The Sleepwalkers

What Hacker News says

1. awanderingmindDec 2024
   For anyone interested in the topic of Copernicus' heliocentrism, I can recommend Arthur Koestler's 'The Sleepwalkers': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleepwalkers:_A_History_of....

   While it does contain some speculation that is, in my opinion, poorly grounded, overall it is very informative and does a good job of dispelling some of the oversimplified narratives that are told about e.g. Galileo's persecution by the Church. (Of course since this is HN I can't wait to hear somebody tell me about some oversimplified narratives due to Koestler!)

   It's also just very written and full of amazing anecdotes - e.g. about how Kepler's mother was accused of witchcraft(!)

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2. zogrodeaJul 2024
   Reading The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler may be interesting for you. Science and cosmology has progressed tremendously because of people like Kepler who have had right conclusions despite incorrect methods.

   One relevant excerpt:

   “A phrase seems to have been humming in his ear like a tune one cannot get rid of; it crops up in his writings over and again: there is a force in the sun which moves the planet, there is a force in the sun, there is a force in the sun. And since there is a force in the sun, there must exist some beautifully simple relation between the planet’s distance from the sun and its speed. A light shines the brighter the nearer we are to its source, and the same must apply to the force of the sun: the closer the planet to it, the quicker it will move. This is his instinctive conviction, already expressed in the Mysterium Cosmographicum; but now, at last, he has succeeded in proving it.

   In fact he has not. He has proved the inverse ratio of speed to distance only for the two extreme points of the orbit; and his extension of this ‘Law’ to the entire orbit was a patently incorrect generalization. Moreover, Kepler knew this, and admitted it at the end of the thirty-second chapter,18 before he became airborne; but immediately afterwards, he conveniently forgot it. This is the first of the critical mistakes which ‘as if by a miracle’ cancelled out, and led Kepler to the discovery of his Second Law. It looks as if his conscious, critical faculties were anaesthetized by the creative impulse, by his impatience to get to grips with the physical forces in the solar system.“

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3. zogrodeaJul 2023
   Those interested in the history of scientific thought might enjoy a great book by Arthur Koestler called "The Sleepwalkers", accessible, readable and well-written. It's also endorsed by modern philosopher John Gray as a precursor to (and a better book than) Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".
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4. pinewurstFeb 2022
   “The Sleepwalkers” by Arthur Koestler
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5. igraviousApr 2018
   > Since R.M. Hare's "Language of Morals" is on the list, I recommend Alasdair MacIntyre's "After Virtue" should be on the list for any one who want to study Moral Philosophy today.

   “After Virtue” is a legit recommendation.

   > Along with Popper and Kuhn's works on that list, read Larry Laudan's "Progress and its problems" and "Science and Relativism: some key controversies in the philosophy of science". This goes under Philosophy of Sciences.

   I demur. Comparing two giants of the Philosophy of Science (nb: not plural) to a relative unknown. I would recommend instead “Against Method” (1975) by Paul Feyerabend or “The Sleepwalkers” (1959) by Arthur Koestler.

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6. adonovanOct 2016
   In Sleepwalkers (great book), Arthur Koestler argues that many senior church figures were keen and supportive followers of Galileo's physical investigations, but repeatedly warned him not to cross the line between observing the universe, and questioning the role of God and Man. Galileo was too proud to keep to one side of that line, and Koestler laments that the current epistemological opposition of science and religion dates from that unnecessary conflict.
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