Journal for the History of Science

Journal for the History of Science

A Hypothetical Account of the Way Copernicus Arrived at his Theory: a Review of Hans Blumenberg’s Thesis

Document Type : -

Author
Department of Philosophy of Science, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
10.22059/jihs.2026.411751.371883
Abstract
The Copernican revolution is one of the pivotal moments in the history of modern science and thought. In a section of his work The Genesis of the Copernican World, the German philosopher and historian of science Hans Blumenberg attempts to reconstruct Copernicus's intellectual journey as a logical process, citing evidence from De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. This article examines Blumenberg's reconstruction of Copernicus's thought process, specifically as it pertains to the order of the planets. According to this interpretation, the ambiguity in the placement of Mercury and Venus within the Ptolemaic system served as Copernicus's starting point. His progression from a semi-heliocentric model to a fully heliocentric system is shown to be comprehensible within the framework of traditional principles of cosmic order and astronomical realism. This study employs a hermeneutic analysis of primary and secondary sources. The primary source is Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. The secondary source is Hans Blumenberg's interpretation in The Genesis of the Copernican World. This study concludes that Blumenberg's interpretation successfully reconstructs Copernicus's intellectual development not as a radical break from, but as a transformative extension of, the medieval and Ptolemaic tradition. The Copernican revolution, in this view, was driven by an "ultra-Ptolemaic" commitment to resolving internal inconsistencies in the reigning system, guided by traditional principles of order, realism, and the plenitude of the cosmos.
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