TABLE OF CONTENTS: Figures and Tables ix
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations of Works Frequently Cited xiii
Introduction 3
1. Kepler's Life and Times 10
Select Biography 10
Kepler's Astronomical Inheritance 18
Kepler's Philosopbical Inheritance 32
2. The Mysterium cosmographicum and Kepler's Early Approach to Natural Philosophy 39
The Content of the Mysterium cosmographicum 39
Kepler's Cosmology 48
Kepler's Approach to Natural Philosophy 49
3. Kepler's Apologia: An Early Modern Treatise on Realism 57
Extra-Astronomical Considerations 58
The Nature of Astronomical Hypotheses 60
The Testing of Astronomucal Hypotheses 63
Kepler's Improved Notion of Testability 64
Concluding Remarks: The Archetypes 67
4. Kepler's Archetypes and the Astronomia nova 69
The Status of Hypotheses in Physical Astronomy 70
The Replacement of the Mean by the True Sun 71
The Vicarious Hypothesis 76
The New Physics 79
Kepler's Second Law 84
Oval Orbits 87
Physical and Geometrical Models of Liberation 91
The Ellipse of Chapter 59 95
Concluding Remarks: Archetypes in the Astronomia 97
5. The Aristotelian Kepler 99
The Aristotelian Challenge 9O
Physical Astronomy as a Mixed Discipline 103
The Mathematical and the Physical 106
Concluding Remarks 111
6. The Harmonice mundi 112
Kepler and Ptolemy 112
The Essence of Archetypal Mathematics 118
Synopsis of Book V 120
The Influence of Kepler's Haramonies on His Cosmology 136
7. The Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae: Kepler's Mature Physical Astronomy 142
The Nature of Astronomy and Observation 144
Archetypes as a Prerequisite for Physics 146
Book IV and the Archetypes 147
Book V 163
Concluding Remarks 167
Conclusion: The Fate of Kepler's Philosophical Thought 169
The Threat to the Perfectibility of Astronomy 169
Kepler's Philosophical Legacy 172
Notes 177
Bibliography 191
Index 199
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