegorical description does not correspond to observed reality

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

PLATO
• In summary, Plato’s cosmology was wonderful fiction
• He was obsessed with his world of ideas and perfection of circular motion
• Nonetheless, he challenged his students to find an “orderly and uniform”
explanation of planetary wanderings
• Two among his students, Eudoxus and Heraclides Ponticus produced
interesting ideas
• Heraclitus proposed that the apparent motion of stars were produced by
earth’s rotation

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES
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RETROGRADE MOTION

• Axial rotation of the earth makes sun appear

to rise in the E, set in the W
• Orbital motion of the earth around the sun
makes the sun appear to move W to E among
the stars
• The five visible planets also move W to E near
the ecliptic
• But periodically they appear to describe a
loop, moving backwards

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

EUDOXUS of CNIDUS (c.400 – c.347 BCE)

• Spent time in Heliopolis where he learned astronomy from Egyptian priests
• Student of Plato, joined the Academy in his 20s
• Eudoxus responded to Plato’s challenge to find an explanation of planetary
wanderings
• He proposed a model where each planet was carried by FOUR interacting
spheres
• The sun and the moon were carried by three interacting spheres
• Axis of each sphere pointed in a different direction
• He developed a mathematical model that produced retrograde motion
• It did NOT work but influenced other philosophers including Aristotle

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

ARISTOTLE (384 – 322 BCE)

• Born in Stagira, Macedonia
• Student at Plato’s Academy
• Leaves to start Lyceum and the peripatetic school of
philosophy
• Huge output, on almost every conceivable subject
• His work was commented on by many famous
philosophers
• Dominated all areas of medieval philosophy

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

ARISTOTLE
• The universe is eternal and unchanged
• The universe is finite, enclosed in a sphere
• Outside the sphere no material things exist
• There is no vacuum
• The motion of the heavenly bodies are uniform
and circular
• Earth is spherical and at the center of the
universe

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

ARISTOTLE - Sublunar vs Celestial Spheres

• Moon is in the first sphere outside the earth
• Sublunar sphere consists of FOUR elements
• Earth cold and dry moves down
• Water cold and wet moves down
• Air hot and wet moves up
• Fire hot and dry moves up
• Celestial spheres are of a divine substance making up the spheres and the
heavenly bodies (Æether – Quinta essentia)
• Aristotle refuses the concept of Platonic solids, matter is continuous and
infinitely divisible

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

ARISTOTLE – On Motion
• All bodies have a natural tendency to move in a certain way
• Motion is NOT a result of the action of one body on another
• Matter in sublunar sphere according to its tendency (up or down mostly)
• Heavenly bodies are of a “more perfect and exalted” matter
• Therefore, their motion is circular
• A prime mover initiated the motion of the outermost sphere
• The inner spheres moved in sympathy
• Observed motion of the planets did not quite fit this idea
• So Aristotle and his pupils expanded Eudoxus’s model of 26 spheres to 55

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

ARISTOTLE – Earth is the Center of the Cosmos

• Earth (the element) tends to naturally move to the center (down)
• If the Earth (planet) is not unique, then earth (element) can’t decide which
way to fall
• Therefore, the Earth is unique and at the center of the cosmos
• Cosmos did not come into existence at a given time,
• It is eternal (existed ab æterno) and unchanged
• The motion of celestial bodies is also ab æterno “initiated” by a prime mover
TALK ABOUT A CONTRADICTION!!

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ARISTOTLE - De Cælo - Some Chapter Headings:

Book I – 3. That this body is exempt from alteration and decay
Book I – 10. That Heaven is ungenerated and indestructible
Book II – 4. Why the Heaven is perfectly spherical
Book II – 5. Why the first Heaven revolves in one direction rather than
the other
Book II - 6. That the movement of the first Heaven is regular
For those who have the patience, an English translation you can download free of
charge (All 250 pages!):
Tr. by: J. L. Stocks, of St John’s College, Oxford
https://classicalliberalarts.com/wp-
content/uploads/ARISTOTLE_DE_CAELO.pdf

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GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES

HERACLIDES OF PONTUS
• He was a contemporary of Aristotle
• Possibly even attended the Lyceum
• He proposed that the earth rotated and NOT the celestial sphere
• He discovered that Mercury and Venus rotated around the sun
• Both theories were rejected

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WHEN ASTRONOMY WAS PHILOSOPHY

GREEK WORLD – PHILOSOPHY RULES
ARISTOTLE
At the time of Aristotle’s death, centers of learning started to shift

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