One of the big conceptual losses for a post-Copernican worldview is the figure of the Heavens. The Heavens appear in both Eastern and Western philosophy as a figure of ideal, abstract frictionless energy and direction. And thus the Heavens can provide a warrant to speak of metaphysical processes that are fundamentally unmotivated by, and unresponsive to, terrestrial concerns. The obvious conclusion must be that humans only access one mutable and mortal aspect of energy and intelligence.
Platonists buried the Heavens like treasure in their math books, and Abrahamic traditions have launched theirs into the post-Romantic realm of Spirit, but otherwise this period of modern humanist philosophy has no recourse to the cosmic view of energy, time, intelligence, etc. This means that modern humanist philosophies are deeply troubled by causality and consciousness. These are the two central irresoluble problems for a post-Kantian philosopher.
To be perfectly plain about it:
I think teleological (or "finious") causation exists by way of logic.
I think human intelligence participates in the same cosmic Logos that brings causality from once instant to the next and thereby makes the Heavens spin.
I think that humans only have access to some aspects of cosmic Logos and by developing pragmatic communities of inquiry with each other and other possibly intelligent systems (higher mammals, AI) we can converge on a fuller understanding of it.
People would rather believe in the strangest shit rather than accept that logic exercises non-efficient causality.
To get rid of the Heavens, Kant would tell you that all thought and experience are never accessed in-themselves, only vaporous interactions on the membrane between the two. Later materialists would try to convince you that causality is ineffable, or that you are not conscious, or that everything is just as conscious as a person. It gets quite silly.
