Claudius Ptolemy

Background Info

• 85-165 AD
• in the tradition of Eudoxus & Hipparchus (3-5c earlier)

Might have thought astronomy not to determine the true position of the stars, but to calculate positions for astrology.

What does he mean by hypothesis? -> educated conjecture does he think his theory is true?

• do the hypotheses give us calculations or reality?
• I think he's aiming for reality

Ptolemaic (geocentric) method of navigation was used to find position at sea throughout the 1960s

!Ptolemy - Method of SciencePtolemy - Method of Science
Ptolemy - Method of Science
Ptolemy lived in the second century AD and wrote the first extant treatise on the heavens. How did he arrive at conclusions about something that is so complex and intangible? He must have taken his limited observations and done something with them. Now, how does he use these observations? That is, does he primarily use deduction (drawing a necessary conclusion from premises), induction (drawing a likely conclusion from statistics), or abduction (drawing the most li...