Kepler is mainly known among historians of science due to his astronomical
theories and his approaches to problems having to do with philosophy of science and
ontology. This thesis attempts to contribute to Kepler studies by providing a
comprehensive discussion of a topic hitherto not really considered, namely Kepler’s
theory of the soul, a general theory of knowledge or epistemology whose central
problem is what makes knowledge possible—rather than what makes knowledge true, as
happens in the case of Descartes’s and Bacon’s epistemologies. Kepler’s theory consists
of four issues: the theory of the different sorts of soul—i.e. the human soul, the animal
soul, the vegetable soul, and the Earth soul—concerning their faculties, the differences
and the resemblances that emerge among them, the relation they maintain with their own
bodies and the world, and the distinction soul-world. The thesis discusses these issues
from a historical perspective, that is, it reconstructs the way they appear in three periods
of Kepler’s career: the period prior to the publication of the Mysterium
Cosmographicum, the period going from 1596 to 1611, and the harmonic period.
Finally, Kepler’s epistemology is briefly contrasted with Descartes’s and Bacon’s in
order to suggest why Kepler’s is philosophically interesting and valuable.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:MWU.1993/248 |
| Date | 05 June 2006 |
| Creators | Escobar-Ortiz, Jorge Manuel |
| Contributors | Martens, Rhonda (Philosophy), Stack, Michael (Philosophy) Heller, Henry (History) |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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