The senses and logic do not always reveal the truth: How Copernicus and Einstein changed the philosophical thought

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) with his heliocentric theory of the universe published in 1543 changed world history and science to prove that the sun is the center of the universe and that the earth, moon and planets revolve around the sun. With his theory, Copernicus overthrew the geocentric theory of the universe of the famous astronomer Ptolemy (168 BC) that had been in place for over a thousand years, before and during the Middle Age, who believed that the earth was stationary and was the center of universe and that the sun, moon, stars and planets revolved around it. But the heliocentric theory of the universe of Copernicus not only represented an absolute change in science but it meant a radical change in the method of thought, in the way to obtain the knowledge, because it revealed that the senses and logic do not always lead to the truth.

Copernicus's theory is the first and largest contribution of the Modern Age to world history. The Modern Age begins with the discovery of America in 1492 and culminates with the French Revolution in 1789. The Modern Age is divided into three stages: Renaissance, Baroque and Enlightenment. The other great work of the modern era that changed world history was the Law of Universal Gravitation published in 1687 by Isaac Newton (1642-1727), in his book Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.

The discovery of America and the Heliocentric Theory of the Universe are the facts that give rise to all the great transformations of the modern world, including the development of science.

How Copernicus changed the theory of knowledge and philosophical thought?

Ptolemy's formulated his Geocentric Theory of the Universe based on his reason, senses and logic: Ptolemy observed the movement of the sun, moon, stars and planets and concluded that the earth was fixed in space and the heavenly bodies moved around it. That finding is what is known as the Geocentric Theory of the Universe.

Nicolaus Copernicus thought in the opposite direction of Ptolemy. Copernicus doubted his logic and his senses and instead of considering that the heavenly bodies moved around the earth thought the opposite, i.e., that the earth and celestial bodies move around the sun; this is what is known as the heliocentric theory of the universe.

This thought of Copernicus represented a change of 180 degrees for the theory of knowledge, the philosophical thinking, for science and the Catholic religion who throughout the Middle Ages had sustained the Ptolemy theory; for these reasons the contribution of Copernicus is known as the Copernican Revolution because through his method of thought –opposite to the senses and logic- he changed the main concepts that had been in force for centuries.

Copernicus thus opened the door to a new way of thinking, which was later developed by the philosopher René Descartes (1595-1650), founder of Rationalism, who uses the concept of methodical doubt as the basis of their ideas. But these ideas of Descartes had its inspiration precisely in the method of thought developed 94 years before by Nicholas Copernicus. Copernicus did not build a formal theory of knowledge, but he did it practically. Descartes took advantage of the great discovery of the method of thinking of Copernicus and expressed it formally and systematically through his writings, including the Discourse on Method published in 1637, his most important work.

How Albert Einstein changed the Theory of Universal Gravitation of Isaac Newton?

Isaac Newton wrote another work that transformed thinking and science in the Modern Age: the Law of Universal Gravitation. According to this theory, the mass of bodies exerts attraction on other bodies and all objects, law applicable on earth and the cosmos.

Newton formulates his theory employing the same way of thinking of Ptolemy, i.e., Newton was guided by his reason, logic and senses and concluded that the earth exerts a pull on objects.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) followed a different path of Isaac Newton. Like Copernicus, Albert Einstein doubted his senses and logic and through his Theory of General Relativity (1915) found that the mass of the bodies curves the space-time. It is the curvature of space what pushes the Earth and other celestial bodies to the sun and objects to Earth. Einstein concluded, therefore, that the mass of bodies no exerts attraction on other bodies as Newton had stated in his Law of Universal Gravitation but the curvature of space is what drives the movement of celestial bodies toward the sun, determines the movement of the heavenly bodies to each other and the movement of objects towards the Earth.

The importance for the philosophical thought

The method of thought developed by Copernicus and Einstein at different times led to two of the greatest discoveries of mankind and revealed an indisputable fact: that logic and senses do not always lead to truth.