The Birth of History and Philosophy of Science
Kepler's 'A Defence of Tycho against Ursus' with Essays on its Provenance and Significance

Nicholas Jardine offers here an edition and the first translation into English of Johannes Kepler's A Defence of Tycho against Ursus.

Nicholas Jardine (Author)

9780521346993, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 18 February 1988

312 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.46 kg

Review of the hardback: '… its importance in Kepler's scholarship has been recognised for many decades and Jardine's book at last brings it to light … Jardine's translation … is lucid and meticulously annotated. [His] essays are remarkable for their intrinsic human as well as scholarly interest.' Philosophy of Science

Nicholas Jardine offers here an edition and the first translation into English of Johannes Kepler's A Defence of Tycho against Ursus. He accompanies this with essays on the provenance of the treatise - the circumstances which provoked Kepler to write it, an analysis of its strategy, style and historical sources and of the contents of Ursus' Treatise on Astronomical Hypotheses to which Kepler was replying. Dr Jardine also provides three extended interpretive essays on the intrinsic interest and historical significance of the work.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations of works frequently cited
Introduction
Part I. The Provenance of the Apologia: 1. The circumstances of composition
2. Ursus' Tractacus
3. Kepler's initial reaction to the Tractatus
4. The scope and form of the Apologia
Part II. Apologia pro Tychone contra Ursum: 5. Text and translation of the Apologia
Part III. The Significance of the Apologia: 6. Against the sceptics
7. The status of astronomy
8. Historiography
9. Final reflections
Index of names.

Subject Areas: Astronomy, space & time [PG], Philosophy of science [PDA]