عنوان

Constellations and Conjectures

(Number (ISBN

9401024987

(Number (ISBN

9789401024983

Number

b594410

Title Proper

Constellations and Conjectures

General Material Designation

[Book]

First Statement of Responsibility

by Norwood Russell Hanson ; edited by Willard C. Humphreys.

Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.

Dordrecht

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Springer Netherlands

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

1973

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

(300 pages)

Series Title

Synthese Library, Monographs on Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, Philosophy of Science, Sociology of Science and of Knowledge, and on the Mathematical Methods of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 48.

Text of Note

Book One --; Part I --; Cosmological Explanation, B.C. --; The Conceptual Content of Book One, Part I --; The Historical Content of Book One, Part I --; Plato --; Eudoxos and 'Plato's Problem' --; Aristotle --; Book One --; Part II --; Ptolemy and Prediction --; Pre-Ptolemaic Anticipations --; Three Dimensional Variations of Ptolemy's Technique --; Book Two --; Part I --; The Medieval Rediscovery of Ptolemy's Tool Box --; 'The Ptolemaic System' --; Supplementary Material for Book Two, Section A --; Book Two --; Part II --; Copernicus' Systematic Astronomy --; Further Aspects of Copernican Astronomy in Contrast to All that had Gone Before --; Supplement to Section on Copernican Theory --; Book Three --; Part I --; Kepler and the 'Clean' Idea --; Supplementary Material for Book Three, Part I.

Text of Note

An occurrence is explained by being related to prior events through known laws. Other intellectual activities may also constitute explanation - but this much certainly does. Ideally, an explained occurrence (0) could have been predicted in a connected way - by extrapolation from prior events (e) via the same laws (L). Schematically, 1 Explanation: 0 -Lt, 2, 3-(e e e)'-AI t 2 3 01 Prediction: (e e e)I-L, 2, 3_ +.11 t 2 3 t Thus Mars' backward loop in late summer, 1956, is explained by showing how this follows from (e) its mean distance from sun and earth, (e) its t 2 mean period of revolution, (e) its past positions relative to earth, etc. 3 - by way of the laws of Celestial Mechanics (including (Lt) Kepler's Laws and Galileo's, (L2) Newton's, and (L3) those of Laplace and Lagrange. Moreover, this loop (0) could have been predicted from such events (e -e) via the laws of Celestial Mechanics. t 3 This is an ideal situation. It crystallized late in the history of planetary theory. The Greeks found explanations for heavenly motions: the back ward loops were explained to their satisfaction. But they could not predict these motions, not in terms of Attic explanatory cosmologies.

Philosophy (General)

Science -- Philosophy.

Class number

Book number

by Norwood Russell Hanson ; edited by Willard C. Humphreys.

Norwood Russell Hanson

Willard C Humphreys

Electronic name

[Book]

Y