| Chapter 1: | The New Astronomy |
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Bounded Geocentricism
Pythagoras notwithstanding, the fundamental question of the shape of the Earth remained unsettled at the time of Socrates, but his student Plato (428–347 BC) decided the issue in favor of sphericity. Initially, Pythagorean philosophy heavily influenced Plato, but over time the influence waned. Plato named Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans only once each and disregarded most other aspects of that school's cosmology (Dicks 63). He retained the bounded form of the Philolaic model, but he dispensed with its decadal design because he had placed the Earth at the center of the system, which meant he had to discard the Central Fire and Counter-Earth.
To Plato, the sky seemed like the surface of a rotating sphere surrounding a stationary, spherical Earth. This is the two-sphere construction of the Universe comprising a spherical Earth at the center of a spherical shell of stars. Between these lay the Ancient Planets, whose motion relative to the more distant stars was erratic—a mystery Plato left for his successors to explain. Plato had scant regard for empiricism, and in the history of experimental science “he must be counted a disaster” (Dampier 25). However, his formulations were essentially poetical and intended more as a simulacrum for philosophical and spiritual guidance than as a depiction of physical reality. As such, his World was justifiably homocentric or human centered, but human curiosity and superstition compelled succeeding generations to try to transform the symbolism into a mechanism for practical use. Thus physical geocentricism was born, an ideology which Plato's student Aristotle (384–322 BC) adopted and refined.
Aristotle
Aristotle made frequent mention of the teachings of the Pythagoreans, but he did not find them credible. He knew of the Pythagorean notion of a moving Earth but rejected it outright in favor of a physical analogue of Plato's spiritual form. He accepted without question that a sphere of stars separated the natural space from the space reserved for deities; and even