Before we start today's episode, I just wanted to make a quick announcement, namely that the

sixth volume of the book series based on the podcast is now out. This book is available for

Oxford University Press and is called A History of Philosophy without any gaps, Byzantine and

Renaissance Philosophy. It offers revised versions of the scripted episodes from those two series

with additional references and a lovely cover in Imperial Purple, as befitting the many rulers

named Constantine mentioned in the first half of the book. While we're at it, I'll also mention

that all five of the previous volumes are now available as paperbacks. So please consider

taking this opportunity to imitate a Renaissance humanist and build up your library. If you buy

them from an independent bookstore, so much the better. Now on with the show.

Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to The History of Philosophy podcast,

brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's College London

and the LMU in Munich, online at historyofphilosophy.net.

Today's episode, the world doesn't revolve around you, Copernicus.

We are used to the way scholars try to complicate nuance and correct popular

conceptions of historical figures and events. We're not really sure about Luther

nailing those teases to the door, and if he did, it wasn't that unusual. The Holy Roman Empire

was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire, and speaking of Rome, Fiddles hadn't even been

invented when Nira watched it burn. But I don't recall covering any figure in this podcast,

where the expert and non-expert stories drift so far apart as they do in the case of Nicholas

Copernicus. For the layperson, it's almost too good to be true that his great work on astronomy

was called on the revolutions, because that's just what he was, a revolutionary who set out quite

literally to overturn the ancient and medieval worldview and replace it with something more scientific.

...