Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds in France and elsewhere, and was regularly published. In 1691, Fontenelle was elected to the Académie française. Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds () is a popular science book by French author Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, published in 1686. It offered an explanation of the heliocentric model of the Universe, suggested by Nicolaus Copernicus in his 1543 work "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium". The book is Fontenelle's most famous work and is considered to be one of the first major works of the Age of Enlightenment. Unlike many scientific works of its time, "Conversations
Analogy of the sun the Good, we would only be able to see with our physical eyes and not the "mind's eye". The sun bequeaths its light so that we may see the world around us. If the source of light did not exist we would be in the dark and incapable of learning and understanding the true realities that surround us. Incidentally, the metaphor of the sun exemplifies a traditional interrelation between metaphysics and epistemology: interpretations of fundamental existence create—and are created by—ways of knowing. It also neatly sums up two views for which Plato is recognized: his rationalism and his realism (about