This project will examine the role of vitalistic (life-force) principles in Kepler's astronomy. Though often considered an early forerunner of the mechanical world view in light the celestial physics presented in his New Astronomy (1609), which offers only a limited view of his system of astronomical causes. By contrast, his study of the supernova of 1604, On the New Star (1606), Kepler compares the origins of comets and 'new stars' to the products of a cyclical process of decay and renewal occurring in the body of an animal. Kepler's application of anatomical knowledge to the ethereal body of the heavens suggests a broader understanding of his celestial physics, one that makes better sense of the dynamic course of the cosmos as a whole. Begun after the bulk of the New Astronomy was already complete, On the New Star was a counterpart, rather than a 'less modern' qualification, of Kepler's pioneering conception of planetary forces.
Intellectual Merit This project will shed new light on the relation of Kepler's two texts, elucidating the inseparable links between his ideas of agency in astronomy and other areas of interest, especially astrology and music. By comparing Kepler's ideas with those of his intellectual contemporaries, this project will also deepen and diversify our understanding of early modern physics more generally, challenging us to bridge gaps between ideas of agency and cause in the fields of mathematics, medicine, and natural philosophy.
Potential Broader Impacts The results of this research will ultimately lead to two primary products: (1) a monograph study of Kepler's vitalistic views over the course of his career, and (2) the first-ever English translation, with an introduction and notes, of Kepler's On the New Star. In each of these efforts, the PI will work towards breaking down the modern dichotomy of vitalistic and mechanistic principles and restoring their close and complex links in the context of early modern science. This will be done in large part by building on the recent studies of seventeenth-century anatomy and medicine and drawing attention to their relevance for Kepler's astronomy and other 'less modern' areas of interest. While the monograph study will appeal to a wide variety of historians and philosophers of science, the translation of Kepler's On the New Star will attract an even wider audience of scholars, students, and scientific enthusiasts more generally.
This project considers the revolutionary role of Johannes Kepler in the cosmological crisis of the seventeenth century. When claims to physical causes still remained beyond the boundaries of astronomy, Kepler subjected the planets and stars to the same causal principles widely thought to hold sway on earth. The result was "a far-reaching philosophy of the heavens" (Westman, 2011), which fathomed the form and substance of celestial events on the basis of natural knowledge. While recent studies have stressed the role of light in this synthesis, the Principal Investigator (PI) turns to core analogies Kepler employed primarily in his astrology. To bridge the epistemological rift between the heavens and earth, Kepler compared the cosmos to a living body whose every contour bore signs of life. In his ‘celestial biology,’ Kepler claimed that comets and other forms of novelty in the heavens suggested the same cycle of decay and renewal that occurred among plants, animals, and the very bowels of a living (and breathing) earth. The project has produced a series of academic articles culminating in the complete monograph, Kepler’s Cosmological Synthesis: Astrology, Mechanism and the Soul (Brill, 2013). The PI proves that Kepler, in his mission "to find mathematical relations maintained purely physically" (Gal and Chen-Morris, 2013), applied to the heavens vitalistic principles prevalent in contemporary anatomy and biology. The book builds on recent studies of early modern astronomy and breaks with our received view of Kepler as a modern mechanist who suffered from a regrettable case of Renaissance philosophy. In the end, the study sheds new light on one of the foundational figures of the Scientific Revolution. By tracing the unlikely intersections of mechanism and vitalism that transformed the fabric of the heavens, it uncovers a new form of coherence in Kepler’s world picture. Specialists and students in the history of science, as well as related disciplines, will find great interest in the study.
