Posted by Pat on October 22, 1999 at 19:06:24:
In Reply to: Platonic solids posted by Tom on October 22, 1999 at 13:12:03:
: Tom: Certainly you're right so far as these passages would be read by someone who knows the philosophical source of the prejudice that Sagan is addressing here.
Pat:
I've long believed that if you can't say something directly and plainly, you either don't know what you're talking about, or don't want anyone else to know. I'm not sure which it is in this case.
Tom:
Most readers would not.
Pat:
Ah, we the ignorant masses. Tom will now educate us.
Tom:
I certainly didn't at the time I first watched Cosmos. Certainly that won't shock you, since you already seem to think I'm intellectually challenged ; ) I did recognize the broader implication of what Sagan was saying about Kepler though-- that he was under the spell of medieval superstition until his brave refusal to dismiss the evidence brought him enlightenment.
Pat:
Kepler, as you probably know, did horoscopes, and thought that personal horoscopes were more accurate then popularly believed at the time. He was an interesting guy exactly because he had one foot in modern science, and one in medieval superstition.
Tom:
But even if we construe this as an acknowledgment of Kepler's debt to Plato, it is a purely negative acknowledgment–one that would cause the naive reader to presume that Plato's influence on science was inhibitory.
Pat: In fact, Sagan's epitath for Kepler was;
Really? While Kepler may have been a Platonist, I don't see that Sagan attributed to Plato any of Kepler's difficulties or faults.
"He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions." Again, the evidence shows precisely the opposite of what you have assumed.
Tom:
Part of what I'm saying is that Plato's work had a very positive impact upon the evolution of modern science. Sagan does not want to acknowledge this because of the close intellectual alliance that existed between Christianity and Platonic philosophy.
Pat:
A rather large and elaborate headdress to put on such a small head. As you've seen, you have completely misread what Sagan had to say about Kepler. Trying to expand that error to include Platonism in generaly is beyond silly.