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Was There a Crisis Before the Copernican Revolution? A Reappraisal of Gingerich’s Criticisms of Kuhn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Robert I. Griffiths
Robert I. Griffiths*
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
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In this essay I will discuss and appraise two conflicting answers to the question of whether there was a crisis in Ptolemaic astronomy prior to the Copernican revolution. I will begin by giving a brief account of why anybody should be interested in this question. I will discuss the two conflicting answers of Kuhn (1962, 1970), who claims to present evidence which shows that Ptolemaic astronomy was anomaly-ridden at the time of Copernicus, and of Gingerich (1975), who claims that the supposed anomalies, which have been passed down in the historical literature due to poor scholarship, are fictitious. Finally I will appraise Gingerich’s criticism of Kuhn, giving my own evaluation of Gingerich’s arguments. I conclude that Gingerich’s arguments against the existence of a technical crisis in Ptolemaic astronomy prior to Copernicus appear to be, either arguments against the efficacy of the Copernican system, or arguments based on definitions of complexity which are not directly attributable to Kuhn.

Type
Part IV. History of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1988 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1988 , 1988 , pp. 127 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1988

Footnotes

1

Special thanks are due to Professor Peter Barker who provided critical comments during preparation of an earlier version of this paper for his Philosophy of Science Course at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

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