Usage
The phrase is now widely used, particularly in the humanities, for a simple change of perspective, connoting a progressive shift. Examples:
| “ | By defining hysteria as an illness whose symptoms were produced by a person's unconscious ideas, Freud started what can be called a ‘Copernican Revolution’ in the understanding of mental illness — which put him into opposition both to the Parisian Charcot and to the German and Austrian scientific community. | ” |
| “ | Jacques Lacan's formulation that the unconscious, as it reveals itself in analytic phenomena, ‘is structured like a language’, can be seen as a Copernican revolution (of sorts), bringing together Freud and the insights of linguistic philosophers and theorists such as Roman Jakobson. | ” |
| “ | Fredrick Barth (1969), in what could be called a Copernican revolution in the understanding of ethnicity, suggested that rather than anthropology focusing on the cultural “stuff” contained within ethnic groups, it is also the task of anthropology to focus on the problematic and socially constructed boundary between ethnic groups. | ” |
| “ | The gradual shift of the cause of disability from the individual person (the rehabilitation approach) or the social interaction between people (interaction approach), to the confrontation (conflict) of the individual with the organisation of society, including the structure of the social-spatial environment, is described by Samoy and Lammertyn as a Copernican revolution. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Copernican Revolution (metaphor)
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)