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

This is a belated follow-up to Crowe's The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900 which I read back in '14. Compared to that massive tome, this is a brief and breezy work; I finished it in a couple of days. Perhaps one day I'll get around to also reading Dick's book about the twentieth century debate.

Chronologically, this book may be considered a bit loopsided; the ancient and medieval periods get one chapter each, while the remaining four chapters and the bulk of the conclusion are dedicated to the period from the middle of the sixteenth century to the middle of the eighteenth.

In its original, ancient form, the question about whether there is a "plurality of worlds" meant whether there are, somewhere far beyond the starry heavens, show more other Ptolemaic cosmoses, or whether ours is the only one. The period from Copernicus to Kant may be loosely characterized as that when it morphed into what we consider the question of extraterrestrial life - is there life on other planets within the visible universe, or is Earth unique?

Well worth a read if one is interested in intellectual and scientific history. That it's nearing forty years old makes little difference except that Dick's statement that we still don't know for sure whether there are planets orbiting other suns is of course outdated. show less