Aiton takes a look at Johannes Kepler in light of recent
research that became available back around 1976. It seems that Aiton holds key
to understanding Kepler is that Kepler should be considered as a single
individual that rationally lived and developed thoughts of both the physical
and metaphysical world rather than embracing the physical work that he did and
casting off the metaphysical as flights of fancy.
I am in agreement with this treatment of Kepler as we must
consider a person as a whole to begin to truly understand whatever motivations
that might have in moving forward in work. There are many examples of men and
women driven to science to affirm their Faith and bring glory to God through
their remarkable research that have added to the panoply of knowledge that we
now have today. Were it not for their conviction, it is possible such works
would not have been completed.
For Kepler, he wanted to bring rationality to astrology. He
wanted to make it more scientific and what I consider to be "hard."
He didn't believe that the signs and portents directly affected us, rather, he
felt that they resonated with our soul to influence us. This thought process
also allowed him to develop a method of meteorological forecasting.
Kepler felt that God was praised by his work in astronomy.
It was an extension of his Faith and Theology to do great works to advance the
realm of astronomy. All told, Kepler sought harmony, and this seems to be a
very strong desire for him that borders on the divine.
Rather than continue to make a point-by-point recounting of
the article as I have almost done to this point, I am going to move on from
here to think about how this can be used in a classroom.
Understanding the motivation of a student when they think
about a problem is extremely important in my eyes. The reason why they choose
to invoke certain laws or rules can give glimpses into their thought process so
that we can better educate them and train them to think similar to that of a
physicist. We see in this article that taking Kepler as a whole person, all of
his aspects in his thoughts, help to illuminate even more his motivating
factors. He is far from a student in the sense of what we are discussing, but I
would say that he saw himself as a true student of God and wanted to unravel
the mysteries that he saw to bring glory to Him.
To reiterate, knowing the motivations of the student will
allow the instructor to better tailor their lectures to resonate and advance
understanding.
E. J. Aiton, "Johannes Kepler in the light of recent research," History of Science, Vol. 14, pages 77-100 (1976)
