Friday, July 6, 2012

Copernican Inversion

In the passages that allude to Copernicus, Kant's only use of 'revolution' is with respect to astronomical processes being studied, not to any paradigm shift effected by Copernicus.  Furthermore, Kant's own transformation that is the topic of those passages--from perception as conforming to its objects, to perceptual objects conforming to perceptual processes--can be more accurately characterized as an 'inversion'.  Now, the transition that has been usually connoted by the phrase 'Copernican revolution'--from Geocentrism to Heliocentrism--is not an 'inversion', i. e. the latter pertains, in conjunction with the tilt of the Earth's axis, to annual phenomena, while the former pertains to daily phenomena.  In contrast, the transition from the Sun rotating around the Earth, to the Earth spinning on its axis with respect to an immobile Sun, is inversive.  So, 'Copernican inversion' better characterizes the Kantian transformation than does 'Copernican revolution'.

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