Agostino Steuco et la question de l’immensité cosmique entre théologie et science au temps de la Réforme

Agostino Steuco investigates, among others, questions concerning the infinity of the universe and the eternity of the world. Steuco, a contemporary of Copernicus and an excellent biblical scholar, established a distinction between extension and space in his Commentary on the Psalms (1529). While an extension inheres in a subject, space is understood as a relation or an interval between two realities. In his Cosmopeia (1535), then again in his Philosophia Perennis (1540), he admits the existence of an uncreated and immobile empyrean heavens that embodies the place of the divine and the infinite universe. Copernicus, on the other hand, preferred to hold the immobility of the starry heavens. In his De Revolutionibus (1543), Copernicus does underline beyond all doubt that the sphere of fixed stars, as immobile, constitutes a point of reference for all heavenly movement, and thus the veritable place of the universe. This paper connects philosophical investigation with history of science, comparing the original thought of Steuco with the Copernican model, showing that for Steuco the universe is immobile at the level of the empyrean heavens, while for Copernicus the universe is immobile at the level of the starry heavens

Astronomy · Astrophysics · Copernican principle · Copernicus · Epistemology · Eternity · Humanities · Physics · Universe · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Philosophy and Science · Medieval Philosophy and Theology · Philosophy