Kepler's Philosophy and the New Astronomy

Figures and Tables ix

Acknowledgments xi

Abbreviations of Works Frequently Cited xiii

Introduction 3

1. Kepler's Life and Times 10

Select Biography 10

Kepler's Astronomical Inheritance 18

Kepler's Philosopbical Inheritance 32

2. The Mysterium cosmographicum and Kepler's Early Approach to Natural Philosophy 39

The Content of the Mysterium cosmographicum 39

Kepler's Cosmology 48

Kepler's Approach to Natural Philosophy 49

3. Kepler's Apologia: An Early Modern Treatise on Realism 57

Extra-Astronomical Considerations 58

The Nature of Astronomical Hypotheses 60

The Testing of Astronomucal Hypotheses 63

Kepler's Improved Notion of Testability 64

Concluding Remarks: The Archetypes 67

4. Kepler's Archetypes and the Astronomia nova 69

The Status of Hypotheses in Physical Astronomy 70

The Replacement of the Mean by the True Sun 71

The Vicarious Hypothesis 76

The New Physics 79

Kepler's Second Law 84

Oval Orbits 87

Physical and Geometrical Models of Liberation 91

The Ellipse of Chapter 59 95

Concluding Remarks: Archetypes in the Astronomia 97

5. The Aristotelian Kepler 99

The Aristotelian Challenge 9O

Physical Astronomy as a Mixed Discipline 103

The Mathematical and the Physical 106

Concluding Remarks 111

6. The Harmonice mundi 112

Kepler and Ptolemy 112

The Essence of Archetypal Mathematics 118

Synopsis of Book V 120

The Influence of Kepler's Haramonies on His Cosmology 136

7. The Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae: Kepler's Mature Physical Astronomy 142

The Nature of Astronomy and Observation 144

Archetypes as a Prerequisite for Physics 146

Book IV and the Archetypes 147

Book V 163

Concluding Remarks 167

Conclusion: The Fate of Kepler's Philosophical Thought 169

The Threat to the Perfectibility of Astronomy 169

Kepler's Philosophical Legacy 172

Notes 177

Bibliography 191

Index 199