The Copernican Question
Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order
Robert S. Westman’s study of why Copernicus proposed a moving earth, and why anyone believed him. Westman’s answer runs through astrology: in the sixteenth century the astronomer and the horoscope-caster were the same person, and the credibility of celestial prediction was under attack from Pico della Mirandola. Copernicus never wrote about astrology, but the discipline’s crisis, Westman argues, framed the question he was answering. The book follows the reception of his ideas across two generations of European practitioners, down to Kepler and Galileo.
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Dava Sobel
Robert Westman was interested in exploring the idea that Copernicus was also an astrologer as well as an astronomer. For many years people thought that Copernicus paid no attention to astrology. But in his day, if you were an astronomer you were also an astrologer. Why else would you care about the positions of the planets? But he never wrote about astrology.
Interview · April 2012
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