In Knowledge and Cosmos Development and Decline of the Medieval Perspective 2nd Edition Robert K. DeKosky focuses on issues in astronomy cosmology physics matter theory philosophy and theology vital to the ampldquoCopernican Revolution.amprdquo This book describes efforts among individuals advocating different world views to fit new ideas compatibly into broad perspectives reflecting four traditional patterns of interpretation teleological mechanical occultist and mathematicodescriptive. These four modes had guided medieval accounts of heavenly phenomena material process and motion.The teleological explanation prevalent in Aristotleamprsquos natural philosophy posited ampldquofinal causesamprdquo ends or goals toward which objects strove or attempted to become. Ancient classical atomists had emphasized strictly mechanical explanations invoking direct material and collision of moving matter as agents of physical change. Traditions of astrology magic and alchemy embraced an occultist pattern of interpretationampmdashciting hidden forces opaque to both sensual detection and rational understanding as explanations of various phenomena. Finally the mathematicodescriptive approach interpreted natural phenomena according to geometric or arithmetic relationships unlike the other three this did not involve causal explanation of a process.Part I discusses development of the four patterns in the ancient period and their uneasy medieval relationships with each other and with basic JudaeoMuslimChristian exigencies of faith. Theory of the heavens follows including the mathematicodescriptive approach of Ptolemaic astronomy the teleological and mechanical cosmology of Aristotle and occultist interpretations of astrologers and magicians. Part I then turns to matter and materiality discussing differences among the mechanical philosophy of classical atomism teleological emphases in Aristotleamprsquos material theory and occultist assumptions of some alchemists. Finally Part I analyzes