Anthem to the Sun: Copernicus

Hieronymus Bosh’s Garden of Earthly Delights has two sets of panels depicting God’s perspective of the earth. Most Premoderns have tried to attain the divine perspective either of the inside panels or the outside panels of Bosh’s painting. Nicholas Copernicus attains perspectives of the outside panels, by forming the foundation of modernity’s perspective of the earth. Copernicus has surpassed other Premoderns in this respect. In The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of the Western thought, Thomas Kuhn makes a very compelling argument that Copernicus causes a paradigm shift in the understanding of West concerning its place in the solar system. Kant calls this shift the "Copernican revolution."

This essay will not undermine Kuhn's forward vision of Copernicus' work, but examine the pre-existing Premodern language games, such as the Hermetica, 15th century Florentine Neo-Platonic language game, and Pythagoras, which are the preconditions that makes such a theory possible or conceivable in what Foucault calls "the field of rationality" of Premodernity. My interpretation of Copernicus is backwards, while Kuhn's paradigm discourse is forward, so our views are incommensurate to one another. Naturally so, since Kuhn is a philosopher of science, trying to provide structure to the history of science; while my work is genealogical, which means looking for the roots of thought.  

Without the benefit of direct observation, Copernicus motivated by Hermetic and Pythagorean insights uses geometry and observation to demonstrate his heliocentric hypothesis of the solar system in opposition to the accepted Ptolemaic model. These genealogical considerations help remove Kant's "Paradigm shift" to Copernicus and restore his Premodernity. Understood in this way, Copernicus is sketching with geometry God’s perspective of the earth and its role in the solar system. The heavens are a closed sphere, because God is distinct from the created cosmos, so heaven is not infinite. Ironically, he is motivated by the same Hermetic images or beliefs as the 15th century Florentines, the 16th century German rational spiritualists, Porta, and other Premoderns. Kuhn, however, is not too interested in Copernicus' Premodern roots. Accordingly, this essay will try to demonstrate Copernicus' participation in Premodern language games concerning the deity in forming his cosmology.

In On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543), Copernicus puts forth an alternate cosmological order than Ptolemy’s system. Instead of the earth being the center of the solar system, the sun is the center, and the earth rotates around the sun. Copernicus believes this hypothesis will eliminate several problems associated with Ptolemaic system. Astronomers, who follow Ptolemy, are uncertain about the motion of the sun and moon and cannot establish a constant length even for a tropical year. Secondly, they are not consistent in explaining the motions of the other five planets. They use homocentric motion, while others use eccentrics and epicycles to explain the rotation of the five other planets.

To overcome these problems, Copernicus offers alternate hypothesis about the planets, which has its roots with the Ancient Pythagoreans: "Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in rotation from west to east about it center (Copernicus, 5).Copernicus’ reference to Pythagoreans is meant to add credibility to his heliocentric hypothesis, because his view is not new, but maintained by the ancient Pythagoreans, whose works have been recently recovered from antiquity. 

His heliocentric hypothesis does not only have Pythagorean roots, but also Hermetic. We may recall Ficino’s first usage of the microcosm and macrocosm analogy involves the imagery of the sun and heart, which directly comes from the Hermetica. Copernicus, likewise, speaks of the special role that the Sun has in the Hermetica: “For, the sun is not inappropriately called by some people the lantern of the universe, its mind by others, and its ruler. Hermes the Thrice Greatest labels it a visible god” (Copernicus, 22). Accordingly, we have two historical roots for Copernicus’ heliocentric hypothesis: the Pythagoreans and Hermes.

Since Premoderns believed incorrectly that Hermes pre-dated the Pythagoreans, Copernicus would have believed that the idea that the sun is the center of solar system, and the other seven spheres rotate around her came from Hermes, and past down to the Pythagoreans, as a secret of nature. Accordingly, Hermes is the initial source or root of the heliocentric hypothesis. We find Hermes in the 15th century Florentines, Servetus, the German spiritual rationalists, Calvin, Porta, Gilbert, and Bruno. Now, we find Hermes as a root of the Copernican hypothesis, which modernity regards as the first move towards modernity, but is really a return to the Hermetic and Pythagorean beliefs about the cosmos.

Copernicus begins constructing his heliocentric cosmology with a macro and micro analogy: just as the cosmos (macrocosm) is a sphere, so are the celestial planets spheres (microcosm). Unlike Bruno, Copernicus does not believe the cosmos to be infinite, but a closed sphere. He believes that sphere is the best structure, for two reasons. Of all the forms, first of all, the sphere is the most perfect, “needing no joint and being a complete whole, which can be neither increased nor diminished” (Copernicus, 8). A spherical structure to cosmos may have Hermetic roots. Hermes claims that cosmos is created by God as a great sphere: “Entering the craftman’s sphere [cosmos]…and learning well their essence and sharing their nature, the man wished to break through the circumference of the circles [planets] to observe the rule of the one given power over fire [sun]” (Hermes, 3). Hermes claims that all the planets are spheres. The truly wise try to break through their respective spheres in order to see Sun. 

