my of Copernicus’ time, a condition that applied likewise to the philosophy of Kant’s contemporaries.106 For instance, if the uncritical standpoint is applied in an attempt to classify, structure, describe, and explain the cosmos, then the conclusion must be that the celestial hosts must revolve around the Earth - the observer/astronomer - since this is what the Earth-bound observer observes, and what scholastic authority states. Kant held that the results of the rational reconstruction of objective reality were shattering.Another centre of the universe had to take the place of the Earth and the geocentric world picture was replaced by a heliocentric one.107 And intellectually, the revolutionary conclusions of Copernicus’ astronomical theory were that previously inexplicable and unsolvable theoretical problems could be solved by innovative thinking, involving a simple change of perspective.108 In conclusion, according to Kant’s account it was by a rational challenge of prevailing dogmas and dogmatism that Copernicus managed to topple an inconsistent system in favor of a consistent one of new and securer truths regarding the structure of objective reality.The only tool needed was an unyielding point of departure, identified by the subject’s powers of analysis and deduction. For it was only on this rational basic necessity and apodictic firmness in deductive reasoning that knowledge could be moored securely.109 p a r t i 1 , c h a p t e r 2 68 106 One may also understand Kant’s critique of the Ptolemaic cosmology as a critique of a unconscious antropomorphication of the universe, i.e., a tendency to construe astronomical reality from a purely human point of view. Cf. Hägerström’s critique of philosophical and other forms of antropomorphication. E.g., Hägerström, “Filosofien som vetenskap,” p. 7. 107 Wedberg, Filosofins historia, vol. 2: Nyare tiden till romantiken, pp. 187-190; Russell, History, pp. 513-525; Filosofin genom tiderna: 1600-talet, 1700-talet, Marc-Wogau, ed., pp. 17-18; A Kant Dictionary, Caygill, ed., Copernican revolution. 108 Kant, Cr. P. R., pp. B xv-xix. 109 Regarding Kant’s description of the secure courses and paths traveled by the rational sciences of logic and mathematics in comparison with the insecure and troublesome paths taken by object sciences, such as, for example, physics and metaphysics, see ibid., pp. B vii-xix.
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