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.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alberti, L. B. (1991). In M. Kemp (Ed.), On painting (C. Grayson, Trans.). London: Penguin Books.
Armogathe, J.-R. (2008). ‘La nouvelle porte du ciel’. Sur la Dioptrique de Kepler. In P. Radelet-de Grave (Ed.), Liber amicorum Jean Dhombres (pp. 62–69). Turnhout: Brepols.
Barbaro, D. (1980). La Pratica della Perspecttiva (R. Fregna, & G. Nanetti, eds.). Bologna: Arnaldo Forni Editore.
Bennett J. (2003) Knowing and doing in the sixteenth century: What were instruments for?. British Journal for the History of Science 36: 129–150
Biener Z. (2004) Galileo’s first new science: The science of matter. Perspectives on Science 12: 267–287
Camerota, F. (1998). Misurare ‘per Perspectiva’: Geometria Pratica e Prospectiva Pingendi. In R. Sinisgalli (Ed.), La Prospettiva: Fondamenti Teorici ed Esperienze Figurative dall’ Antichità al Mondo Moderno. Firenze: Edizioni Cadmo.
Chen-Morris, R. D., & Unguru, S. (2001). Kepler’s critique of the medieval perspectivist tradition. In G. Simon & S. Débarbat (Eds.), Optics and astronomy: Proceedings of the XXth international congress of history of science (pp. 83–92), Liège, 20–26 July 1997. Turnhout: Brepols.
Danti E. (1573) La prospettiva di Euclide. Giunti, Fiorenza
Danti E. (1987) Le Due Regole della Prospettiva Practica: A reproduction of the copy in the British Library. Archival Facsimiles Limited, Alburgh
Della Porta, I. B. (1591). Magiae naturalis libri viginti. Francofurti: Apud Andreae Wecheli heredes, Claudium Marnium, & Ioann, Aubrium.
Di Liscia D. A. (2007) Johannes Kepler, Meister der scientiae mediae. Akademie Aktuell 23 (Heft 4): 56–62
Dupré S. (2005) Ausonio’s mirrors and Galileo’s lenses: The telescope and sixteenth-century practical optical knowledge. Galilaeana: Journal of Galilean Studies 2: 145–180
Dupré, S. (2007). Images in the air: Optical games, magic, and imagination. In C. Göttler & W. Neuber (Eds.), Spirits unseen: The representation of subtle bodies in early modern European culture (pp. 71–92). Leiden: Brill.
Dupré S. (2008) Inside the camera obscura: Kepler’s experiment and theory of optical imagery. Early Science and Medicine 13: 219–244
Dupré S. (2009a) Printing practical mathematics: Oronce Fine’s ‘De speculo ustorio’ between paper and craft. In: Marr A. (ed) The worlds of Oronce Finé: Mathematics, instruments and print in Renaissance France. Shaun Tyas, Donington, pp 64–82
Dupré, S. (2009b). Wonder and experiments in Kepler’s optics and dioptrics. In R. L. Kremer & J. Wlodarczyk (Eds.), Johannes Kepler. From Tübingen to Zagan (Studia Copernicana, Vol. 42, pp. 223–237). Warsaw: Institute for the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences, Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.
Dürer, A. (1525). Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheit. Nürnberg.
Field J.V. (1988) Kepler’s geometrical cosmology. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Frangenberg T. (1988) Egnatio Danti’s optics: Cinquecento Aristotelianism and the medieval tradition. Nuncius 1: 3–38
Gal O., Chen-Morris R. (2010) Baroque optics and the disappearance of the observer: From Kepler’s optics to Descartes’ doubt. Journal for the History of Ideas 71: 191–217
Gingerich O., Westman R. S. (1988) The Wittich connection: Conflict and priority in late sixteenth-century cosmology. The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia
Goulding R. (2006) Method and mathematics: Petrus Ramus’ histories of the sciences. Journal of the History of Ideas 67: 63–85
Hallyn F. (1997) Jean Pena et l’éloge de l’ optique. In: Meerhoff K., Moisan J.-C. (eds) Autour De Ramus: Texte, Théorie, Commentaire. Nuit Blanche Editeur, Paris, pp 217–232
Hooykaas, R. (1958). Humanisme, Science et Réforme: Pierre De La Ramée (1515–1572). Leyde: E. J. Brill.
Jamnitzer, W. (1568). Perspectiva corporum regularium. Nürnberg.
Jardine, N., & Segonds, A. (2001). A challenge to the reader: Ramus on astrologia without hypotheses. In M. Feingold, J. S. Freedman & W. Rother (Eds.), The influence of Petrus Ramus. Studies in sixteenth and seventeenth century philosophy and sciences (pp. 248–266). Basel: Schwabe & Co AG Verlag.
Johnston S. (2004) Theory, theoric, practice: Mathematics and magnetism in Elizabethan England. Journal de la Renaissance 2: 53–62
Kepler, J. (2000). Optics. Paralipomena to Witelo & Optical part of astronomy (W. H. Donahue, Trans.). Santa Fe: Green Lion Press.
Laird W. R. (1987) Robert Grosseteste on the subalternate sciences. Traditio 43: 147–169
Laird W. R. (1997) Galileo and the mixed sciences. In: Di Liscia D. A., Kessler E., Methuen C. (eds) Method and order in Renaissance philosophy of nature: The Aristotle commentary tradition. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 253–270
Lencker, H. (1567). Perspectiva literaria, das ist ein clerlicher fürreyssung wie Man alle buchstaben des gantsen alphabets in die perspectif bringen mag. Nürnberg.
