User talk:Logicus

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Thank you for providing a source for the "some scholars" claim regarding the interpretation of Aristotle's physics. Regarding the use of Newton as a secondary source, you are correct that it is technically a secondary source. However, it is also a primary source in this context, because it is centrally related to the interpretation of Newton's work and whether, or in what ways, it was revolutionary. I think common sense dictates that Scientific Revolution should rely on modern (i.e., 20th century) secondary sources, since the concept of a scientific revolution is a modern concept. Incidentally, we don't even have an article yet on Aristotelian physics, which would perhaps be the best place for a discussion/presentation of Newton's interpretation of Artistotle (and one where the use of Newton as a secondary source probably would be appropriate).--ragesoss 16:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Well thanks for this and the thanks. As I pointed out the Newton can be both primary source and secondary source depending on the proposition whose truth is being determined, but the context here is the nature of Aristotle's physics, not Newton's, and so it is secondary.

The crucial educational importance of Newton's text is that unlike anybody else he realises one must abstract from the gravity of bodies to enable a logically valid comparison between his and Aristotle's dynamics that observes the same initial conditions, and he identifies the only two passages in which Aristotle does so, in Physics and in Heavens.

But 'modern' cannot mean 20th century because the concept of a scientific revolution in mechanics goes back at least to Mach and Duhem in the 19th century, and in fact I suspect stems from positivist-Enlightenment anti-Aristotelianism, a thesis of the total overthrow of Aristotelian philosophy as a feudal relic. There is an argument that it stems from Descartes, but the card-carrying Aristotelian Newton routed the Cartesian mechanist anti-Aristotle revolution.

Wikipedia is notably rabidly ani-Aristotelian, although not that I am pro, but only for fair play. Logicus 16:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 moving forward 2 Thanks for comments 3 Aristotelian physics 4 A break from Sci Rev 5 Kepler 6 A new article 7 Kepler quotes 8 RfC

[edit] moving forward

Logicus, I recommend that we do not dwell on accusations of bad faith, etc. Instead, let's be systematic about reaching a consensus; I think it is much easier to keep everyone involved and positive if we only work on one point of contention at a time, lest everyone get frustated and continue reading past each other. I've started a section on the talk page for us to work out the Ancient and medieval background part, where I believe the conflict is more over misinterpretation than disagreement. Baby steps.- ragesoss

This is an inequitable and unacceptable proposal. Whilst you apparently refuse to withdraw your allegations against me of NOR and DE breaches and Ancheta Wis seemed to suggest I was in Bad Faith, why must I not raise the issue of McCluskey's Bad Faith ? Logicus 18:17, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm suggesting that we ignore previous assumption of bad faith (and disruptive editing) that seem to have gone all around, and start treating each other's arguments with respect and assumptions of good faith from here on out. With respect to Original Research, it still seems to me that what you were proposing probably constituted OR; however, the earlier discussions were very broad and the frequent misunderstandings of each others intentions mean that I (and SteveMcClusky) may have been mistaken. The only way forward I see is to set those bigger issues aside for now, and go systematically through the article, one issue at a time, until we find out where each disagreement lies. If we focus on content and bring our collective literature resources to bear on each issue, everything else will take care of itself or become irrelevant.

All three of us agree that the purpose of the "ancient and medieval background" section (other titles could be entertained) is to describe the state of knowledge just before the Sci Rev. If (after SteveMcCluskey's latest suggestions) you still feel that section is totally off track, compose an alternative that fulfills that function and we'll discuss that.--ragesoss 20:39, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for comments

Thanks for your comments on my talk page, but it is more convenient if we keep our discussions on a single forum in Talk:Scientific Revolution --SteveMcCluskey 19:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aristotelian physics

Logicus: much of your objections to Scientific Revolution content stems from your views of what Aristotelian physics was. Note that Wikipedia does not even have an article on Aristotelian physics yet (it's just a redirect to Aristotle). This could be a great way for you to organize your argument about what it; since you seem to be familiar with a variety of scholarly interpretations, perhaps you could create this article, describing Aristotelian physics in general. Then we can get a better understanding of how to incorporate your viewpoint into the Scientific Revolution article. (And yes, I have more than 1 bookshelf as well as access to a good library. In fact, I browsed through the Q125's the other day looking for alternate dating schemes: nearly all are consistent with "the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries". Also, in Essential Tension, Kuhn clearly distinguishes "the Scientific Revolution" from the 1300-1900 revolution you've been referring to. Kuhn even uses scare quotes to emphasize that he doesn't agree with earlier historians about the significance or name of it, but he recognizes it as a relatively well-defined thing. That thing is the subject of Scientific revolution.) --ragesoss 19:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A break from Sci Rev

Logicus, I've been taking a break from it because I don't have time to do the sourcing and writing and discussing to make further progress on the article, at least for the near future. I think Steve is also overwhelmed with meat-space responsibilities; I certainly plan on returning to it (probably in February), and I think Steve does too. It's never been in great shape (and it's never been particularly coherent), but it's better now than it has been; like most articles on Wikipedia, no "work in progress" notice is necessary, as everything is to some degree a work in progress. While I am almost inclined to agree that a blank page would be less confusing for readers at the moment, that's not really an option on WP (considered the number of people who have some sort of stake in the article).--ragesoss 21:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Please see my reply on Ragesoss's talk page.--SteveMcCluskey 00:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kepler

