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"Ragep, F. J, author, editor"
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Before Copernicus : the cultures and contexts of scientific learning in the fifteenth century
\"This collection of essays explores the multi-cultural, multi-religious, and multi-lingual context of learning on the eve of the Copernican revolution. Although Copernicus's work and its influence have been subject to a number of excellent studies, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to Copernicus's sources and the diverse cultures and contexts of learning in which he lived and by which he could have been inspired. Previous authors who have attended to this background have tended to put forth singular and rather narrow explanations of Copernicus's turn to heliocentrism. In contrast, this volume does not seek to provide \"the\" explanation, or even \"an\" explanation, but rather provides the reader with aspects of the complex and surprisingly rich intellectual and scientific world before Copernicus.\"-- Provided by publisher.
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On Astronomia : an Arabic critical edition and English translation of Epistle 3
The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity' is an encyclopedic compendium, probably composed in tenth-century Iraq by a society of adepts with Platonic, Pythagorean, and Shi'i tendencies. Its 52 sections ('epistles') are divided into four parts (Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Sciences of the Soul and Intellect, and Theology). The current volume provides an edition, translation, and notes to Epistle 3 ('On Astronomia'), which forms one of the 14 sections on Mathematics. The content is a mixture of elementary astronomy and astrology, but it is not a beginner's textbook. Rather, the purpose is to use examples from those disciplines to provide spiritual, moral, and soteriological guidance. Thus the Epistle uses the argument from design to show the necessity for a Creator who made the harmonious universe; this wondrous design is then employed by the authors as a model, providing humans with a paradigm for proper ethical, political, and even economic conduct; and the study of Astronomia helps the soul achieve ultimate happiness as it seeks to throw off the shackles of this mundane world and oppressive body in favour of the purity of the celestial realm.0Although by no means typical of Islamic astronomical literature, Epistle 3 of the Brethren of Purity gives a window into a fascinating and intriguing group operating during the early period of Islam who sought to continue and adopt one of the esoteric strands of Hellenistic philosophy within an Islamic context, meshing astronomy, astrology, Platonic-Pythagorean philosophy, Quranic and Biblical quotations, and anecdotes from the lives of the Abrahamic prophets.
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