Just as God created planets as spheres, he made the cosmos eternal sphere and the sun or fire is its center. Copernicus’ second reason for making the cosmos a sphere is “the most capacious of figures, best suited to retain and enclose all things” (Copernicus, 8). Hermes’ comments about how hard it is to break through “the circumferences of the circles” negatively reinforces Copernicus’ point that the sphere is the best form for the universe, because the sphere is the best at retaining and enclosing the celestial spheres, the sun, moon, earth, etc. Just as the cosmos is sphere, the earth is sphere, because the earth “presses upon its center from every direction” (Copernicus, 8). The earth is sphere, because stars which are visible near the North pole are invisible near the South pole, and vice versa. “Thus Italy does not see Canopus, which is visible in Egypt; and Italy does see the River’s last star, which is unfamiliar to our area in the colder region” (Copernicus, 9). Another proof of the spherical structure of earth involves the observation of ship leaving a harbor. As the ship moves further and further away from harbor, the ship gradually disappears from point view of the harbor.

The motion of celestial spheres is circular, because this is perfect movement for sphere, which rotating around some center (whether earth or sun). The rotation of spheres around the center is perpetual and eternal, because the geometric sign of eternity is a circle, because it has no limitation to its form. There are several rotations. First, celestial spheres rotate around the center (earth or sun). These revolutions move from west to east. Second, they rotate around themselves daily, which causes day and night. On the Ptolemaic system, “the entire universe, with the exception of the earth, is conceived as whirling from east to west in this rotation” (Copernicus, 10). The celestial revolutions move from west to east, while the rotations of individual spheres move from east to west. The first rotation provides us with a year, while second rotation provides a day. “It is recognized as the common measure of all motions, since we even compute time itself chiefly by number of days” or years (Copernicus, 10).

On the Ptolemaic system, these dual movements of the celestial spheres have problems: first, the first rotation does not move around the poles as the second rotation, but run “obliquely through the zodiac” (Copernicus, 11). Second, the first rotation of the spheres is not uninformed in their respective orbits. The motion of the Moon and Sun appear to move close than move quicker in their course. We occasionally see the five other spheres in retrograde motion or stationary. The two distinct motions of seven spheres are not uniformed, because either their poles are different from the earth’s or “that the earth is not at the center of the circles on which they revolve” (Copernicus, 11). Or, does the earth rotate around the sun and has two rotations? 

To answer this question which cannot be directly observed, Copernicus applies the following epistemic principle: “every observed change of place is caused by a motion of either the observed object, or the observer or by an unequal displacement of each” (Copernicus, 11). Whenever we observe an object in motion, the object is moved, or the observer is moved, or there is an unequal displacement between the object and the observer. When the motion between the object and observer are equal in speed and the same direction, the motion is not observed, because nothing is diminished in the motion. If the earth moved, then all objects would appear to be moving past the earth. If the earth rotates from west to east instead of the heavens, then “you will find that this is actual situation concerning the apparent rising and setting of the sun, moon, stars, and everything” (Copernicus, 12).

If the earth's second rotation (daily), then it would follow that the earth has the first motion, rotating around the sun, because the planets shift in their proximity to the earth only demonstrates that the earth is not the center of universe, but only a sphere rotating around the sun. The earth’s first and second motion is supported by Philolaus, a Pythagorean astronomer: “That the earth rotates, that it also travels with several motions, and that it is one of the heavenly bodies are said to have been the opinions of Philolaus the Pythagorean” (Copernicus, 12). 

Copernicus is not referring to Pythagoreans as rhetorical devises, because a fundamental assumption of pre modernity is that the older the philosophy is, the more real. This pre modern assumption is impetus of his quotation of Hermes for the heliocentric system. Since Hermes and Pythagoreans are far older than Ptolemy, their views should be regarded more seriously. If we accept Hermetic/Pythagorean heliocentric hypothesis, then all the problems of the non-uniformed motions of the celestial spheres will be eliminated. First, the risings and settings of zodiacal signs and fixed stars will appear the same way regardless of morning or night. Secondly, the stations, the retro-gradations, and forward movement of planets are not the movement of those respective planets, but the movement of the earth.

