Plato's Doctrine Respecting the Rotation of the Earth and Aristotle's Comment Upon That Doctrine — Aristotle — John Shaqi
Plato's Doctrine Respecting the Rotation of the Earth and Aristotle's Comment Upon That Doctrine
Aristotle · en
1. "Platon a toujours été considéré dans l'antiquité comme
partisan de l'immobilité absolue de la terre." M. Cousin had
before said, "Aristote se fonde sur ce passage pour établir que
Platon a fait tourner la terre sur elle-même: mais Aristote est,
dans l'antiquité, le seul qui soutienne cette opinion."
My reply is, that Aristotle is himself a portion and member of
antiquity, and that the various Platonists, whom he undertakes to
refute, are portions of it also. If M. Cousin appeals to the
authority of antiquity, it must be to antiquity, not merely
_minus_ Aristotle and these contemporary Platonists, but
_against_ them. Now these are just the witnesses who had the
best means of knowledge. Besides which, Aristotle himself,
adopting and anxious to demonstrate the immobility of the earth,
had every motive to cite Plato as a supporter, if Plato was
such--and every motive to avoid citing Plato as an opponent, unless
the truth of the case compelled him to do so. I must here add, that
M. Cousin represents Aristotle as ascribing to Plato the doctrine
that "la terre tourne sur elle-même." This is not strictly exact.
Aristotle understands the Platonic Timæus as saying, "That the
earth is packed and moved _round the axis of the kosmos_"--a
different proposition.
2. "Dans plusieurs endroits de ses ouvrages où Platon parle de
l'équilibre de la terre, il ne dit pas un mot de sa rotation."
I know of only _one_ such passage--Phædon, p. 108--where
undoubtedly Plato does not speak of the rotation of the earth; but
neither does he speak of the rotation of the sidereal sphere and
of the kosmos--nor of the axis of the kosmos. It is the figure and
properties of the earth, considered in reference to mankind who
inhabit it, that Plato sketches in the Phædon; he takes little
notice of its cosmical relations, and gives no general theory
about the kosmos. M. Cousin has not adverted to the tenth Book of
the Republic, where Plato does propound a cosmical theory,
expressly symbolising the axis of the kosmos with its rotatory
functions.
3. "Si la _terre suit le mouvement de l'axe du monde_, le
mouvement de la huitième sphère, qui est Le Même, devient nul par
rapport à elle, et les étoiles fixes, qui appartiennent à elle,
demeurent en apparence dans une immobilité absolue: ce qui est
contraire à _l'expérience et au sens commun_, et à l'opinion
de Platon, exprimée dans ce même passage."