THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF 'WORLD SYSTEM'

摘要

In the Sidereus nuncius published at the beginning of 1610, Galileo twice declared that he would develop his ideas in a Systema mundi in which he would take sides with Copernicus. Shortly afterwards, in a letter to Belisario Vinta, Galileo confirmed his intention, evoking a future "De sistemate seu constitutione universi, concetto immenso e pieno di filosofia, astronomia e geometria". This work, as is well known, appeared only in 1632 - that is, sixteen years after the condemnation of heliocentrism and the placing of Copernicus's De revolutionibus on the Index. It was published under the title Dialogo ... sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, Tolemaico e Copemicano. Whence comes the expression systema mundi, rendered famous by Galileo, given that it was in already well-established usage when he employed it in the title of his celebrated book? To the best of my knowledge, specialists on Galileo have never asked themselves this question, including (with one exception) the editors or translators of the Dialogo. Which is odd; but the lack of interest may be explained by the following: Pierre Duhem never thought if necessary to explore the origin and meaning of this expression in the one context where one would expect to be enlightened with such an explanation, that is, in his immense ten-volume work, Le systeme du monde: Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon a Copernic. Indeed, strange as it may seem, one may seek in vain in Duhem's work for a definition of the subject at the heart of his research.