The role of comets in the Copernican revolution

Goddu’s Copernicus: An Essay Review of André Goddu’s <i>Copernicus and the Aristotelian Tradition</i>

“…Despite these errors and confusions, Goddu concludes, correctly, that it is too simple to classify Copernicus as a realist or a fictionalist in the sense used by modern commentators. In a series of papers beginning with Barker and Goldstein [1988], the general question of the reality of celestial spheres in the 16th century has been addressed in a new way. In addition to new historical evidence, these authors suggested that the issue should be reappraised against the background of the theory of demonstration employed by 16th-century scientists, rather than by means of 20th-century categories like realism and instrumentalism paired with retrojections of 20th-century philosophical conceptions of scientific method.…”