Logicus, I actually just replaced the Caspar quote with some info from Gingerich's Dictionary of Scientific Biography article; it's more informative, and still conveys how influential Epitome was without the objectionable aspects of the Caspar quote. But feel free to improve/replace that as you see fit with the material from Koyre. I moved the Koyre book back to "Further reading" because the top section is for works cited in the text, but obviously we can move it back we actually use material from Koyre. As for the technical instability, it's almost certainly a caching issue with your browser. Occasionally Wikipedia has weird problems, but that's rare. If you are using Internet Explorer, press F5 when you want to be sure of the current version; that should clear the cache and force it to refresh properly.

Deyyaz simply took it upon himself to review the Kepler article and certify it as a "Good Article", which anyone is free to do (on articles that one is not heavily involved in editing); see Wikipedia:Good articles. It's a pretty arbitrary designation, meant to separate articles that, while not Featured, at least have some sources and seem generally like legitimate content (as opposed to the majority of articles).--ragesoss 19:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A new article

Logicus, you might be interested in the new article Continuity thesis.--ragesoss 18:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding your refresh problems, it sounds like your computer is giving you trouble. The only thing I can suggest is to make sure your browser is updated, or better yet, switch to Firefox.--ragesoss 18:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kepler quotes

Iustinus Logico s.p.d.,

Happy new year to you too. It's been a while since we've encountered each other, so I'm glad to see you got a real account: I don't always agree with you, but you have been an invaluable contributor. I have a PDF of Astronomia Nova as well, and although I see that Part Four starts on page 215 in my copy as well, I cannot find this quote anywhere on that page. Here is my attempt at a translation (I confess that I wasn't sure what he was getting at in a lot of places):

Pars Quarta: Investigatio verae mensurae primae inaequalitatis ex causis physicis et propriae sententia. Quae tertia parte demonstrata sunt, ad omnes planetas pertinet: unde non injuria clavis astronomiae penitioris dici possunt. Quam tanto magis gaudere debemus inventum, quanto certius est nulla alla ratione investigare potuisse, praeterquam per stellae Martis observationes.

Part Four: Investigation of the true measure of the first inequality, from physical causes, and the opinion of itself(??). Those things which were shown in the third part pertain to all the planets, whence they can not unjustly be called "The Key to Deeper Astronomy." How much more we should rejoice that it has been discovered, the more certain it is that [someone] could not investigate it by any other method than by observations of Mars!

• Definite typos: alla should read alia
• Possible typos: sententia (does it really end with -a?), investigare (could it be investigari?)

Some other relevant quotes of which I happen to know already, are found on page 4:

RVRSVM autem animadversum est, hos uniuscujusque Plantetæ spirarum articulos in diversis zodiaci signis esse inæquales...

But again it is noticed , that these joints(?) in the coils of each planets, in various signs of the zodiac, are unequal...

More importantly, in the small text surrounding the famous Panis quadragesimalis diagram:

Similes autem spiras cogimur etiam quatuor reliquis asscribere,& Veneri quidem multo perpexiores..."

But we are forced to ascribe similar coils also to the four remaining planets, and to Venus in particular very complicated ones.

To me at least, this seems to imply that he had done at least cursory research on the other planets, but limited the detailed discussions of the data to Mars, by way of example. Of course, I don't have time to read through the whole book to figure this out. --Iustinus 00:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, actually, I forgot you were concerned specifically with ellipticity, so those quotes may not be relevant. Oh well. --Iustinus 01:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

My knowledge of AN does not extend much beyond what you see here. BUt I seem to recall seeing a passage where he talks specifically about elipses (because I remember some sort of phrasiology like "Not circular, but defective along the sides", which, I believe, is a literal translation of elipsis. If I have time, I'll see if I can track that, or some other helpful passage down. But I can't promise anything, because of course to read through AN would take forever, and I have a lot on my plate right now. --Iustinus 19:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, the quote I was thinking of turns out the be the first sentence on my version of page 215:

CVM PRIMVM in hunc modum certissimis BRAHEI observationibus edoctus essem, Orbitam PLANETÆ non esse circularem exacte sed deficere a lateribus; e vestigio & causam naturalem hujus deflexionis me scire sum arbitratus. Eram enim in materia capite XXXIX vehementer exercitus. Et admoneo lectorem, ut priusquam hic progrediatur, caput illud integrum diligenter relegat.

"When I had first been informed in this manner by the most certain observations of Brahe, that a Planet's prbit is not exactly circular, but is deficient on the sides; from this clue I judged that I also knew the natural cause of this deflection. For I was greatly agitated (or "trained") by the material in chapter 39. And I advise the reader that before he continues here, he should diligently reread that entire chapter."

So that gives us some clues as to where the information you seek is located. --Iustinus 20:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RfC

Logicus:

A Request for Comment on your editing on Kepler and Scientific Revolution has been opened at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Logicus.

Please give your perspective on the events described in the Response section of the RfC.

I hope we can resolve this to arrive at a productive atmosphere in the History of science articles.

--SteveMcCluskey 14:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)