曲折的理性之路——反思吴以义的《从哥白尼到牛顿:日心学说的确立》

The Tortuous Paths of Rationality: On Wu Yiyi's From Copernicus to Newton: The Establishment of Heliocentrism

吴以义先生的《从哥白尼到牛顿:日心学说的确立》一书是近年来国内最优秀的科学史研究成果之一。在介绍此书的优点之后,文章指出三个深刻地影响着日心说的确立却又未能被吴先生予以重视的背景因素:1)中世纪学者对亚里士多德自然哲学的开放态度为哥白尼革命提供了条件;2)中世纪末期数学家的社会地位微妙地影响着数学天文学模型的实在论说明;3)经验概念在日心说确立过程中以更复杂的方式进行新旧转变。

Wu Yiyi＇s From Copernicus to Newton： The Establishment of Heliocentrism, pub- lished by Shanghai Renmin Press （2013）, is one of the best investigations of history of science in recent years in China. After considering the merits of the book, I point out that there are three contextual factors deserved more attention paid by the author, as they greatly affected the origins and the developments of heliocentrism ： 1 ） that the ecclesiastical scholars＇ open attitude toward the Aristotelian natural philosophy facilitated the Copernican Revolution; 2） that the social status of mathematicians in the late Middle Age affected their realistic interpretation of mathematical models; and 3 ） that during this period, the Aristotelian notion of experience had undergone a more complicated modi- fication than what Wu describes.