The Struggle for Order

• Published in: The Copernican Question p. 419
• Main Author: Westman, Robert S
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: University of California Press 02.07.2011
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Anthropology; Applied anthropology; Astrology; Astronomical objects; Astronomy; Behavioral sciences; Binary stars; Binary systems; Bodies of revolution; Cataclysmic variable stars; Classical mechanics; Copernicanism; Cosmological philosophy; Cultural anthropology; Divination; Early Modern History (1500 to 1700); Earth; European History; Folk beliefs; Folk culture; Folkloristics; Galileo; Geometric shapes; Geometry; History of Science and Technology; Inner planets; Intellectual History; Interacting binary stars; Johannes Kepler; Kinetics; Magic; Mathematics; Mechanics; Metaphilosophy; Metaphysics; Natural philosophy; Novae; novas; Philosophy; Physical sciences; Physics; planet; planetary theory; Planets; Pure mathematics; Simon Stevin; Spheres; Stars; Symmetrical bodies; via moderna
• ISBN: 9780520254817; 0520254813
• DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520254817.003.0017

For celestial modernizers of the early seventeenth century, the problematic that had been emerging since the 1570s began to show signs of consensus: recurrent events (planets), the subject of the science of the stars, and nonrecurrent events (comets and new stars) somehow seemed to belong together in the realm of ordinary rather than extraordinary phenomena. Galileo’s discoveries at the end of the first decade would further reinforce the sense that the heavens contained recurrent phenomena, marvels that, even if hidden, were still part of the natural order. But how did any of this pertain to the Copernican question? Was it