Plurality of Worlds: The Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant

by Steven J. Dick

This is a fascinating history of the debate over the question of extraterrestrial life from Classical Greece to the mid-eighteenth century. Using many primary and secondary sources, this book analyses why such great thinkers as Aristotle, Aquinas, Ockham, Galileo, Kepler, Huygens, and Kant thought the debate over the plurality of worlds a subject for serious discussion. The author shows how conflicting arguments from science, philosophy, and theology gradually converged to the same opinion - that intelligent life must fill the universe.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Steven J. Dick is an American astronomer, author, and historian of science most noted for his work in the field of astrobiology. He served as the NASA Chief Historian and Director of the NASA History Office from 2003 to 2009 and, prior to that, as an astronomer and historian of science at the U.S. Naval Observatory for more than two decades.

Reviews

[Mark Moon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice and concise! This is a partial history of the idea, in Western philosophy, that there are other worlds "out there", possibly inhabited by sentient beings. The earliest roots of this idea in the West come from the ancient Greek atomists. I was fascinated to learn that Kepler was convinced the Moon was inhabited.

[isabela baldini · Rating 2 out of 5]

li só as partes sobre filosofia natural newtoniana do século XVIII