The hierarchy of celestial spheres is based upon Euclid’s principle that objects moving equally fast, those farther away seem to travel more slowly than those closer. No one disagrees that the highest part of the heavens is the fixed stars; likewise, no disagrees that the moon is the closest sphere to the earth, because its rotation is the shortest. Saturn is the farthest away from the earth, because its rotation is the longest. Jupiter is next, and then Mars, because of the length of their rotations. On the Ptolemaic system, these celestial spheres are above the sun; while Mercury and Venus are below the sun, because these “planets do not pass through every elongation from the sun, as other planets do” (Copernicus, 18).

Plato, on the other hand, places Mercury and Venus above the Sun. Al-Bitruji places Venus above sun, while Mercury is below it. If the Mercury and Venus were under the Sun, then why do these planets not traverse separate orbits divergent from the sun, like the other planets, “without violating the arrangement of the planets in accordance with their relative swiftness and slowness” (Copernicus, 19)? On the Ptolemaic system, the hierarchy of planets and Euclid’s principle fall into a dilemma: either the earth is not the center of heavens, or there is no real arrangement of the planets. 

According to Martianus Capella, Mercury and Venus rotate around the sun, because these planets “diverge no farther than from the sun than is permitted by the curvature of their revolutions” (Copernicus, 20). Copernicus argues that Capella’s approach to the so-called lower planets should be applied to all the planets, so “since the sun remains stationary, whatever appears as motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth” (Copernicus, 20). Copernicus’ hierarchy of the celestial spheres is based upon this assumption: “the size of sphere is measured by the length of the time, the order of the spheres is following beginning with the highest” (Copernicus, 21). On Copernicus’ principle, Mars would be larger than the earth, which is not the case; and Saturn would be larger than Jupiter, which is, likewise, not the case. Copernicus’ order is the sun stationary in the center, then Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and then the fixed stars. The rotation of Saturn is thirty years, Jupiter is twelve, Mars is two, and the Earth is one year; while Venus rotates around the sun in 9 months and Mercury in eighty days.  

Copernicus has provided some keen observations and geometrical calculations about the shortcomings of the Ptolemaic system, but occasionally he removes himself from the strict discourse of astronomy and geometry, and starts predicating attributes to the sun, which transcend his observations and geometrical calculations. In the Hermetica, Hermes argues that “eternity, therefore, is an image of god, the cosmos is an image of eternity; and the sun is an image of the cosmos” (Hermetica, XI:15). According to this passage, the cosmos is an image of eternity, because the planets rotate around the sun forever in perpetual motion in a circle, which is the geometrical sign for eternity, no limitation. The sun is the image of the cosmos, because all celestial planets are attracted to the Sun. Copernicus uses Ficino's eros to explain the regular and constant movement of the planets: "For my part I believe that gravity is nothing but a certain natural desire, which the divine providence of the Creator of all things has implanted in parts, to gather as a unity and a whole by combing in the form of globe” (Copernicus, 18).

He uses “natural desire,” “divine providence,” and “unity” as an alternative to Modern gravity or Gilbert's Premodern magnetism, which binds his whole cosmos together. Copernicus’ unity is far closer to the meaning of the passage from Hermetica than to any modern concept of gravity. Copernicus confirms his Hermetic view of the sun in saying that “thus, indeed, as though seated on a royal throne, the sun governs the family of planets revolving around it” (Copernicus, 22). His language of “a royal throne” and “governs” implies that Sun is an intelligence, which governs the other celestial planets. Governance requires intelligence. If the Sun has intelligence, then the Sun has a soul.

Copernicus view of the sun is not much different than Agrippa, who believes that the celestial entities have souls, which govern specific domains of the terrestrial world. The essential difference between Copernicus and Agrippa is that the former believes in solar monarchy (“royal throne); while the latter believes in a celestial oligarchy in which different celestial spheres have their own domain of power. Copernicus and Agrippa still share the same Hermetic belief that a celestial body has a soul, intelligence, and governs inferior subjects. I do not think that Copernicus’ references to Pythagoreans or Hermes are rhetorical, but refer to his Hermetic belief in placing the sun over the other celestial spheres, as the solar king of the cosmos. Copernicus’ cosmology is closed, not infinite, and the sun is the center of this perfectly closed sphere (heaven), which governs all the celestial spheres by attraction (or Ficino’s eros).

In conclusion, the anthem of sun thesis is not meant to undermine the importance of Kuhn's work concerning the Copernican paradigm shift in the history of science. Instead, anthem of the sun is a backward looking interpretation of Copernicus' cosmological work, which draws upon existing Premodern language games to render a picture of the roots of his unique language game concerning the solar system. Copernicus draws upon the Hermetica, Ficino, the Premodern concept of ousia to form his cosmology. This background to Copernicus has been neglected by historians of science, because they are not interested Premodern language games, which make his theory possible in a "field of rationality." Instead, Kuhn and other historians of science are preoccupied with subsequent influence.