NDLI: Kepler’s optics without hypotheses

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Dupré, Sven
Copyright Year	2011
Abstract	This paper argues that Kepler considered his work in optics as part of natural philosophy and that, consequently, he aimed at change within natural philosophy. Back-to-back with John Schuster’s claim that Descartes’ optics should be considered as a natural philosophical appropriation of innovative results in the tradition of practical and mixed mathematics the central claim of my paper is that Kepler’s theory of optical imagery, developed in his Paralipomena ad Vitellionem (1604), was the result of a move similar to Descartes’ by Kepler. My argument consists of three parts. First, Kepler borrowed a geometrical model and experiment of optical imagery from the mélange of mixed and practical mathematics provided in the works of the sixteenth-century mathematicians Ettore Ausonio and Giovanni Battista Della Porta. Second, Kepler criticized the Aristotelian theory of light and he developed his own alternative metaphysics. Third, Kepler used his natural philosophical assumptions about the nature of light to re-interpret the model of image formation taken from Della Porta’s work. Taken together, I portray Kepler’s theory of optical imagery as a natural philosophical appropriation of an innovative model of image formation developed in a sixteenth-century practical and mixed mathematical tradition which was not interested in questioning philosophical assumptions on the nature of light.
Starting Page	501
Ending Page	525
Page Count	25
File Format	PDF
ISSN	00397857
Journal	Synthese
Volume Number	185
Issue Number	3
e-ISSN	15730964
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2011-09-20
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Kepler Natural philosophy Practical mathematics Image theory Seventeenth century Logic Epistemology Metaphysics Philosophy of Language Philosophy of Science
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Philosophy Social Sciences

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