Paradise not surrendered
Jewish reactions to Copernicus and the growth of modern science
pp. 203-225
in: Robert S. Cohen, Mark W. Wartofsky (eds), Epistemology, methodology, and the social sciences, Berlin, Springer, 1983Abstract
Copernicus's sixteenth century formulation of a heliocentric cosmos, elaborated during the next one hundred and fifty years through the work of Bruno, Kepler, Galileo and Newton, has been considered a turning point not only in astronomy but in the growth of scientific knowledge and in the history of ideas. The shift from belief in the well-ordered cosmos in which the earth occupies the central position to notions of an expanded universe in which man and his familiar world are relegated to an insignificant corner played a paramount role in the process whereby, as Alexandre Koyré put it, "human or at least European minds underwent a deep revolution which changed the very framework and patterns of our thinking."1 Even while it was still a subject of debate within astronomic coteries, poets such as Donne and Milton intuited the broader social and religious implications of the altered conceptions of the planetary arrangements.
