Soru

In his reassessment of seventeenth-century natural philosophy, Marcus Thorne reexamines the widespread belief that early astronomers abruptly discarded scholastic cosmology in favor of strictly empirical methods. Thorne demonstrates that even as scholars adopted telescopic observation, many continued to entertain legacy theological assumptions regarding planetary perfection and harmonious spheres. Rather than functioning as a hindrance to research, these inherited metaphysical frameworks actually guided the initial formulation of mathematical hypotheses, offering scientists a sense of cosmic order while observational instruments were still rudimentary. However, late-nineteenth-century historians, eager to present scientific progress as an unblemished triumph of rationalism over dogma, routinely minimized these mystical underpinnings. In doing so, they constructed an oversimplified narrative of intellectual revolution that ignored the complex, gradual synthesis of traditional cosmology and emerging empirical practice.

In the context of the passage, which of the following is closest in meaning to the word "entertain" as used in the second sentence?