Lencker, H. (1571). Perspectiva: Hierinnen auffs kürtzte beschrieben, mit exempeln vnnd sehr leichter weg, wie allerley ding, es seyen Corpora, Bebew, oder was möglich zuerdencken vnd in grund zulegen ist [...]. Nürnberg: Dietrich Gerlatz.
Lennox J. G. (1986) Aristotle, Galileo, and mixed sciences. In: Wallace W. A. (ed) Reinterpreting Galileo. The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC, pp 29–52
Lindberg D. C. (1976) Theories of vision: From Al-Kindi to Kepler. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Lindberg D. C. (1983) Roger Bacon’s philosophy of nature: A critical edition, with English translation, introduction, and notes, of De multiplicatione specierum and De speculis comburentibus. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Lindberg D. C. (1986) The genesis of Kepler’s theory of light’: Light metaphysics from Plotinus to Kepler. Osiris 2: 5–42
Lorch R. (1985) Pseudo-Euclid on the position of the image in reflection: Interpretations by an anonymous commentator, by Pena, and by Kepler. In: North J. D., Roche J. J. (eds) The light of nature: Essays in the history and philosophy of science presented to A. C. Crombie. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 135–144
Malet A. (1990) Keplerian illusions: Geometrical pictures versus optical images in Kepler’s visual theory. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 21: 1–40
Martens R. (2000) Kepler’s philosophy and the new astronomy. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Methuen C. (1998) Kepler’s Tübingen: Stimulus to a theological mathematics. Ashgate, Aldershot
Mosley A. (2006) Objects of knowledge: Mathematics and models in sixteenth-century cosmology and astronomy. In: Kusukawa S., Maclean I. (eds) Transmitting knowledge: Words, images and instruments in early modern Europe. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 41–71
Pena J. (1969) De Usu Optices Praefatio. In: Ong W. J. (ed) Petrus Ramus—Audomarus Talaeus: Collectanae Praefationes, Epistolae, Orationes. Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, Hildesheim, pp 140–158
Rabin S. J. (2005) Was Kepler’s species immateriata substantial?. Journal for the History of Astronomy 36: 49–56
Risnerus F. (1606) Opticae Libri Quatuor Ex Voto Petri Rami. Excudente VVilhelmo VVesselio, Casselis
Schuster J. A. (2000) The construction of the law of refraction and the manufacture of its physical rationales, 1618–1629. In: Gaukroger S., Schuster J., Sutton J. (eds) Descartes’ natural philosophy. Routledge, London, pp 258–312
Schuster, J. A. (forthcoming). Consuming and appropriating practical mathematics. In L. Cormack (Ed.), Mathematical practitioners and the transformation of natural knowledge in early Modern Europe. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Shank, M. H. (2008). L’astronomia nel Quattrocento tra corti e università. In A. Clericuzio & G. Ernst (Eds.), Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa (Vol. 5, Le scienze, pp. 3–20). Treviso-Costabissara (Vincenza): Fondazione Cassamarca-Angelo Colla Editore.
Shapiro A. E. (1990) The optical lectures and the foundations of the theory of optical imagery. In: Feingold M. (ed) Before Newton: The life and times of Isaac Barrow. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 105–178
Shapiro A. E. (2008) Images: Real and virtual, projected and perceived, from Kepler to Dechales. Early Science and Medicine 13: 270–312
Sharratt P. (1975) Nicolaus Nancelius, Petri Rami Vita, edited with an English translation. Humanistica Lovaniensia 24: 161–277
Simon G. (1976) Structures de Pensée et Objets du Savoir chez Kepler. Université de Paris IV, Paris
Smith A. M. (1981) Getting the big picture in perspectivist optics. Isis 72: 568–589
Smith A. M. (1982) Ptolemy’s search for a law of refraction: A case-study in the classical methodology of “saving the appearances” and its limitations. Archive for the History of Exact Sciences 26: 221–240
Smith A. M. (1988) Ptolemy, Alhazen, and Kepler and the problem of optical images. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 8: 9–44
Stephenson B. (1987) Kepler’s physical astronomy. Springer, New York
Turbayne C. M. (1959) Grosseteste and an ancient optical principle. Isis 50: 467–472
Van Dyck, M. (2012). `Argumentandi modus huius scientiae maximè proprius ...’: Guidobaldo’s mechanics and the question of mathematical principles. In E. Gamba, A. Becchi, & D. Bertolini-Meli (Eds.), Mathematiche e tecnica da Urbino all’ Europa, Berlin: Edition Open Access Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge (forthcoming).
Verdonk, J. J. (1966). Petrus Ramus en de Wiskunde. Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp. N. V./Dr. H. J. Prakke & H. M. G. Prakke.
Verdonk J. J. (1968) Über die Geometrie des Petrus Ramus. Sudhoffs Archiv 52: 371–380
Volgraff J. A. (1918) Risneri Opticam Cum Annotationibus Willebrordi Snellii. In Aedibus Plantini, Gandavi
Waddington C. (1855) Ramus (Pierre De La Ramée): Sa Vie, ses Écrits et ses Opinions. Librairie de Ch. Meyrueis et Ce, Paris
Westman R. S. (1980) The astronomer’s role in the sixteenth century: A preliminary study. History of Science 18: 105–147
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dupré, S. Kepler’s optics without hypotheses. Synthese 185, 501–525 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-011-9977-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-011-9977-6