Adjusting Venus: The Use of Maximum Elongations in the Almagest and Ptolemy’s Theory of Knowledge

There has been much debate surrounding the way in which Ptolemy handled the observations that are behind his planetary models. This article aims at presenting an interesting case of manipulation of observational data within the epistemological frame of what we may call Ptolemy’s philosophy of knowle...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Recio, Gonzalo Luis
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/72664
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/72664
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Ptolomeo
Almagesto
Modelos Planetarios
Epistemología Antigua
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/6.1
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/6
Descripción
Sumario:There has been much debate surrounding the way in which Ptolemy handled the observations that are behind his planetary models. This article aims at presenting an interesting case of manipulation of observational data within the epistemological frame of what we may call Ptolemy’s philosophy of knowledge. It deals with an interesting case from the Almagest, that of the determination of the longitudes of the apogee and perigee of Venus’s deferent, and shows that the selections and adjustments Ptolemy carried out in order to obtain the needed results are nothing but an analogous application of the epistemological doctrines expressed in his On the Kriterion and in his Harmonics.