The Pursuit of Harmony by Aviva Rothman;

Author:Aviva Rothman; [Rothman, Aviva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780226497020
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2017-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

FIVE

“Political Digression(s)”: Kepler and the Harmony of the State

In 1623 Kepler contemplated writing about politics by way of fiction. He was deeply troubled by the brutal disputes ravaging the continent, yet he worried that expressing his concerns too strongly might not sit well with those who wielded political power. How, then, to portray just how terribly things in Europe had gone awry, without drawing too much princely ire? Kepler had already drafted a short fictional piece, titled Somnium (Dream). It was the story of a young man’s journey to the moon, and Kepler had not yet published it. It might be interesting, he mused, to use that story to reflect on the pressing political problems of his day. Perhaps the moon could be portrayed as a utopia, a place whose political perfection threw the troubles of Europe into stark relief? As he wrote to his friend Matthias Bernegger, “Campanella wrote a City of the Sun. What if I wrote one of the moon? Would it not be a wonderful deed to paint the barbarous habits of this time in vivid colors, but for the sake of caution to leave the earth with such a work and to withdraw to the moon?” Yet Kepler ultimately decided against such an approach. Politics was contentious enough, he believed, that taking even the circuitous route of fiction could be a dangerous undertaking. “How would it help to hold back in this way?” he continued. “Neither More in his Utopia nor Erasmus in his Praise of Folly was safe, but each needed to defend himself. Therefore, let us thoroughly leave this pitch-black political terrain and remain in the pleasant greenery of philosophy.”1

While Kepler may have preferred to eschew political discussions, he could not avoid the political sphere entirely. He knew well that his post as imperial mathematician and adviser to the Holy Roman Emperor was a highly political one, and he referred to himself alternately as both a mathematicus and a politicus.2 He discussed political questions in his published astrological works, in letters to friends and patrons, in nativities that he was commissioned to produce, in reports that the emperor requested of him, in the prefaces and dedications to many of his astronomical or cosmological books, and even in a “political digression” to his Harmony of the World. In the previous chapters, I focused on Kepler’s conception of himself as a Lutheran, a mathematician, and an astronomer. In this chapter, I turn to Kepler’s conception of politics, of himself as politician, and of the relationship between his political thought and his (natural) philosophical beliefs more broadly. In particular, taking a cue from Kepler’s brief consideration of the Somnium as political fiction, I consider the ways that Kepler applied the idea of fictio to politics, ways that went far beyond a single whimsical text.

The idea of political fiction has, of course, an ancient pedigree, one that influenced the ways that Kepler perceived and invoked it. In looking backward, we might turn first to Plato’s Republic. Plato’s

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