Is Aristotle's argument for the earth's centrality a good one?
A viewer asks whether Aristotle's argument for the centrality of the earth, based on the natural rest of the elemental earth, is a good argument.
Answer
No. I do not like Aristotle very much, to put it bluntly, and he has to work hard to convince me he is on the right path. This is one of those cases. In his scheme the earth is corruptible and the stars are pure, and that is the reason he separates them, so you get this mixture of spiritualization and philosophy driving his conclusion. The center being the earth is a philosophical idea Aristotle lands on because of what it does for his philosophy. That is not the angle we work with in geocentrism. We are trying to show the scientists that their own science shows the earth is the literal center of the universe around which everything goes, because it works by the physics, not the metaphysics. The metaphysics comes last, after the physics proves the earth can be in the center. That is how I approach it.