Abstract

Copernicus "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" as an exapmle of a discourse on a method In addition to the calculations conmprehensible to the astronomers, the work of Copernicus presented to Pope Paul III for approval, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, includes also a descriptive introduction. The author uses it to report on the current astronomical knowledge, explains the importance of the accomplishments of his great predecessors, as well as the reasons for which a correction of their theories is necessary. In this part of the work the importance of discovery and adjustment of a proper method to a specific area of nature research is stressed as well-long before the Descartian "Discourse on the Method"". Copernicus stresses that the misteakes of his predecessors occurred because "something necessary" would be often discarded, and replaced by something "alien, not belonging to the matter". The selective treatment of the phenomena and justification of the relations between them using non-meritorical indications and arguments might, but does not have lead to the correct conclusions. The introduction and the first tome of "De Revolutionibus" provide an example of a discourse on a method of creating knowledge. Copernicus displayed the benefits of his method, relating mainly to the authority of Aristotle, Ptolemy and Euclid. His accomplishment opened the way leading to revealing many other invisible assumptions, limiting the possibilities of researching nature. Some of them - the relation of subject and object, the trap of idealisation and usage of the models of researched phenomena - are discussed in the following article