That's an interesting way of looking at Copernicus, and when I think back to all the Dante I had to read at university it totally makes sense. It's as if Hell is the center of a sphere and Dante continually progresses outwards. How aware of planets and the way they moved were people of Copernicus' time? I mean, picturing the earth at the lowest point surrounded by successive planet-studded spheres, each more rarified and celestial in the heavenly sense - that's about as un-arrogant as you can get.
We're used to the solar system model, where the sun is at the center AND ALSO forms the entire solar system by the force of its gravitational pull, provides light for all life to exist. To the person familiar with this way of thinking of the solar system, being at the center = being the most important. I just don't think medieval philosophers/astronomers thought this way; more of a lowest/most earthly = less important.
The works of Michael de Montaigne give you a flavour of what people at the time thought:
"The most wretched and frail of all creatures is man and withal the proudest. he feels and sees himself lodged here in the dirt and filth of the world, nailed and riveted to the worst and deadest part of the universe, in the lowest story of the house, the most remote from the heavenly arch"
That kid appears to be brandishing a baseball bat and a samurai sword. Great stuff. At least its more imaginative than the bowie knives the thugs down here carry.
There was a report on BBC Scotland last year about Ned gangs and knives and they showed footage of a gang of hooligans waving knives in the air and looking hard for the camera.
One kid had a meat cleaver, which he then stored down the front of his trousers.
Unfortunately, as he was 14 at the most, he had no doubt already sired a handful of weans.
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We're used to the solar system model, where the sun is at the center AND ALSO forms the entire solar system by the force of its gravitational pull, provides light for all life to exist. To the person familiar with this way of thinking of the solar system, being at the center = being the most important. I just don't think medieval philosophers/astronomers thought this way; more of a lowest/most earthly = less important.
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"The most wretched and frail of all creatures is man and withal the proudest. he feels and sees himself lodged here in the dirt and filth of the world, nailed and riveted to the worst and deadest part of the universe, in the lowest story of the house, the most remote from the heavenly arch"
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec02.html
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Reporting Scotland gave it the subheadline of "Neds on the net"
I heard it and I thought of you.
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One kid had a meat cleaver, which he then stored down the front of his trousers.
Unfortunately, as he was 14 at the most, he had no doubt already sired a handful of weans.
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